Rant about fame, micro-aggressions, and responses to them

This afternoon a good friend of mine, with whom I often talk politics and rhetoric, posted this to FB

Liberals be like:
"We must discount everything this person has ever said or ever will say because this one time, out of context, s/he said something that may have offended one of our Saintly Groups! (i.e. gays, trans folk, disabled, and nonwhite people)"
All. The. Time.

The comments section ended up being a rigorous run down of the way tumblr activist have "gone after" celebrities like Dan Savage, Laci Green, and Bill Mahr for saying/doing offensive things.

Firstly I need to state that I personally I love pieces of art/media made by people who hold politics or have done things that I find gratingly reprehensible. I love the show Community but like many I find Dan Harmon's behavior deeply troubling. I love Wes Anderson films and basically every project Tilda Swinton is associated with but both signed a petition supporting the release of Roman Polanski.

I do this by reminding myself that these people aren't their creations. Dan Savage is not the Savage Love. Laci Green is not Sex Plus. X celeb is not (just) their words, behaviors, and projects. This mantra helps me ease the cognitive dissonance I have surrounding my affinity for things crated by people I don't like. Now this practice isn't for everyone. Not every wants to or should be able to ease their contradiction in politics like this. I think it's okay to not subscribe to this way of thinking.

I don't see the mistakes in speech or rhetorical missteps people like Dan Savage and Laci Green as harmless. Regardless of their intent to do no harm or whether or not it was done to promote another "good" cause. And especially as those who are in the public eye and known for specifically for their progressive or inclusive projects. I see these missteps as micro-aggressions. Micro-aggressions signal many minority individuals (even those not under the purview of the offensive word/comment/approach) that this person will mock and potentially ostracize those that divergence from the "norm" (where "norm" is what the celeb considers normal).

When I see an educator or artist make a casual and probably unintentional slur, it cues me to suspend my trust and I begin to worry that this person's work may not be safe to share with some of the people I care about. It makes my hackles go up and I am angry for either myself (if the slur is against me) or on behalf of my siblings who are systematically ostracized by the rhetoric echoing in the mouth of said famous people.

These echoed slurs take them off my recommended list. I can't say that this social impulse is an entirely logical one, but it is very real. I feel it viscerally giving me hesitation when I consider recommending a celeb's content to someone else. Even if the content does not contain anything I found offensive, witnessing the unintentional harm they can cause, I worry that my privilege blinds me to other harmful sentiments and implications that might be a part of their work.

As I have written before, it's important to allow those in the public eye to be fallible. They aren't gods. And people end up seeing much more of their lives than most anyone would be comfortable sharing. And we all say, think, and echo busted oppressive shit from time to time. It's easy to do because it's in the stage directions of the script society has set down for us. That said, their words and actions do have significant cultural impact. Much more significant than most self-described critics on tumblr will probably ever have. And with great power comes great responsibility. Ideally everyone famous out there would watch this video:

Sadly this template is rarely followed. For so many reasons. But mostly because our culture doesn't allow celebrities to make mistakes (especially is they aren't white, cis men) so they feel hesitant to show themselves as having made one. They fear losing the social power and status that their fame gives them.

And that brings me to my next point. I, and these other "tumblr activists" can't ostracize famous people (if the them you are speaking about is either Dan Savage and/or Laci Green). Famous people, by virtue of their celebrity have substantially more social powers and receive more social recognition than I or any other of those tumblr activists do. Yes they can bully and they can say hateful, hurtful things, but celebrity buys you distance from your critics. And I don't deny that when I critique a celebrity that my own personal frustration about this imbalance of cultural attention comes through and as consequence makes me extra acerbic.

To me, though,  saying the tumblr social justice police are ostracizing Dan Savage or Laci Green is tantamount to crying "reverse racism". The power and privilege imbalance at play make it impossible for well supported progressive celebs to be "ostracized" by a small minority of folks who have a comparatively small audience.

I'm not saying that the "burn-it-to-the-ground" approach is called for, because it's usually not. I am saying that whatever impact the "tumblr police" have is significantly less than the impacts of the celebrities they are critiquing. Think of them as trolls if you like. Progressive trolls. They are as effective as other kinds of trolls, only a vaguely annoying/menacing aggregate.

And perhaps the level of the ire with which these celebrity's and their projects are targeted aren't just about the person themselves, or even their body of work. It might just be an inarticulate strike against the frustratingly unfair and often oppressive mechanisms that push some people into fame and notoriety and others into obscurity.

Also I have a limited amount of fucks to give about issues. And tend to shy away from handing them over to folks who are already appear to have a decent supply of social support and recognition from their chosen communities. I'm not saying they don't deserve my empathy, just that they don't appear to be in dire need of it. I honestly don't care if Dan Savage', or Laci Green', or Bill Mahr's images are damaged. They have public attention to spare.

Let's stop making heroes, because they will fuck up. And probably they won't apologize for it. Because heroes don't usually do that.

Compromises, the Public Eye, & Political Expectations: why Beyoncé's not a terrorist and bell hooks isn't either

Last Friday I found out that bell hooks claimed that Beyoncé is a "terrorist". And my internet exploded. What follows is my collected thoughts on the matter. Before you proceed please read about/watch the panel discussion where the "terrorist" claim occurred.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am a white person writing about interactions between and about women of color. I recognize that I could be reading all this shit terribly and utterly wrong and that there are most certainly racial elements involved that I've undeveloped/nonexistent understanding of. My experiences as a white person have ill prepared me to discuss this. Please read Janet Mock, Beyoncé, and bell hooks work. And listen to/read Beyoncé's words. They are the authorities on their own experiences.

I'm troubled by hook's word choice but I optimistically see hook's “terrorist” comment as being not so much specifically about Beyoncé as it is leading to a conversation about "selling out" to make money/fame in the entertainment industry. And that the music/entertainment industry make this sort of selling the price of admission for any marginalized identity who wants to promote themselves or their work.

Women (and w.o.c esp) artists will have their expression of sexuality and bodily celebration twisted into objectification and fetishization by misogynist managers/producers/publishers/viewers. I personally think it is unreasonable to expect that all marginalized creators of art should refuse to release their work/images to people who are perpetuating the patriarchy. We'd have far fewer women and p.o.c. celebrities.

That would mean we as consumers of their content expect our idols to exhibit the politics we've come to associate with them at all times. Which is an odd impractical form for political idolization. And it is as unreasonable as any expectation viewers might have of a celebrity.

As someone who seeks to be radical as much as I can, I definitely take compromises the kyriarchy hands me. Because sometimes I am tired or I just really really want what that compromise will get me. This doesn't make me a terrorist. But it does mean I'm colluding with, support, validating the kyriarchy. Which is the point I assume hooks was trying to make about Beyonce's Time cover.

I don't think hooks intended to make a villain out of Beyoncé. But having pure or radical intent doesn't absolve anyone (hooks or Bey) of the effects of their work and presentation. Hook's words were still hurtful, regardless of her intent. And no matter how loudly Beyonce sings about how shitty the patriarchy is, I know that she wants fame and money too. And sometimes the money and fame she gets to do what the patriarchy wants wins out.

One of the things I am thankful for in the exchange between Mock and hooks is that Beyoncé's agency was discussed. I've been in far too many "feminist" conversations that involved implying or outright saying that women who do porn, sex work, or the work in the entertainment industry are "brainwashed" or have no idea what they are doing.

It's because both hooks and Mock avoid diminishing Beyoncé's agency in this way that believe that hooks is not really aiming at Beyoncé with her remark. It's not a great upgrade, but I prefer “terrorist” to “brainwashed” any day.

I could be reading it wrong, but really isn't hooks just using a celebrity as a controversial entry point to get people thinking and talking about more complex, pervasive issues? Now of course there's more radical and necessary work to do than to make a critical example of Beyoncé for not exhibiting feminist and anti-racist politics all of the time.

It isn't helping anyone's deconstruction of power structures and their insidiousness to call Beyoncé a terrorist. I assume that hook's use of the word “terrorist” was a misstep at best and at worst a provocative placeholder; a way to stop the conversation completely and force a the focus onto larger systematic forces at play. Now using a black woman and celebrity in this oversimplifying way is something I believe to not be in line with hook's politics. But I also don't expect hooks to always perfectly exhibit her politics.

Sometimes Beyoncé delivers messages about how beauty culture is damaging through gyrating madly or falsely claiming that it's girls who run the world. And sometimes bell hooks calls another progressive black woman in the public eye a “terrorist”. Everyone takes compromises and unfortunate shortcuts when it comes to expressing ourselves and our politics.

The conversation about the problematic elements of accepting sexualizing and patriarchal compromises to get your career going and to maintain successful in the entertainment industry is an important one. It's a choice many have to face and that no woman with a public career ever makes easily. And just because bell hooks chose not use her body or sexuality in the promotion of her work, doesn't mean that that choice is available or desirable to every woman who works in the public eye.

What hooks is missing in her “terrorist” claim is the recognition that her own gaining of fame and recognition as a black woman who didn't do those things is unfortunately incredibly rare and for many impossible because of the industry they work in.

Those who're able to criticize the system (in this case the music industry) from outside of it should not name call the people who are trying work within it to effect progressive changes. Selling out isn't a binary. I'm not saying that change from the inside system is the right way or even the best way to change things, or even that such efforts should be above critique. I think the effectiveness and inherent problems of such approaches should absolutely be discussed. But the name calling is unnecessary. There is other more radical work to be done. And more respectful (less sensational) ways to broach these issues.

So yes, bell, Beyoncé is in the masters house (the music industry) and has been definitely been handed some of the master's tools, but I've always been of the opinion that tools are can be repurposed. And Beyonce is definitely doing work to transform the expectations of the music industry with repurposed tools.