Susan X Jane

What Kanye West Has in Common With Susan Collins

Yesterday Kanye pulled his struggle bus into D.C. for a stop at the White House where he proceeded to deliver a cringeworthy soliloquy where he asked Donald Trump to love him like the daddy he wished he had in exchange for absolute fealty and an iPlane. The bizarre moment was broadcast live, sometimes with a split screen of communities wiped out by Hurricane Michael because America. Kanye’s rant was so full of crazy soundbites it broke the internet like Kim K’s….nevermind. Clickbait? For sure. But don’t dismiss Kanye’s diatribe as meaningless. Kanye, clearly, is struggling with his recent bipolar diagnosis, but what Kanye is saying is actually a window into how the elite think as they play human chess with ideas, disconnected from the material effect of oppressive ideologies on you or me.

Kanye’s recent epiphanies about the black community aren’t crazy original, or even just plain crazy–they’re conservative talking points, Fox News’s daily mainline of ignorant and ahistorical bullshit regarding black people and the black community. Its the elite, not the Illuminati, that fertilized Kanye’s mind with fantasies of black people living high off the welfare hog. So before you cancel Kanye (wait till the end of the post) and erase all that he said, I suggest you take a listen to it, and a lesson from it. Everyone is lining up to condemn Kanye (valid) but Kanye is just cutting samples from the ideas that circulate among the wealthy and white–the people he is around every day.

If you can’t stomach–or follow–the long winding tale of the tape, here are some of the highlights of Kanye’s lowlights: racism is a liberal invention to foster victim mentality in black people–effective in Kanye’s word because “we are an emotional people”; blacks are overly reliant on welfare; black on black crime is the real problem of the black community; some stuff about the 13th amendment that even I couldn’t make sense of. Painting black people as poor, violent, and not totally deserving or able to be free is a page out of the Willie Lynch playbook.

Kanye also had a lot to say about the captains of industry and their mythic position as the heroes of America. He painted Trump as a lonely warrior on a Joseph Campbell-esque quest to make America great again. These are not the random musings of an outlier, this is the sacred text of America’s holy trinity of capitalism, white supremacy and masculinity.

What we’re hearing from Kanye is raw uncut American hegemony. Think of hegemony as the net of ideas that produces and normalizes the social, political, economic and cultural relationships and processes that make up the world we live in. In order for any culture to function, we have to have a shared understanding of what is happening, but what if someone decided to write the world in their own favor? One way that people in power remain in power is they set up the rules of the game for the rest of us–and ensure that they conserve the best resources for themselves. They hide the strings of the puppetry behind stories, myths ideas, and beliefs that normalize the structures we have as the only way that things could or should be. In a word, hegemony is the process that determines “just the way it is”.

But it’s not just the way it is. Science tells us every day of the expanding boundaries of our universe, a million stars with their own worlds. Developing nations around the world develop in ways different than the colonization process that sprouted our own country. In a world where Kanye West and Donald Trump are hugging over the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, we must concede that anything is possible. Hegemony is the factory where our current imbalanced and unsustainable systems to keep mashing up young black and brown men in the prison system, and where the response to #MeToo is ‘so what’ and where American dream is deserved only by the wealthy and not by the millions of Americans who generate that wealth with sweat and blood and time and life energy.

We don’t have to want that anymore. It is right and proper to reject people who parrot the tales of a dying empire built by slaves on land stolen from Native Americans and nurtured by women and wave after wave of immigrants. It’s cool to cancel Kanye (ready..now!). While we’re at it, let’s vote out Susan Collins who would rather vote for her senate majority masters than stand up and vote for her sisters. Like Kanye, she allowed her desire to align herself with power to be more important than standing in solidarity and unity with women across the country demanding justice free from patriarchy.

Kanye’s comments are mostly shocking because he is black, and not just black but George-Bush-doesn’t-care-about-black-people. We expect that all people of color are woke enough to know when their own interests are being trampled but that’s not true. Members of oppressed groups drink the same hegemonic kool-aid that everyone else does and have to do the work to free their mind from the ideas that bind them. Susan Collins is also speaking kool-aidese, her hour-long speech echoing of the statements of her male counterparts. Shocking because she is a woman. But both of them are seeking to be in close proximity to power, and it is power, not identity that drives their ~~madness~~ choices.

When we get angry at the paper tigers or dismiss them as irrelevant outliers we forget it is the hegemonic ideology they are spouting that is the real villain. Kanye is symptomatic of an elite celebrity class living disconnected from history and reality even as they cast the net for the rest of us. In addition to auditioning with Trump to be the mouthpiece of ‘Murica, Kanye is also a person who is struggling to accept a diagnosis, who needs the time and space to learn how to take care of himself. He doesn’t need cameras, he needs care. The kindest thing you can do for him is cancel him.

Anyone can ring the bell of hegemony–whatever your race or gender, you can parrot the ideas of a culture that oppresses people who look like you. But the reverse is also true: anyone can join the resistance and seek new ideas to build a better more perfect union. You can say no to the Davey Crockett version of Trump. You can tell people that it’s not just Kanye or Susan Collins, but the culture that they represent, the culture of power, and money, white supremacy and toxic masculinity, built on the backs of everyone that’s not them that creates these deplorable ideas. You can work with us to dismantle that castle in the sky, brick by brick. Call out every person who stands up for oppression. Vote them out. Stop buying their shit. Stop covering their antics. Don’t be their supporters. quit being their friend. Unfollow, block, delete. And of course, stay woke.

When They Tell You Who They Are

The looming approval of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination comes barely a week after he raged and yelled and cried in front of a Senate committee, half of whom were drawing hearts with “B.K.” and their initials in it when his accuser Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford presented her case. The FBI, who has enough resources find all the lost socks in the world, presented the findings of an investigation where neither accuser nor many others interested in offering information were interviewed. For a representative government, this seems like a good time to ask who they really represent.

Maya Angelou said, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.” That is good advice in another week when ~~women~~ ~~some women~~ people who care about sexual assault victims are pleading to be heard and have their experience recognized. Kavanaugh supporters have spent the last weeks dragging out every reason to minimize, dismiss and silence sexual assault victims. Thousands of victims shared raw powerful stories of their own experiences to try to help senators and their supporters understand.

Stop. Stop sharing your feelings and your deepest pain with the people who care more about power than people. Stop trying to help those whose spirits are set on sleeping, illiterate in their own humanity. No carefully crafted explanation you give will make them change their beliefs. They are not seeking to understand. They do not want your help. They want to be insulated by their hate and ignorance. More than anything, they want to rule the world, at any cost. They demand to keep living in their nostalgic America–the America of Big Dan’s and sexual abuse in the back rooms of churches, days when a woman who wanted a voice just needed to be reminded of her place.

While it is true and important that the #MeToo movement has brought important conversations about rape culture to a wider audience, the senators who will vote to support Blackout Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination are uninterested in cultural transformation. The question raised by an enraged constituency–would you confirm a bellicose liar (31 lies and counting) who also is a potential sex offender–is answered with a simple yea. The end game for them is power, a court that will lean conservative for years to come.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation won’t take years to pay off, though. While lots of people are thinking the rush is on to beat the midterms, there is another, bigger fish on the line. The Supreme Court will hear a case on double jeopardy that has potentially massive consequences for Trump and the Mueller investigation according to the Congressional Research Service:

The Gamble case may nevertheless have significant collateral legal effects … A win for Gamble could also indirectly strengthen the President’s pardon power, by precluding a state from prosecuting an already-pardoned defendant who has gone to trial on an overlapping offense.

And there it is: save the supreme court nominee, save Trump’s world. Looks like Trump and Kavanaugh have more than sexual assault allegations in common. Their conservative leaning on this case have them in la-la-love and rushing to get to the spicy part where Trump helps tank the FBI investigation and Kavanaugh ensures Trump’s pardon powers.

In these days of change, we rightfully resist. We demand that previously marginalized voices be heard. We work to create space for new ways of being that foreground compassion, humanity, and empathy. We think we can appeal to the humanity in others–if we just say the right thing, show them our wounds, beg them to remember we are family they will finally see the light and usher in utopia with us. We all want the same thing: to be safe, to be free, to have a healthy family that can thrive, and the resources we need in the pursuit of happiness.

But we have a blind spot. We forget that there are people who are wholly willing to kill for safety, to enslave others to create their own freedom. There are people invested in keeping the narrow definition of family in order to center their traditions. There are whole systems set up to funnel resources from the many to the few. This is not a drill–this is really who they are and no amount of tragic personal narrative will stop them from working against everything we believe in. We can’t reason with them; we can only remove them.

The Black Lives Matter movement has gone through these growing pains. While many massive peaceful protests did focus attention and grow the movement it was only the beginning. After Trayvone Martin’s killer walked free, and video after video showed cops kill people with no subsequent consequences, after die-ins and marches and the occupation of Ferguson, there was no come to Jesus moment when America suddenly recognized the humanity of black people and called for widespread change. You can’t win systemic transformation by appealing to people who are invested financially and ideologically in your oppression.

The tactics of the BLM movement didn’t stop at protests alone. Our liberation was never going to be born the love child of white supremacy and our demands for justice. Instead of begging our oppressors, we are building ourselves. In fact, there is a solid case to make that we are in the midst of an unprecedented black renaissance. Our activists are moving from the streets to the halls of power, becoming elected officials with the ability to make change Our artists are creating a vision of the new world in film and TV, illuminating our path. Millions of black people are doing what they can with what they have where they are: starting businesses, growing community, getting educated. Most importantly, black people are talking to each other, working to create unity and help our sleeping brothers and sisters wake up. This is how we get free.

Whatever the result of Kavanaugh’s nomination, the past few weeks have shown us who the right is. Conservative men AND women have dismissed sexual assault as just a teenage rite of passage or a privilege of prep school boys who later rule the world. They do not care about women’s equality. They do not care about holding men accountable. They will not change their mind even when they find your case compelling.

It’s time to stop begging and keep building. Lingering on your anger over Kavanaugh will not help. Instead, take stock of what you can do and do it. Vote, create, build and talk. Talk to the people that matter, and work with the willing. Work to get the fence sitters to come to the right side of history. Remind them there are many more of us than there are of them. Numbers are on our side and the stakes are sky high. Tell them as you tell yourself: none of us is free until all of us are free. Stay woke.

Privilege: Kavanaugh’s Cloak of Invisibility

America is gripped this week by the Supreme Court hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, a salacious episode of reality TV involving sex, power, and privilege. Tomorrow, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will testify that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when the pair were in high school in 1982. Even as more accusers come forward–~~two~~ ~~three~~ five as of this writing–tomorrow’s testimony is set up to be a battle of the he-said-she-said–but there is a third element to this story we can’t ignore: the power of privilege.

Watch any crime show and you will see the weight we put on the world of the perpetrator to mold their criminal ways. Shoot up a school? Let’s see what video games you played. Black criminal? a product of the streets. It’s not unusual–and in fact is too often standard to replace evidence with character and culture when adjudicating criminals. That is until it comes to those prep school boys and their boys-will-be-boys antics. The prep school of Kavanaugh’s narrative is a virginal version of academic heaven; surely no harm can happen there? The violence of power and control that is shaped by a competitive environment where privilege protects bad behavior could not possibly have any bearing on a man 30 years after, right?

The world of frat boys gone bad is a familiar trope in American culture. Movies like Skull and Bones, Animal House, and Private School (released in 1983 during Kavanaugh’s school days) and TV shows feature a world where ~~boyish behavior~~ crimes are common but consequences and parents are absent. Hidden behind the Ivies, violence becomes tradition and assault becomes kidding around. This rapey frat boy thing is not mere fiction: a long litany of actual news events feature young men who used their power and privilege to get out of the consequences of sexual assault, their lives deemed more important to not disrupt than that of victims, forever disrupted by a justice system that refuses to let their wounds heal. We are surrounded with a long tradition of tales that stage whisper to us that sexual assault is a normal, if not a traditional part of private school that frat boys believe are part of their rites of passage into toxic masculinity–also know as the old boy’s network.

Neither the overreliance on environmental factors–like the Marilyn Manson theory of school shooters–nor the erasure of anything from the past as some would like to see in Kavanaugh’s hearing provides for the complex factors that make any person who they are. When we examine someone’s integrity, the past is a part of who they are. When we are validating accusations, circumstances matter. Brett Kavanaugh’s environment in addition to Ford’s testimony should factor into verifying–or denying–her claim. We should hear from others who were there and who say they are familiar with the incident. Hmm, we need some way to gather all this information. Wish we had an FBI–oh we do! A full investigation will make sure that all voices are heard and we have a tapestry of voices, not just two.

One trait of this trope that you may notice is that this is a long list of white men. While the GOP is bending over backward to avoid investigating old accusations about Kavanaugh, Bill Cosby is sentenced to 3-10 years in prison and is labeled a sexual predator. As powerful as Bill Cosby once was, it was not impossible for the court and the court of public opinion to see past years of Cosby’s family-friendly work and find him guilty: he was after all a black man, and America has a long legal tradition of finding black men guilty of being sexual predators. Cosby lacked a prep school to blame his behavior on. Black fame without white privilege gave his accusers a chance to be heard, and, after enormous effort, justice will finally be done as Cosby enters jail.

There is no such legal legacy when it comes to white men. Too often white men win in the court of public opinion long before they are held to legal account. Before a word of testimony regarding the Kavanaugh’s situation is heard under oath Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is promising to “get through this.” Kavanaugh’s accusers are denied an FBI investigation that would examine evidence related to their claims. The best they can hope for is that the man that perpetrated their alleged assaults doesn’t also decide their healthcare rights. The cloak of whiteness protects the old boy’s network from scrutiny; crime is redefined as horseplay, jokes, hazing. It’s easy to bend the rules in favor of the old boys’ network because the old boys are by and large the ones who get to make and interpret the laws.

Neither the age of the allegations nor Cosby’s massive fame and fortune stopped the accusations from negatively affecting his life–as justice would require. To be clear, this is not a defense of Cosby. He is now a convicted sex offender, while Kavanaugh will not have any judgment rendered regarding the allegations themselves. Instead, this is a chance to point out the often invisible way that privilege works to advantage those in power. Even as Cosby was being labeled a sexual predator for drugging women and sexually assaulting them, Trump told the media that Ramirez’s accusations of Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault are not to be believed because she was inebriated. The difference between the narratives surrounding one case and another highlights the privilege protecting wealthy white men accused of sexual assault that prevents them from the scrutiny–and just process–of a trial.

Look carefully not at the sordid details themselves, but the falling action, where boys lives are deemed relics of a past to be forgotten, where their behavior becomes an inconsequential drop in an ocean of what-boys-do. Not only are these acts normalized by their sheer frequency, but they are excused with weak slaps, or condoned, simply a nod to tradition that remains unquestioned and un-consequenced. We can and must do better.

America is designed to be a nation of laws, not (white) men. What’s good for the comedian is good for the supreme court judge who will make decisions that will affect women for years to come. Let Cosby’s conviction be tomorrow’s lesson: ignore the privileges that come with power. Believe the women.

The Sisterhood of The Unraveling Rants

This weekend saw plenty of black girl anger on display from Serena’s throw down on the court to Cardi B’s blow up at Nikki Minaj during fashion week. Seems like everywhere you turn a black woman is getting kicked out or called out for being angry. Before you start with some respectability politics a-la-well-calm-down, remember Black women are often stereotyped as out of control, but with a world on fire, acting nice is a privilege they can ill afford. I’m not saying you should start ripping off wigs but beyond soundbites and stereotypes, anger has a place in every black girl’s arsenal.

Serena Williams’ journey to capture her 24th Grand Slam title stopped short when she received a game violation for verbal abuse, effectively ceding the match to first time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka. The high drama played out on the court with Williams accusing a judge of sexism for issuing a rarely-called penalty for coaching. Unlike her brooding and unrepentant male counterparts who made screaming at refs their brand, she was penalized for her verbal outburst, costing her any remaining focus she had and the game.

She complained bitterly that the rules were being applied differently for her versus her male counterparts–textbook sexism–and has been supported by many of her peers from Chris Everett, covering the Open as it happened to tennis and sexism expert Billie Jean King.

Despite having a point about sexism in tennis, Williams lost the match and of course faced the usual hateful representation as an angry ape/child. Oh, and she was fined for her outburst about unfair treatment of women–she’ll pay $17,000. Also textbook sexism

Across town in a less athletic display of rage, Cardi B threw a shoe at Nikki Minaj in a scuffle best described as rap beef with great dresses. In a scene right out of Love and Hip Hop, Cardi B pulled up on Minaj at the Harper’s Bazaar Icons party at New York Fashion Week. The fight garnered lots of buzz throughout the weekend with bloggers turning history professors as they run down the back and forth between the self-proclaimed Queen of rap and the newcomer for the throne.

But it wasn’t an episode of reality TV–it was two women who have more in common with each other than they have with many of the other party goers. Both are entrepreneurs doing their best to ride the wave of celebrity before time and the next big starlet leaves them on the shore. While their public beef will help drive records sales and blog hits this week, this is just another chapter in the ho-hum tale of ghetto girls acting badly. Their out-of-control anger over some she-tweet-she-said is exactly what is expected out of both stars and out of angry black women in general. This didn’t happen backstage at a Migos show–this was a show they put on for the international fashion crowd-tres boughetto. What ever happened to go high, ladies?

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Before we chalk up this weekend to the same ole angry black women story we always hear, let’s not. When we talk about how angry black women are, we ignore that black women, in reality, are not angrier than their white counterparts. What we are repeating is an old stereotype that was used to justify oppressive practices to keep black women in check. Black women do–and have a right to–respond to attacks on their community and character with anger. But the conflation of their temporary mood and their permanent color is classic racism, providing an easy excuse to invalidate any given black woman’s righteous anger as just a character flaw of the race.

In fact, recent studies show that white people are more likely to describe themselves as angry than members of other racial groups. The poll should come as no surprise: everywhere we look we see internet videos of white women going off at Starbucks, on the street, at Michael’s–and let’s face it, if crafting makes you angry you really need help. But we don’t call them angry white women–we refer to them as Barbeque Becky, or the lady freaking out at Michaels, but their whiteness is not a key descriptor in their internet moniker like it is for Serena. Go google angry white women, and then angry black woman–what difference do you notice in the results?

It’s not just the women who are mad as hell–there was no shortage of male violence competing for airtime this weekend–from real stories of shootings, rape, and murder to hours of news with men yelling at each other in silk suits or a day reserved for men running full speed at each other and knocking each other’s memories out of their heads on the football field. Male aggression is nothing less than the great American pass time. The consequence for men who act aggressively is winning. They are rewarded on the field, in the workplace, and in the White House for acting aggressively, threatening and pushing, dominating and snarling.

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We are a sharply competitive nation who prizes the flash of sharp teeth and the rule of the bone. To give up your anger is to put down one of the most powerful tools in American culture, and to silence your own voice in the face of oppression. Still, public displays of anger by black women have little benefit for them beyond being weekend clickbait and conversely carry the consequences of hundreds of years of history. What’s a black woman to do?

Anger is a valid and valuable human emotion. Like any weapon, you have to be careful with it: using it to try to right the wrongs of the world is a solid move, even if you don’t always land you blow. But using your anger to slide into a petty feud best left in subtweets is like bringing a knife to a fist fight.

Unlike Cardi B, never, never let them see you sweat over the next b. Cardi B has been riding a wave of love for her plucky weird vibe from bump reveals to Met Gala Virgin Mary glam. Being something other than a wild rapper is what’s getting her invited everywhere. Don’t lose your seat at the table fighting over scraps. There’s no black girl magic in playing out the same tired trope of hood chicks who don’t know how to act. Best to keep your knives virtual and your bag–and your plus 1–secure.

But anger has a place and black women have the right to display anger, to call people out with their anger, to wield their anger like everyone else in America. We know that sexism is unlikely to disappear with a whispered “excuse me, please.” Like Serena, don’t let them talk you down when you are busy pointing out systemic inequality. Serena may have lost the Grand Slam but she proved herself a superhero in a tutu scoring again in a match against sexism. She kept her anger directed at a system that wasn’t treating her fair. Instead of attacking her young opponent she lifted up her sister with grace and love, despite her being all the way in her feelings. She showed us rage done right: a new play that has room both for fierce competition and for grace and respect for the winners.

Kap’s Got A ‘Dream’ Contract!

Nike set the internet on fire this week, announcing Colin Kaepernick will be the face of their 30th-anniversary Just Do It campaign by releasing this beautiful ad:

Within moments of Nike’s announcement, the you-better-stand-for-our-flag-you-disrespectful-shit-do-you-like-my-flag-shorts crowd got all fired up–literally. The air around the nation was scented with the smell of burning Nike’s as Kaepernick detractors took to social media in protest of Kaepernick’s ascension into Nike’s hall of sports gods. This is not what Nike means by “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”. Ya dirty old socks are not a sacrifice—its a mercy killing. Anyways, later for the haters—

But flag waving fans aren’t the only one likely to have a match in their hand. The NFL just signed an 8-year equipment deal with Nike worth millions, while Nike’s renewal of Kaepernick’s deal was simmering on the back burner. The NFL can’t be happy to be tucked into bed with Kaepernick and Nike. The US military pays more than 10 million dollars to the NFL for so-called paid patriotism, including the national anthem display in games. The NFL really needs that anthem segment to go right and these protests are messing up their money. It’s not just bad blood between Kap and the NFL: a judge recently greenlighted Kapernicks lawsuit charging the league with collusion to go ahead. Guess collusion isn’t always fake news.

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Stock prices fluttered in the initial hours after the announcement, but by the end of the second day prices had recovered and stocks for Nike were near a one year high. Unlike other recent boycotts including the boycott of the NFL that resulted in huge losses for the league or the Starbucks boycott that brought the coffee giant to heel in a matter of days, burning already purchased Nike apparel isn’t going to affect Nike’s bottom line. [Sidenote: boycotts work best if you DON’T GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THE COMPANY FIRST, DUMMY!] Also, if you Nike protesters had supported the end of police brutality instead of the end of Kap’s contract, maybe you could’ve had your football AND a decent pair of sneakers.

This isn’t the first round of boycotts at Nike. Nike’s labor practices overseas have long made the corporation a target of activists, and rightfully so. A nice ad campaign doesn’t erase oppressive labor practices, though it does sell a lot of iPhones and sneakers. And yet, the mainstreaming of Kaepernick that Nike achieves with this campaign is not insignificant. Our culture is awash in celebrities and politicians who proudly parade their lack of morals while their fans like, snap and retweet. Kaepernick has leveraged his celebrity to address issues of injustice and is deeply involved with his charity of choice Know Your Rights. He is an inspiration without the corporate endorsement. Now Nike’s campaign is likely to reach millions of people, presenting Kapernicks activism as an aspirational call to action punctuated with the most successful ad slogan in athletics: Just Do It. For better and worse, advertising shapes behavior. Is an endorsement deal a celebration or a commodification, or maybe both? The complexity and hypocrisy of corporate wokeness are not limited to Kaepernick and is worth some deep thinking.

The company made a bold choice, but a safe choice as well. As a global corporation, Nike already serves a majority-minority market. People in Asia, the global south and Africa buy sneakers–and outnumber Nike-burning NFL fans by a large margin.

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In addition to our own swoon-worthy images of Kaepernick, Nike has also recently released ads celebrating women athletes in Mexico and launched a line of sports hijabs. Nike has seen the future and it is diverse.

We can’t deny that corporate social consciousness is hella problematic, nor can we deny that it does move the needle on issues that are ignored in the mainstream narrative. As companies move to cater to the growing share of their audience that is people of color, women, and other traditionally marginalized groups, we are likely to see more ads that package up culture and diversity. We don’t want our deepest convictions sold back to us by people interested in the bottom line. But Nike’s new content resonates with a world on fire and deep desire to act. We need to think more about the lack of separation between what we buy and who we are. We need to act to bridge the separation between who we are and who we can be. Hmmm, now wouldn’t Kaepernick be a good spokesperson for that.

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Reality in America is definitely crazy enough, but there’s still room to dream a more just world. Our complex media environment provides opportunities to shift existing narratives, particularly around race and gender. We have to be careful to have our eyes wide open when we watch–both to see what’s new and to be careful not to let the same injustices get repackaged without us noticing. This country could use a little crazy dreaming these days; just be sure not to go back to sleep.

BlacKkKlansman: White Mask, Black Skin

How is it you don’t feel like you have any skin in the game? The question, asked by undercover police officer Ron Stallworth to his Jewish counterpart Flip Zimmerman as they prepare to infiltrate the KKK, rests at the center of Spike Lee’s masterful film BlacKkKlansman, released Friday on the 1 year anniversary of the Nazi rally and subsequent riots in Charlottesville. The film explores the true story of a black police officer leading an investigation into terrorist activity at the local Ku Klux Klan chapter in Colorado Springs.

Here is a black man who is pretending to be a white man. Here is a Jewish man, who only sees himself as a white man, pretending to be the black man who is pretending to be a white man. Here are a group of white men pretending to be brave and powerful when they are cowards too stupid and blinded by their own beliefs to get it right. Here is a room full of activists who refuse to pretend to be anything but black and proud. All this is set in a country built on racism pretending to be a multicultural pluralistic democracy. The brilliant interplay of masks and layers in the film reminds us of the complex dance between who we are and how we are seen by others in our racialized society. Master the dance, and you can navigate our treacherous landscape, but make a misstep and the consequences can be lethal.

Set in the 70s the film’s commentary on racism is uncomplicated by social media or tech tracking tools and hackers. Free from technology that so often frames our current debates about race, the essential arguments for and against racial justice stand out plainly against the backdrop of the plot. There is no quick escape for racists trolling in the real world. There is no surveillance tape or citizen video. Instead, there is slow action as the cops build a case against the klan.

Lee gives us long scenes with big blocks of dialogue—a speech from Kwame Ture (the Black Panther formerly known as Stokley Carmichael), a speech by David Duke and long sequences that bring us into the reasoning of various characters. Most powerfully is the recounting of the lynching of Jesse Washington by Harry Belafonte to a rapt black student union. We hear people in their own words, a broad range of points of view, complex, messy, sometimes conflicting ideas in the same mind. There is time here to reflect, to listen to the thought process behind the sound bites of ideology.

Ron and his gang must think carefully about what white supremacists want, what they fear, what they talk about when no one is listening, in order to make the klan think they are one of them, and we get to listen in on the wire. Even as we hear various points of view the film itself leaves no room for false equivalencies or the bias of both sides having “good people.” The film makes clear to us that racism is untenable both personally and politically.

This is also the second movie this summer along with Boots Riley’s brilliant Sorry To Bother You that hosts “the white voice” as an important device advancing the plot–Sorry’s voice is fantastical while Blackk’s white voice is more functional–the character’s own daily code-switching. Ron Stallworth, played by the gorgeously talented John David Washington, pulls off his brazen plan using a voice described in Boots Riley‘s film Sorry To Bother You as the white voice.

To be black in America requires you to familiarize yourself with white people who make up the vast majority of this country–about 70% currently. Often positions of consequence–teacher, police officer, banker, politician–are more likely to be occupied by a white person. In order to navigate the world, replete with racists among the population, black people are often hyper-aware of the ways that white culture moves, thinks, and feels; as for any prey, understanding your predator is the key to survival. In Sorry to Bother You the white voice is the key to the Lakeith Stanfield’s character Cassius Green rising through the ranks to telemarketing superstardom. Being able to speak the King’s English opens doors for Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman, but it is his intimate knowledge of how to speak to the soul of the Klan members that gains him access to David Duke.

Both films share the understanding that voice is not just diction but culture, beliefs, and values. Both Stallworth and Green leverage this ideological disguise to move in white cultures with such success, invisible to White people as they reflect back to whites their own cultural image. Here is where diversity behind the camera is so important: unpacking the concept of the white voice and the power it has beyond words is something that can be done best when fueled with the lived experience of a creator that has navigated this voice his whole life. This is a delicate and complex cultural process unfolding often outside the view of mainstream white America. To have this dance dragged out into the light to show the benefits and consequences of strategically navigating whiteness as a black man in this country is a gift to our dialogue about race and an opportunity for moviegoers to understand a way of being that is rarely

A view of whiteness through the eyes of black artists and authors is too often excluded from our media, but integral to understanding the many ways of thinking and seeing race in America. The conversation about race in America often centers around othering people of color. In both films, the exploration of the white voice and the power it wields is an exploration of whiteness itself. In Blackklansman we have an opportunity to explore the ideology of white supremacy while listening and watching through a black lens.

Most explorations of whiteness come from white directors writers and producers. Their lived experiences, implicit biases and beliefs infuse their work, often with a sympathetic eye. Well known movies about the klan range from the fawning–Birth of a Nation to the cautionary tale–American History X, framing the klan as heroes, antiheroes, or at worst misled youth and exaggerated nazis. From behind the camera, Spike Lee refuses to give the klan credit for being clever monsters or pure-blooded gentry. In Lee’s film, The klansmen are farcical. They are equal parts keystone cops, 4chan losers, and townies. While watching the movie in a theater of mixed moviegoers, a single white woman guffawed at the klan’s clunky shenanigans, but her laugh echoed in the silence of the theater. The shit is not funny. The film disses klansmen but is sure to remind us the mess these fools create has material consequences like the threats hovering over the black activist throughout the film.

We know how the story ends: Ron Stallworth, after all, lived to tell the tale and the Klan lost no one but their own members in the incident detailed in the movie. There is no such neat and tidy ending for our own time though, as Lee reminds us in a powerful coda. David Duke survived too, and now claims a friend in the President of the United States. Conversations throughout the movie that highlight different points of view on race are completely familiar, ripped from your social media feed and stuffed into the mouths of the characters. The pending Unite the Right rally coming up in DC Sunday is set to repeat the public display of vitriol from Charlottesville just a year after Heather Heyer was killed by a white nationalist terrorist. Police are still shooting people in the back. We are haunted years after Stallworth’s success by manifestations of racism that too many thought was long gone.

No nation can be great when part of the population is bent on genocide of the rest. The violence of oppression has a wide-ranging impact that touches every life in this country, whether people acknowledge it or not. BlacKkKlansman reminds us there is no simple mathematic formula delineating who is harmed by racism. Stallworth’s partner Zimmerman, played by Adam driver tells him it is his [Zimmerman’s] business why he doesn’t’ think he has skin in the game and Stallworth reminds him, “No, it’s our business.” Whatever complex factors affect your own experience of race, this is your fight to win or your loss to bear. There is no being colorblind to the dynamics of oppression. We all have skin in this game.

Everyday Mandela

The boat to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, is a rough ride over choppy seas even in good weather, the specter of Table Mountain growing distant as Capetown disappears beneath the screaming of birds that surround the island. As I took the boat over, I wondered how many ways Mandela’s heart broke as he watched home fade away on his way to an unforgiving rock of an island to serve 18 of the 27 years he spent as a political prisoner of South Africa’s apartheid government.

Mandela had much to lose by opposing injustice: from early political organizing to opposing apartheid and later championing the fight against AIDS in Africa, he risked his own conform, status, and freedom to fight oppression. He was born a Xhosa (think Wakanda irl) son of Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, a local chief, and counselor to the King of the Themba people.

He could have stayed in his nice life, a member of the royal household, but Mandela fled position and an arranged marriage in the Grand Palace for a life in Johannesburg that soon led him from the mines into politics. During his fight against apartheid, he spent years in prison, losing part of his sight from breaking rocks day after day in the white-hot glow of a limestone quarry on Robben Island, he suffered attacks against himself and his family, and he was criticized by both left–for being too accommodating– and right–not being accommodating at all–while he served as President of the ANC. All this was part of the sacrifice he made to free South Africa.

Back on the island loud clouds of seagulls are deafening, wheeling overhead as we are herded onto buses for the tour. There is a snack shop. Next to it is a giant picture frame where people stop and take pictures. Person after person lines up to frame themselves, smiling: peace from the prison camp! I have found so many of these stops on my black pain tour challenging– how do you remember without becoming lost in the pain of the past? how can you embrace the victory without erasing the cost? I avoid the chatty banter of the large group and look back at the shadow of Capetown out past the screeching gulls.

We ride past a tiny house where Robert Sobukwe, founder of the Pan African Conference was kept alone for years. He was not allowed to speak to anyone for six years, during which time his vocal chords atrophied and he was no longer able to speak thereafter, even upon his release from Robben Island. The tiny ill-fitted house is surrounded by plush dog kennels where the island’s guard dogs were kept. I imagine sitting silently for years amidst a cacophony of dogs and gulls: animals giving voice to all you cannot.

When we arrive at the cell blocks where political prisoners are kept we are met by a former political prisoner who guides us around. He has a limp but otherwise seems too young to have participated in History with a capital H. Except history was not that long ago; I remember watching Mandela released from jail on a color TV, a moment in history teetering between the fall of the Berlin wall and the first Gulf War. South Africa has only been out of apartheid for 27 years. The US has not had civil rights for much longer. Both countries still struggle to actualize the freedom the law was passed to protect. The history is recycled in the present; racism persists.

Our guide persists, too. He walks us through the cell blocks sharing stories as he goes–where they ate, where they slept, where they played soccer. In the cell block where Mandela was housed each cell holds the story of its former occupant: the chess player’s board, books in another, a letter penned in swooping cursive in a third. These cell blocks, prisons though they are, now ring with the humanity of their inhabitants, standing in stark contrast to the dehumanizing machine that is the design of the American prison system. The guide talks about the community of men formed and forged here, and they way they plotted freedom for their country from their cells.

Here is the cell where Mandela was imprisoned. Everyone wants to peer into the place where Mandela sharpened himself to a weapon aimed at toppling apartheid. Everyone wants a picture; one by one each person has their moment to pass by the bars, contemplate the grand arc of history and snap a pic. Morgan brought us here today. He’s from Zimbabwe so this is the first time he’s been here. He asks someone to snap a photo of him in front of this cell swirling with the courage of one of the great heroes of our time. The person taking the picture fumbles with the phone. A woman waiting next in line calls out:

Hurry up or we’re going to put you in there.

A (white) woman waiting impatiently in line calls out (with a South African accent) even though she is next, to the (black adult) man, a stranger, scolding him like a child, threatening him with the power she wields in this world, telling him to move out of the way so she can take a picture of the cell of man removed from society, moved out of the way by the apartheid government so they could take their shot at colonizing their own country. If Morgan does not move so she can take a portrait of her bloated self, stuffed next to Mandela’s cell then she will stuff him in the cell–one African in the cell is as good as another. She is so secure, so deaf to her own role in white supremacy that she calls out with no irony.

Hurry up or we (who is we?) are going to put you in there.

The air crackles immediately with multiple protests. “That’s inappropriate,” Jordyn calls out, her voice commanding, leaving no room for back peddling or push back. A second of silence while we all pose as if for a photograph of future museum goers: “here is an example of racism, sometimes referred to soft racism but still directed at people of African descent, just like segregation, and apartheid, and slavery, and colonialism…”

But the woman does not apologize. She slides in front of the cell and takes her picture. I wonder what she will tag the photo–#peacemandela, #robbenislandicare, #antiracistforlife. I wonder if she will leave Morgan out of her story when she tells it. I wonder if she will even remember what she said. The year is 2018. History is present.

Mandela is adored. Today on his 100th birthday the world celebrates (couldn’t we get a Google doodle?). He gave up a life of tradition to fight for equality. His greatness is legendary, the legend well deserved. In our own lives, such self-sacrifice seems laudable from afar but impractical for day-to-day living.

Legend inscribed on the bedroom wall in Mandela’s house

Remember though, it is not just the big actions, the ones that land you inside the cell, that are the only courageous responses to racism, it is also the small actions like Jordyn’s vigilant policing outside the cell in the present moment calling out racism and telling racists to their face to knock it off that are a part of the overall fight. We live in the time where racism persists, a death of a thousand cuts: be the band-aid; be the person that stops the cut; be the person that puts down the blade. On days when we celebrate one of the great heroes of the diaspora and his big actions, commit to making small actions in your own world every day. Think globally, act locally–like really locally–every day, and as always stay woke.

How To Love America

A few nights ago my neighborhood filled with a haze of smoke, roads and people obscured by the fog. Just over the tops of the houses across the street, I could see a thick cloud blazing from a house on fire. Some people had been shooting off fireworks to celebrate the 4th of July when they set their own house on fire. Despite the inherent tragedy, it seemed like burning down your own house by lighting off gunpowder and throwing it on your porch seems an apt way to commemorate independence day this year. This is America.

A poll released by Gallup shows pride in America is a record low–just 47% of Americans overall say they are extremely proud of their country, and that number drops to 32% when you split along party lines to look at Dems only. Half the country loves America like a stalker screaming “I love you!” when they walk into your job with a long gun and the other half are filling out asylum applications for Canada. Just over a decade ago, more than 70% of people were extremely proud to be America. What could possibly have caused so much hatred and division? Vlad? Don? Any ideas?

It used to be easy to love America–we are, after all, the land of milk and honey. Now, though, everyone is lactose intolerant, the bees are dying and our democracy is unraveling at the seams. So desperate are we to revive the myth that everyone wants to be us that we are locking up asylum seekers, claiming there’s a wave of people pushing up from the southern border. Many people believe this narrative even though net migration has been near its lowest for several years.

Long-term relationships are hard, and when Bae isn’t treating you right it can be easier to break up than to do the work to make up. But you can’t dump your country of origin. Like a marriage or your Mom, you’re going to have to try to make this work. So this 4th of July, let’s revive our flagging love affair with America. And no, this isn’t a trip down nostalgia lane wearing a MAGA hat. These are tips for staying in the fight when you’d rather throw a firework on the porch of America and let it burn.

Affirm your commitment

Your anger, sadness, and fear are a result of seeing something you love be destroyed by clown-faced hooligans. Take a minute to focus on the first half of that. Hold onto the fact that you love this country like a life raft. Despite all that has been and all that it is now, the promise of what we could be, the natural beauty of where we are, and the vast majority of our people make the US a place worth fighting for.

Love is Accountability

Any relationship that is going to last long term is going to take a lot of work. For too long we have floated along without attending the work needed to ensure the American dream is truly available to all people. Just like Bey and Jay, once you are aware your boo has gone astray, its time to call it out, and then work it out. You can be mad about America acting a fool and still love it. You can love America and refuse to let shit go. The fun time we had ignoring our problems and yelling bling bling are gone. Time to hunker down and do the work.

Do Not Accept Violence As Love

For any relationship to last, violence has to be unacceptable. No one thrives in an abusive relationship–certainly not the victim, nor the abuser. For centuries we have had successive waves of violence aimed at nearly every part of the population. This year we have seen 157 mass shootings, many of which are spurred by the dumpster fire of hate our country has become. Call it what it is–nationalist terrorism–and demand public officials recognize it as such. Relational, political and systemic violence is rampant, from kids in cages to police brutality, to aggressive deregulation and harmful economic practices. Show up and speak out every fucking time violence erupts.

Don’t Lose Yourself

Being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back is a recipe for disaster as any decent love song will tell you. While we collectively try to love this country onto the right side of history, take time out to make sure you nurture and grow yourself. Sad to say, we are on the downhill slide, and it may take some time before we’re done with this fight. It is okay to remove yourself, to treat your wounds while the battle rages around you. We are legion, so self-care is possible and important. To give love you must first give it to yourself. Do what you need to do to keep yourself right. Fall back and pant in between crises. Paint and draw and write and plant and laugh just for your own sanity. Spend time loving the people you love. You are not America. You do not have to mirror the chaos. You can take a break from the hate to remind yourself why your life matters.

Refuse to Let the Sidechick Win

Trump enjoys wild popularity in his party–nearly 90% of Republicans have a favorable rating of the president. But the party is shrinking. As Trump does Trump, more “establishment” Republicans flee the party and our polarized system breaks down. Trump represents neither traditional political base. Ugly, attitudinal and demanding power he doesn’t have, Trump is the typical side chick. No matter how loud she gets, you can’t let her take your boo. If it means you have to slap a bitch in the elevator, so be it. Despite Trump’s claims, his rabid base is far less than half the electorate. Get your neighbors and friends into the game and remind them who this country belongs to.

Love is not easy. I’ve had enough crappy relationships to know sometimes you have to walk away. These days may have you fantasizing about Canadian bacon, but the American dream is still worth loving. This 4th of July raise your tofu pup and locally brewed craft beer to toast America. Drink up some good summertime vibes. As you watch the fireworks tonight, remember how beautiful the fight for America can be.

Prelude to a Lynching: Crying Black in Colonized Spaces

In the Black Lives Matter era, knowing that black people are frequently suffering violence at the hands of the police, these women play executioner for their own petty whims. Like the lynchings of the past, these police calls cannot be dismissed as a misunderstandings or misspoken accusations. These women call fully expecting that the police will be on their side

BBQ Beckie, Depressed Debbie, and Permit Patty rocketed to internet fame when they called the police on unsuspecting black people just trying to live their best Obama life. We’ve seen a disturbing trend of white people calling the police on black people in public spaces: BBQ Becky stayed on the phone over an hour to try to get a police response on what she thought was a park permit issue. Depressed Debbie called the police on black people at a pool who refused to talk to her. While their police-calling behavior is meme gold, the real-life trend of using police to enforce dominance is a dangerous game where black people have a history of being the loser.

This weekend Permit Patty called the police on a young girl selling water to baseball fans. When pressed, she admitted that she wasn’t really on the phone with the police and she was not concerned about the permit: she wanted the little girl to be quiet. So there it is. This white woman, like others before her, consciously purposefully used the threat of police–arrest and potential violence–against an 8-year-old little black girl in order to control a public space to her liking.

Permit Patty, outed as being Alison Ettel, who makes a living making medical marijuana for dogs without a permit–I shit you not, claims that race had nothing to do with her threat. But she lives in Oakland, the city of Oscar Grant and the Black Panthers and ground zero of Black Lives Matter. It’s certain that she knew the kind of threat calling the police on black people is and used that threat against a girl with a water stand. That’s the reason why she did it: to play terrorist to an 8-year-old she knew would be afraid of the police.

Permit Patty is the last in a continuous line of white people, who have used police to control black bodies–from slave catchers through Jim Crow to today’s police state. Sure we’ve come a long way from the bad old days of lynchings, right? Times were when False Accusation Fanny called rape on a black man the whole town of Rosewood went up in flames. Or the dozens of white women rendered nameless and blameless in history whose interactions with black people–from an exchange of letters to and exchange of look–resulted in one of the thousands of lynchings during Jim Crow.

detail from Memorial to Peace and Justice showing “reasons” for lynchings

But lynching–extrajudicial killing, or killing of one outside the law, especially based on group identity– continues. It continues in a variety of forms . Old school lynchings still pop up like unwanted blemishes across the south. A recent study of interracial crime confirms black people are more likely to be killed by white people than white people are likely to be killed by a black person. On top of that, the terror of extrajudicial police killing continues in the era of cell phone video. We find ourselves in 2018 with the boundaries between black and white as fraught as ever.

In the Black Lives Matter era, knowing that black people are frequently suffering violence at the hands of the police, these women play executioner for their own petty whims. Like the lynchings of the past, these police calls cannot be dismissed as misunderstandings or misspoken accusations. These women call fully expecting that the police will be on their side–literally relying on their white privilege for the situation to go their way even as they water the streets and later the airwaves with their tears.

If race is not a factor in these stories, then why are we not seeing a large number of videotaped events where white people inform on other white people? Since white people are the majority of the American population, it stands to reason that these incidents should overwhelmingly involve white people. But they don’t by and large involve white people informing on other white people at all. Hmmmm. Though to be sure, the police did show up in force to this young white boy’s permit-less lemonade stand

In 2013, George Zimmerman played both Permit Patty and the PD when he killed Trayvon Martin. Stephon Clark was seconds from safety when he was killed in his grandmother’s backyard. In the space in between lies hundreds of names of people killed because of a casual encounter with police. Think about that–calling black can result in death. All of these names, this pattern that infects our country’s soul all hangs in the balance when white people call the police on black people. Cars and cops with guns come, just like they did when black people sought to desegregate private businesses during the civil rights movement of the 60’s.

White people, I argue, know that interactions between black people and the police can be deadly and they call the police anyways. Afterward, full of apologies and sheepish excuses, they retreat behind their own ignorance, safe from consequences–and sometimes receiving coddling and forgiveness, ignoring their complicity in creating a potentially deadly encounter.

Let’s call these 911 calls what they are: preludes to a lynching. It’s time to hold people accountable for their racism. It’s time to admit that if you are calling the police because a person of color is making you nervous, being too quiet, being loud, or otherwise occupying public spaces then you may be okay with the death of that person by your word. Like the women who’s interactions and accusations led to lynchings under Jim Crow, refusal to acknowledge your privilege to activate state violence to protect you does not leave you innocent of a hate crime. Think about that before you call the police, or don’t be surprised when you get dragged by Twitter.

The Optics of Oppression

Kids in cages. “Tender age facilities.” Baby prisons. A chorus of wailing children ‘in need of a conductor.’ This week on American Apocalypse, Trump’s disastrous zero-tolerance immigration policy separated families at the southern U.S. border, resulting in thousands of minors, including babies and toddlers, incarcerated in immigration detention centers. Just days later Trump ends the practice, not because he felt it was wrong but because he said he didn’t like the way it looked or felt. It was the optics that forced the reversal.

And why shouldn’t they? Children were drowning in a sea of mylar blankets, kenneled in dog cages. Babies weeping as their mothers are taken from them. The above image was ground zero of the outrage over zero tolerance. The detention of people crossing the southern border is not new, nor did these childhood detention centers pop up overnight, but the images were too arresting to allow people to ignore the problem. Optics-fueled outrage forced the President to issue a new executive order–and also prompted the government to tighten down the flow of images of detained asylum seekers.

In the battle for the soul of America, optics are the primary weapon. We are a culture obsessed with the image, so what we see determines much of what we think and where we direct our energy. Our media environment relies heavily on images–clickbait and real news sites alike use arresting images to capture readers attention in fast-moving social media streams. With the crush of information that we stagger under every day, only the image that shocks can cut through. The undeniably real and awful reaches straight into our lizard brain, stopping us in our stupor. Despite the constant obfuscation of our political and cultural climate, we are still human, and that human within us can be activated by the egregious.

So the image of a crying girl and kids in cages galvanized a nation into a moment of wokefulness. Even Republicans agreed that keeping kids in cages without their parents is wrong, and they pushed for a bill that would reunite kids with their parents in cages in indefinite incarceration–this way everyone is happy: cage manufacturers, tent city wardens, and virulently racist Trump supporters rejoice! In the land of optics, the devil is in the details. What seems like relief is little more than a nod to public outrage. Families can now be detained indefinitely, internment camps look more and more like those that held Japanese-Americans, and control tightened on images of the continuing crisis.

Image result for japanese internment camp us border — Japanese Interment Camp

Image result for immigration tent city — CPB Detention center

The federal government is limiting access to the shelters and keeping reporters and senators alike from being able to witness or share the conditions of the ~~immigration detention facilities~~ baby jails. Melani’s staged camp tour was more propaganda in a week heavy with it, the illusion of information. Yes, even now that the order has been signed. While many of us were horrified by the images of kids in cages, few of us are aware that these few images from inside the detention centers were released to news organizations for use by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and are not first-hand images collected by journalists and other witnesses during short observation visits. By contrast, the Pro Publica audio tape of wailing children was not a piece of government content, showing that actual conditions were more stressful and traumatizing that the sanitized images of children lining up and sterile tents.

The American public can be swayed by dramatic and horrific images. The Vietnam War is an instructive example. During the war, the advent of color television and meals in aluminum that make for easy reheating combined meant many people spent dinnertime watching the evening news. Each night Americans choked down the death count of American soldiers and the carnage of the war along with their TV dinner. This exposure to the horrors of war in full color became indigestible to the public, and narratives of glory soon turned to clamor to end the war, especially after the Tet offensive. As the optics soured and criticism grew, support for ongoing resources dwindled and political support evaporated.

The federal government learned from this loss to optics, weaponized for the new medium of color TV. A tacit adherence to government policy by news agencies emerged: out of respect for the families, news agencies would not run images of returning soldiers coffins. While its true such images could be upsetting to family members, it is also true that images of returning soldiers caskets dulled the public’s taste for war, making it hard to get the support needed to invade say, Kuwait, or Iraq, or Afghanistan.

The suppression of images of war was managed by the U.S. government by allowing some reporters controlled access–remember embedded reporters? This relationship between journalists and the military meant that there was lots of amazing and important footage from within the war zone, but always with a handler, a filter–a censor. When servicemen were tortured and killed in Fallujah, debate raged whether to run the horrific images of the mutilated bodies. When a reporter published graphic images of American dead, he was barred from the field. There were consequences for journalists and outlets who chose show images the government didn’t want to be seen.

There are consequences now for journalists who question the Trump administration in this undeclared immigration war. We have watched over the last two years as the administration eats away at the free press, shutting out those who disagree, openly disrespecting the press in rabid rallies and press conferences alike, barring journalists from taking images of asylum-seeking babies in kennels on the border. The government has gotten smarter–they control their media as carefully as a Kardashian.

We can talk ourselves out of anything with words. All of the horrors of history from war to holocausts happened in real time to millions of people who had to make sense of it. People went about their daily life eating and pooping and living while others were sold as property, captured and tortured, packed on to trains or locked up in baby prisons. We can read what they thought or said, but the images still stand as a testament that they should have been able to see right from wrong in front of their eyes.

In the age of information, the only image that can’t go viral is the one you can’t take. The only atrocity you can get away with is the one that you hide. It is exhausting to be the ones to bear witness in these times, but make no mistake your witnessing matters. Like Schrodinger’s cat, it is the power of the observer that brings the cat to life–or not. Every horror that can befall a human can go on unchecked when we look away, all possible oppressions can happen when we refuse to watch. As long as we watch, optics will be the weapon of our civil war. As long as we support those who hunt for these images, we will have the ammunition we need to stand up and say no. Donate to those fighting still to reunify families, pause for a second to rest your weary eyes, and stay ready to bear witness as resistance.