grace won't save you
randomities, vol. 12: trump is inhumane; denying him empathy is only human
So Trump has COVID. I’m sure you’ve been inundated with all the jokes and commentary and speculation. I honestly have nothing to say beyond “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
The biggest takeaway for me at this point has been the moralism of policing people who are glad he’s suffering. Anyone who hasn’t been under a rock is probably not crying that Trump, a hateful narcissist even by the standards of the presidency, is sick. Some people are even making light of his sickness, while others are vocalizing that they wish even further harm to him.
I wouldn’t personally go that far, but I don’t feel a way about people who do. What I’ve seen though is a lot of holier than thou judgment from some people telling others not to wish harm on Trump.
I get the sentiment I guess, but this forced grace serves no one. Sure, there are monks and similar who have no space for ill will. But most of them are people, who by their own admission, spend most of their day praying and make a little time for other things. Most of us do the opposite; we’re not that tapped in. We’re just “everyday people” navigating a fascist empire. And when harm befalls the person currently at the seat of that empire, I’m not gonna be shocked when people express glee.
There’s a conflation of wishing harm on Trump with “mirroring the hate of conservatives,” but that’s a terrible false equivalency. I think I know my readership enough to know that you’re all well abreast of Trump’s harms. I don’t have to list them. Pitting all of Trump’s harmful policy and rhetoric against someone who’s merely upset at him is woefully reductive. His actions are inhumane, anyone happy he’s getting a taste of his own medicine is just expressing a natural human reaction.
It’s harmful to see this “positive vibes only” aesthetic ascribed to politics. Who ingrained this mentality in us, and what’s their agenda? Many people attribute it to Martin Luther King and “turn the other cheek,” but by the end, he had “come to believe we're integrating into a burning house.” The state has no grace for us, so it deserves none.
The main people touting this push for civility are democrats, whose entire job in the empire is to keep a leash on poor people and make sure we don’t lash out over our second-class citizenship. They’re the people who performatively wear Kente cloths after police shootings (in lieu of policy) and draw murals to placate rioters (again, in lieu of policy). It’s their job to contain our anger and make us feel like grace is a substantive response to fascism.
When NBA players were set to strike, it was Obama who came in and talked them down. And it was his wife Michelle Obama who famously uttered, “when they go low, you go high.” That sounds good. But that mentality just makes conservatives feel even more comfortable in the mud.
Earlier this week, a TikTok video was going around of some Trump supporter threatening “a war” no matter who won the election. He surmised that if Trump won, and “Black Lives Matter and Antifa dumbasses” took to the streets to protest that result, they’d be there. He also surmised that if Biden wins, “we comin’, and we comin’ strong,” How are “positive vibes only” going to offset that? It’s time to leave the haven of feel-good aestheticism and realize that we’re up against an empire that doesn’t see our humanity. If people want to express that they feel good about Trump’s pain, that’s their prerogative. He, and his white nationalist base, feel nothing for us.
quick takes
I saw that this week Tory Lanez had my Complex piece in a collage with others suggesting a “smear campaign” against him (as if he didn’t do an entire album attempting to shift Megan Thee Stallion’s public perception). But either I missed the monthly journalist illuminati meeting and just so happened to be on accord with the agenda...or we all think you’re dead wrong. I realized while brainstorming this that I’m going to go long on it soon, so I won’t go too deeply. But it just goes to show the lengths someone will go to in order to feign victimhood.
bars of the moment
A reminder to all Americans that the net effect of our prime minister catching COVID-19 was that it prompted a surge of patriotic support. From which he emerged with renewed popularity. Which enabled him to tear up key functions of the state
Black history has been distorted, co-opted, and misrepresented to such an extent that people believe masses of us dying is a necessary ingredient in attempts to help the state develop a conscience it will never have. They think we're supposed to die so others can be better.
I think that when we deny ourselves pleasure, we are denying our own humanity and also encouraging others to deny it. So if you really need to be less altruistic about your pleasure, think of it as a political tool to get people to recognize Black women’s humanity by recognizing your own. It’s important and is absolutely necessary for our overall health and well-being.
Joan Morgan in How Author Joan Morgan Raised Her Son to Be a Feminist piece
leaving america sounds lovely, but this is an empire and you would have to leave the planet to really leave this country. nowhere on earth has independence or self-determination. globally, we all struggle against the exact same corporations. the only escape is terminating empire
…[The Source’s] 5 mic honor, was not just an arbitrary ranking. It was a declaration of taste, of values, what the editorial staff wanted from these artists and this culture, the rap they wanted to make the world. And generally through 2001, their taste was impeccable. If anything they were too discerning. Too afraid of the passions of the moment, and wary of who they would induct into eternity. A judiciousness all too rare in these impassioned, hyperbolic times. A quality that, looking back, demands respect and sets an example for us all.
Abe Beame in A Definitive Ranking of All the Original 5 Mic Albums in The Source piece
artifact
So last week I ended up scouring Choke No Joke’s Last Days Of The Roc series for a piece on T.I. and ended up watching a bunch of them. This one is particularly funny. It’s behind the scenes footage from the ‘03 Source Awards. This is a cool glimpse of a bygone era. The video is funniest to me, and fellow rap nerds who remember this, for the photo Dipset ended up taking with Mike Tyson at the end. There’s nothing funnier than someone trying to hold in a laugh.
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Venmo: Andre-Gee