This week is two weeks long apparently. The madness of this impeachment trial--why isn't he in custody?
Danny's podcast and my new notes as I relisten:
Reading Sara Ahmed's writing on apology, deflection
Connecting my dots
If orgs wanted to fix problems, they would have. It's demoralizing to read Ahmed's latest blog post describing so many complaints which lead to performative apologies but ultimately protect perpetrators.
Also read blog post about Indigenous Studies scholar being fucked by her institution which promised her all sorts of things that she built big multi-year expensive plans on, that she turned down a counter offer from a prestigious competitor for, then they re-negged on her, canceling funding for the things they promised. She had a stress-induced vision problem (just thinking about another academic suffering from a stress-induced vision problem).
Indifferent Impregnators
Sexual Assault: my grandmother, my mother, and me. Men behaving badly and not only not getting consequences for it but being better off. My grandmother--I'll never know what happened during the conception event which led to my father's birth. She thought they were in love, that they would marry, but instead she was ghosted. I don't know what word to use for it--it's a violence against both her and the child for a man to be an indifferent impregnator. A longer slower assault: a separation of parent and child, withholding not only affection and recognition but "legitimacy" and a sense of belonging. Intentionally creating orphans, with no consequence and no remorse. Surely that is a kind of violence.
Reckoning the use of "assault" in relation to "harassment". A continuum? Or a way to reframe to deflect responsibility and diminish perceived impact--"it was only *harassment*, it's not like he assaulted her." It's not like he "struck" her--right? Because we can all agree that being struck is an act of assault, right?
Can a person be "struck" by systematic violence? Of course. And Grandma Dorothy was struck by casual misogyny. An encouraged sense of entitlement--the boys are back from the war, they saved the world! Whadya say girls, should we show them our appreciation? [And of course, anti-black racism, Christian supremacy, Homophobic tolerance of hate crimes, US military, Jim Crow]
The sailor and the nurse photo--he literally assaulted her. She was not a paid model. He literally walked up to a woman, grabbed her and kissed her. "But did she have bruises, though?"
self-Orphaning within higher ed, within one's own mind, as a way to "achieve"
Dear Mom,
Perhaps I should have stopped having contact with you years ago. It might be difficult for you to understand how angry I am at you.
Watching the insurrection footage, I see a confederate flag. I remember that you bought a fucking confederate flag for your asshole son-in-law.
When I hear Trump's voice, I hear yours. The same cadence, the same jokey tough-guy tone. Perhaps it makes you feel powerful to ally yourself with him.
In November, Veterans Day, instead of listening to me, a veteran, about what I think about Trump's support of Veterans, you said you'd prefer the version presented by your media. From some people who aren't veterans. Fuck that. Fuck you for not caring about what I have to say.
My inheritance from my mother: after her death I get to reach out to the person put away for her gruesome assault to let him know that DNA evidence exonerated him more than a decade ago. She doesn't have the capacity to say these words, and I get that. It was an awful rape trial, meaning essentially SHE was put on trial for accusing a man of breaking into her appartment and raping her at knife point. "What was she wearing?" etc. As a seventy-four year old she still sleeps with a knife under her pillow. I inherit this constant anxiety about assault. When I told her a young person in my life is transitioning from female to male, her first question was if he'd get his uterus removed so he can't get pregnant if raped. That is her perpetual mindset.
She's also deeply Christian. White evangelical Christian, to be specific, which is to say more or less a political movement based on White Christian Supremacy which happens to be exempted from tax obligation.
Being a bad daughter because I am not checking in with her during this awfulness in Texas.
Dear Facebook,
I'm addressing this to my mother in particular, but all of you may bear witness.
If you believe Donald Trump was/is a good man, that the capitol siege is a hoax, I cannot just see it as a difference of opinion.
I see it as a break in reality. We cannot both inhabit that same reality because I cannot come forward one more step in "compromise" or whatnot towards your view of reality. It is too far for me.
It is a schism which means you live in that world, and I live in this world and we do not have enough in common to recognize each other. It is my boundary.
I don't want to exchange holiday greetings with you. I don't want any inheritance or blessing or anything you could give me. I no longer recognize you as being a serious person.
I've debated for years if your political and religious views were related to declining cognition, something that I should feel sorry for you about, that I ought to listen to your rambling stories with a compassionate ear.
Then I realize you're just an asshole. You cannot reciprocate socially with me, and I have no obligation to continue a one-sided relationship with you. And you were an asshole before all of this Trump stuff.
A good daughter would endure caring for her mother. But you didn't with your own mother. You were distant with her for the last years of her life, certainly not shuttling her to doctors appointments and pharmacies or changing adult diapers. I have no obligation to be a good daughter.
I don't want to be a good daughter.
I didn't do well as a good wife. Feared I wouldn't be able to support a child "well enough" to be considered a good mom. And so far it looks like being a good daughter is gonna be a raw deal for me.
Looks a lot easier to be a good son, frankly. Watching a young person transition from female to male makes me wonder if he saw what lies ahead and was like, fuck this, I wanna be treated like a man instead.
And I get it--it's a raw deal to be a son--having to navigate toxic masculinity too and all that. But fuck. I'm watching Texas basically implode and wondering how much responsibility I have to take care of a person who hung up on me when I said the insurgency was White supremacist Trump supporters. "The media has been so unfair to Trump who's done so much for the American people!" yes, well, then choose those ideas over me then. I'm fantasizing about your tea party nursing home options where people will fuck your feelings for you. My brother, who is more politically aligned with you, can certainly support your needs better than a feminazi libtard like me.
Fucking Texas: my mom and step-Dad are proud of the Texas GOP while gobbling up all the welfare they qualify for, hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical procedures. They're entitled to these things you see. When Gov Abbott says Texans would rather die than be regulated--well, let's see how committed to that idea these literal "die-hards" are. Are they all hat and no cattle?
I wish I weren't obsessing about their welfare--that's the tricky good daughter shit that is so deeply socialized in me. I wish I were as carefree as she appears to be about the suffering of others. That's my aspiration now. I'm becoming the monster, the indifferent asshole, like a mommie mini-me.
She was hoping to visit me this spring. She hung up on me in mid-January and hasn't spoken to me since. Now I'm wondering if they'll be showing up to wait out the mess of FEMA claims and general chaos in a few weeks. She's already living in my mind rent-free.
I have wanted her to be comfortable, to get her inoculation, to get to her medical appointments.
I have listened to her rambling stories, cried over truly awful things which have happened in her life. Pitied her as doing the best she can under her circumstances.
But that best includes being an asshole. I just have to admit that my efforts to comfort her, to be there for her are one-sided.
She likes ideas about me--she likes that I am a veteran, for example, because she gets to brag to her church ladies and have them send me a Veterans Day card. But she doesn't care to hear my opinions about the military, or how Trump's policies affect veterans, what I hear other veterans saying. She'd rather hear about what Fox "News" tells her that veterans say about Trump.
(putting "News" in quotes since the legal settlement which acknowledges their goal of entertaining rather than informing their audience with truthful representations)
She likes that I got my doctorate but I'm not sure she's going to keep reading my dissertation now that she's to the chapter talking about Whiteness and education being used to reproduce privilege. Social Justice Warrior, right? "White supremacy is bad" is too much for her.
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