Feminism and Palestine

As we witness the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, we are constantly asked to center Israeli suffering instead. I want to talk about the once-again-being-highlighted ask coming from liberals and Zionists — that we center the sexual violence committed against women by the attackers of Oct 7.

When this ask comes from those with a clear history of feminist commitment, I am inclined to take this request seriously and not dismiss their concerns. Whatever qualms some anti-Zionists might have about distrusting the details, it is not reasonable to deny or obscure that sexual violence was a part of Oct 7 attacks and that these incidents were horrifying and deeply misogynist. At least, it’s not unreasonable to ask this of privileged, white women like myself, who have never had one half of their identity leveraged against the other, as many feminists of color are currently experiencing.

What is also reasonable, however, is to get clarity on exactly what Zionist feminists would have anti-Zionist feminists do. Would the statement as written above, in their mind, count as “showing up” (so many of these questions are framed as, “where are American feminists?!”) If so, then we can stop this discussion right here and consider the matter resolved. But it’s fairly clear that this is not usually the case. The real request seems to be a centering of what happened on Oct 7, and this is where we run into problems.

The problem with requests such as these is that they position themselves as decontextualized requests for moral outrage. That all feminists should be outraged about rape is something all feminists absolutely agree on. So by asking, “where are the feminists?!,” such rhetoric implies that anti-Zionist feminists are either insincere in their beliefs and commitments, or that they are morally compromised and blinded. And yet, neither Zionist nor anti-Zionists public responses can possibly exist outside of the larger political context. As private individuals, we can express horror at violent and misogynist acts at the moment we learn of them. But once we turn to any public pronouncement, we know whatever we say will be leveraged in the larger struggle in Palestine.

The clear truth of the matter is that centering — not merely acknowledging, but centering —  the horrors of Oct 7 (sexual or not), cannot but help feed into the machine that is currently destroying the homes, bodies, and lives of millions of Palestinians. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Israel and settler colonialism should be well aware of how deeply decades of anti-Muslim propaganda has dehumanized Palestinian people (and particularly Palestinian men) in the eyes of the Western world. At this crucial moment, with open calls for genocide in both Israel and the United States, it is simply impossible to responsibly center the atrocities of Oct 7. Our horror as feminists will not be used objectively, and will not be used for good. It will be weaponized to further justify the continued killing of Palestinian men, women, and children.

That this larger public discourse exists and is out of our control is a reality that liberal discourse, in general, ignores and denies. If it were a simple matter of refusing to accept that we must tailor our own statements and solidarities strategically to avoid additional harm, this would be one thing. But what becomes so galling is how those making these calls are nearly never lacking their own commitments in the larger political context. Follow a tweet about the failure of American feminists to center the Oct 7 crimes, and you will almost certainly see a feed filled only with stories that center Jewish and Israeli suffering. It is this that makes the blood boil; to ask that we feel horror at the violence of Oct 7 is a human request that could come from a place of good faith. But to do so while being silent on, or actively minimizing or denying, the ongoing genocidal situation in Gaza exposes that the request was made not so much out of commitment to women, but commitment to a settler project.

And in either case, if our loyalties are to women first rather than humanity in general, might I add that most of those doing the dying in Gaza are either women or children. The United States has repeatedly vetoed a UN resolution that calls not only for an immediate end to these war crimes, but the immediate release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, as well. Since the end of the brief cease fire weeks back, it has been rumored that Hamas does not want to release the remaining women hostages for fear of their horrifying tales of sexual abuse. (Whether or not this is true is not relevant to my point; I’m assuming that Zionists would believe them to be true.) One would assume, then, that a feminist praxis would prioritize whatever would compel or pressure the United States to get behind a total ceasefire and hostage release. But this is not what we see from the majority of feminists requesting the centering of Hamas’ crimes.

Then again, such a failure to acknowledge honestly their own political commitments should not be surprising given the politics of liberal or Zionist feminists. Not wanting to be associated with the right wing or the ugliness that is settler colonialism, they cannot take up the unequivocal mantle of support for anything and everything Israel does, particularly under its current government. And yet neither can they prioritize the ending of the war on Palestine, given that ultimately, they identify with the settlers. So, rife with contradiction and unable to face their commitments squarely, the only maneuver remaining to them is to critique the left for insufficiently centering the positionality they most identify with. Because they’re not honest enough with themselves to grapple with these problems, they instead lash out at those they thought were similarly aligned, resolving the conflict of their own commitments by accusing anti-Zionists feminists of betrayal.

It’s a thoughtless response at best, and a cowardly one at worst — and more to the point, it will not help protect any women in the future, of any ethnicity, anywhere.

Sometimes I write poetry.

400 YEARS.

400 years, Of playing by your rules. But when will freedom come? So many times, it’s been declared – So when now, will it come? The keys to their chains, they say, Were welded by your fire – But do not break them off, you say – For those who wrote the rules still rule the game.

But it’s been 400 years, by now, Of playing by their rules – The game is rigged, it’s always been – But still the word is wait. Wait until enough patient talks, Have melted enough open hearts – Explain, protest, and fill the square But never, never interfere – With the rules as they’ve been writ – In the end, they promise: they’ll get you out of this.

But it’s been 400 years, by now, And still my loved ones wait. I won’t look on while more and more, Gain entrance at the pearly gates. Because it’s been 400 YEARS, by now, And the rules have never changed; I think I’m done, with this thankless faith – And so, say loudly, FUCK the game.

Springsteen's Hometown.

An underappreciated protest song (a “thinly veiled” one according to Wikipedia, but it seems pretty explicit to me) is Bruce Springsteen’s “Death to My Hometown.” Perhaps because Springsteen’s recent work doesn’t regularly make it on the radio circuit, it hasn’t become very well known – or, at least this is my impression, since I’ve never met anyone who is familiar with it.

From his 2012 album “Wrecking Ball,” the song is a condemnation of the forces that brought about the recession of 2008. In particular, it focuses on the sons of bitches on Wall Street who, as Springsteen puts it, “destroyed our families’ factories” and “took our homes.” While the latter injustice feels very immediate, the former connects the crisis of the new millennium all the way back to deindustrialization and the devastation of the Rust Belt.

The special brilliance of the song is its focus on the stealthy, unspectacular way in which the financial wizards of the world destroyed the lives, figuratively and literately, of so many people.  Springsteen opens with laying out a scene of apparent calm:

Oh, no cannonballs did fly, no rifles cut us down
No bombs fell from the sky, no blood soaked the ground
No powder flash blinded the eye, no deathly thunder sound

 And yet, he immediately follows,

But just as sure as the hand of God, they brought death to my hometown.

A few lines later, Springsteen mentions that another sign of unjust oppression is also missing: No dictators were crowned. This particularly gives me pause. Listening in 2018, the mind immediately goes to Trump – bless his heart that he’s too incompetent and distracted to actually seize the moment to become a dictator. But then my thoughts turn to the panicked commentators of liberalism, and how they distance themselves from those in the trenches of this fight, and are happy to invite “polite” commentators of punishing the poor on their nightly cable shows but mount a so-called #Resistance every time Trump openly says what anyone with an ounce of analytical skills should know is the agenda of the Republican Party and has been for 60 fucking years. But it seems as if, as Springsteen says, “No shells ripped the evening sky, no cities burning down,” that means the Democratic Party will not go to battle against the thieves who silently “raided in the dark.” Is there a more immediately personal way to describe the slow, life-sucking shadow of neoliberalism?

Springsteen also includes, even though extremely briefly, something of a suggestion for action. In lyrics which sadly reflect the now generations-spanning phenomenon of increasing inequality, he warns:

So listen up, my sonny boy, be ready for when they come
For they’ll be returning sure as the rising sun

Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it ’til you’re done
Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well
Send the robber barons straight to hell
The greedy thieves who came around
And ate the flesh of everything they found
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now
Who walk the streets as free men now…

Ah, they brought death to our hometown, boys.

Thus he appropriately ends with a reminder that no one – including the Democratic Party save what, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren – have made any real effort to bring these scumbags to justice. On the contrary, Barack Obama appointed one as his Secretary of the Treasury! 

Finally, the music itself is everything you want in a protest song. Set to a powerful Celtic beat that implores you to stomp your feet and sway your head, replete with flutes and I think bagpipes, it stirs the innermost passions of at least this radical, infatuated as I am with Celtic music and the history of Irish resistance. (Yes I know bagpipes are Scottish but let’s also not be anal about these emotional associations yeah?) Long point short: Listen to this song, love it, feel it, beat your chest to it. 

"Black Sails" Could Be A Lot More Red

In real life, Captain Flint would have never made it out of the first season of Black Sails, the show for which he is the main protagonist, alive. Arrogant, secretive, and utterly unconcerned with the needs or desires of others, he would have either been voted out of his position and downgraded to a mere ship hand or, far more likely, executed for plotting against his own crew and murdering their primary representative. For a moment at the end of Season 1, it looks like he’s about to suffer that exact fate – but, pirates being pirates, he combines a clever plan appealing to self-interest with a charisma based on his masculine dominance of, well, everything, to convince them to alter their plans to rightly put a sword through his heart.

The problem though, is that this is not actually what pirates were like. While certainly pleased by gold and booze, their decision to turn pirate was much more based on an escape from the horrific labor conditions of eighteenth century maritime work as it was a nihilistic, self-centered greed. In Black Sails, however, we do not learn much about the social conditions whence most pirates came because, well, we don’t learn about most pirates. We do learn an awful lot about individual pirate captains, however, and in this focus we can find the most problematic aspect of the series schemes.

In Black Sails, individual men and women hold an immense amount of power – and while they differ in how they choose to cultivate and execute it, the show is obsessed with how Great People inspire The Masses to do great things. This is so much the case, that many of the most extended dialogues between characters – most of all the two most apt men-manipulators, Captain Flint and (Long) John Silver – bond over how damn good they are at reading the souls of men and then twisting them to their own purposes. It’s like a validation orgy between the two of them at times, and no doubt if Silver shared Flint’s sexual flexibility they would have some kinky power-struggle sex together.

Swash-Buckling Douche Bag.

The tragedy of this obsession with Extraordinary Individuals is how it distorts the lived reality and political commitments of actual pirates. Simply put, pirates were so democratic that their structure of life on the account was nearly anarchic. That scene where Flint kills Gates in his cabin? Likely impossible in real life, because captains didn’t have their cabins to themselves – the crew went and slept wherever the fuck they liked, and that included the captain’s quarters. Moreover, the captain hardly had any space, or decision, to himself – he did not get to decide where to go, or which prizes to take; all that was in the hands of the common council, which was basically every single person on the ship, down to the most lowly crew member. Black Sails tries to acknowledge and simultaneously work around this by constantly playing up the capacities of its main characters to inspire and manipulate men and women to certain end goals – but in doing so, it renders the democratic process pirates fervently believed in a joke, and clearly suggests that while we may have been told something else in our college cultural history courses, it is in fact the Great Men (and, at least to its credit, the Great Women) of history that really, you know, Make History.

Yet it was common men (and yes!, some women) who made the real history of, as historian Marcus Rediker calls it, the Golden Age of Piracy – not some washed-up social climber who bears a (granted, very righteous) grudge against the British Aristocracy for expelling him from their shitty club. Most pirates turned pirate because they were paid like shit, treated like shit, and knew their lives were short. Considering all that, they chose, as a common saying among them went, a short but merry life. In doing so, they set up a social structure the complete opposite from the one they rejected: egalitarian (they divided their booty equally), libertine (problems sometimes ensued from the fact that so many of them were continually drunk) and irreligious (their flags declared their, association?, shall we say?, with Satan). This was no accident, as one pirate, William Fry, reminded the judgmental spectators that came to leer at his execution. “All Masters of Vessels might take Warning by the Fate of the Captain that he had murder’d,” he warned, “and to pay Sailors their Wages when due, and to treat them better; saying that their Barbarity to them made so many turn Pryates.”[1] Fry, like most pirates, understood the nature of the system he died rebelling against.  

Read Me. I am very good and better than fictional accounts of piracy. 

In Black Sails, however, these conditions are obscured and the system the pirates fight against is flattened to the almost completely meaningless epithet of “civilization.” Civilization is coming, warns Flint in the very first episode – civilization is oppressive, echo the other characters in key points in the plot. But what is civilization, exactly?, and what aspects of Nassau make it uncivilized? The closest we get to an answer is that the British and Spanish empires represent civilization, since these are the two visible opponents the pirates face. Yet half of the characters spend half of the span of the show apparently trying to resurrect some type of said civilization in Nassau, a town in which, as far as I can tell, is having a grand time regardless of what Flint or Eleanor Guthrie thinks about it. I understand that it would have come off as laughable for eighteenth century characters to spout twentieth century academic social critique, but it also would not have been impossible for the writers to incorporate some indication that what “civilization” translated to in the eighteenth century Caribbean was not just organization or technology, but a very specific form of civilization we nerds commonly refer to as racialized, imperialist capitalism.

But this is where – in mercy to the Black Sails fans out there who might not yet know I count myself amongst them – I can shift to some heartfelt praise for the series. Despite Flint being a shit and the show’s obsession with Great People, it does nonetheless provide us with some characters whose uncompromising BadAssness falls in all the right places.

First to be introduced is Charles Vane, based on a real person who was in all likelihood not nearly as cool – he was accused by his crew at one point of cowardice, something the Black Sails Vane could never possibly suffer – but who, in the show, provides one of only two posts of moral clarity. This might be hard to recognize at first, but by the time we get to his literal self-sacrifice, it’s clear what Vane believes in or, more to the point, what he doesn’t believe in – tradition, authority, slavery, the creature comforts that nowadays we might call consumerism, and pious axioms that exist only to obscure the truth. One of his finest moments comes when Eleanor lashes out at him for killing her father, and he replies with the one phrase on the mind of every confused viewer: “He was a shit.”

                                                Whoah, that is some serious manspreading. 

The other diamond in the rust is introduced relatively later, but leaves almost as big an impact. Madi, the daughter of the ruling couple of a maroon slave community, is every type of fucking awesome. Saved from slavery by her parents but completely aware of its consequences, she might fall in love with Silver but never strays from her commitment to her people – both living and dead, as we learn in her most eloquent moment. Offered her (and Silver’s?) in exchange for the surrender of all future escapees to the maroon community, she replies:

“The voice you hear in your head, I imagine I know who it sounds like, as I know Eleanor wanted those things. But I hear other voices. A chorus of voices. Multitudes. They reach back centuries. Men and women and children who'd lost their lives to men like you. Men and women and children forced to wear your chains. I must answer to them, and this war - their war, Flint's war, my war – it will not be bargained away to avoid a fight, to save John Silver's life or his men's or mine.”

Now that, amongst comrades, is what we call some soli-fucking-darity.

                                   Madi is Woke As Fuck. 

It is perhaps significant that both Vane and Madi live with either an experience or fundamental awareness of slavery – interestingly Vane, being white, is the one who actually experienced it in his youth and Madi, far more likely to end up in its snares, nevertheless manages a fierce understanding of what it means. But both take an absolute disgust with the ways in which human begins abuse and subordinate each other to the grave – and together, they are the only true believers of the entire cast and crew. Billy, despite being raised by egalitarian, Leveler parents, becomes corrupted with bitterness; Jack understands that the game is rigged but is only interested in outwitting it in order to become immortal; Anne understandably doesn’t give a fuck because she’s busy surviving men; Silver believes in whatever cause currently makes his life most bearable and Flint?, well he’s Flint, in a way a mirror of Silver insofar as soon as the love of his life is in range, all will to live by his high-flung rhetoric about creating a new world different from the old drains out of his body. Only Vane and Madi, through all four seasons, show any true commitment to give their lives in solidarity with a vision that gives the Powers That Be the middle finger.

And once again, the truth of history squares more with these inspirational examples than it does with the more Machiavellian maneuverings of well, most everyone else in the show. This is rare – historical investigation usually brings disillusionment, not inspiration. But, there are exceptions, and pirates are one of them. Despite the narrative of almost every pirate-based media production – including Black Sails – pirates did not spend their time at each other throats’, consumed with petty rivalry. On the contrary, pirates were loyal to other pirates – crews would retaliate against governors and cities that executed or persecuted other crews, they would salute each other while sailing by with a cannon blast, they knew each other as “the Brotherhood of the Coast.” They might have not known any socialist lingo, or called themselves anarchists or egalitarians, but in every way they lived their lives, they committed themselves to these values. That in a series entirely dedicated to these very pirates of the Caribbean, only Vane and, especially Madi, embody this spirit is a missed opportunity so large it prevents the show from rising to the level of historical significance it so often loves to contemplate.

But not even a commie like me evaluates everything according to politics. It’s unwitting loyalty to individualism aside, Black Sails provides us with more than just a few endearing and original characters. Anne Bonny, based on the real-life woman pirate, comes most immediately to mind. Played brilliantly by Clara Paget, Anne is a quiet yet intensely fierce character who, when she does speak, is half the time spitting the words out through a snarl and a growl that I’ve never seen any female character even attempt, let alone make compellingly believable. Anne is a loyal but not obedient partner to Jack Rackham – also based on a historical character who was, indeed, the lover of Bonny – which is a lucky thing for him, because while he’s lucky to survive any physical fights, Anne is as kickass as they come, and is constantly saving him from certain death.

But oh, Jack! – Jack is just something special. A personality that combines an awareness of his weaknesses with a basic confidence and self-love, I dare say he is a completely unique character. Jack knows he is scrawny, that he can’t fight, that bigger and braver men think he is a pissant. But instead of becoming bitter, or driven by an insecurity that eats away at his soul and corrupts his better self, or being obnoxiously self-deprecating (the most popular current model for men who Don’t Fit In), Jack just defers to others – usually Anne or, the regrettably-not-discussed-here-because-this-is-getting-too-long, Max – who can help shore him up in realms where he’s not so skilled. He is, of course, obsessed with his legacy; but here as well, his self-awareness allows him to keep his desires from controlling him completely. Jack never denies or hides who he is, with either himself or others – which makes him a needed breath of fresh air while Flint and Silver over-analyze the shit out of everything and other central characters, such as Eleanor, insist on taking themselves Very Seriously. Besides, Flint, Vane, Teach, Silver and Billy provide us with plenty of Rugged Men prototypes – so someone had to wear the dashing eighteenth century dandy clothing.

So, despite the harshness of my tone in most of this post, I do, in fact, love this show. For me, the apex of Black Sails and its very beating heart came in the last episode of Season 2 – when Flint and Vane jointly blow the smitherines out of Charleston. As an historian and a radical, watching the destruction of one of the ports that built, with the blood, lives, and dignity of so many, the awakening beast we know as racialized capitalism – all while Flint takes the time in the chaos to free some slaves! – was satisfying in a way that my heart needs in these sometimes-so-lonely days.  FUCK. YEAH.

And, for that if for nothing else, Black Sails will always have my heart.  

[1] Marcus Rediker, Villians of All Nations, the latest edition with the yellow cover and dude this is a personal blog post and who the fuck really uses publication data anyway?, 2. 

50 Shades of This is Hella Fucked Up

I wrote this as a facebook rant a year ago, and both then and today received a lot of encouraging and insightful feedback about it from friends. So, I thought to throw it on here for it's second go-around -- especially as it holds just as true a year later. 

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I grew up believing that the mark of an intelligent and empathetic person was to always see shades of gray, to abstain from moral claims that declared themselves obvious. I did this for good reason; the negative example I had in mind was religious fundamentalists. Of course, I was also very prone to moral certitudes of my own that belied all this; but the idea of "it's complex" rang true in my mind more often than not. 

I still think this is so often the case, especially when trying to make sense of one's personal life - relationships, friendships, etc. It is also necessary to understanding that evil acts do not require particularly evil people, or certain social issues like abortion. And yet the older I get, and the more exceptional comrades I meet, I also can't help but grow to appreciate a type of moral clarity that has not been clouded by the dogmas of our time; and by "our time," I mean the last few hundred years. 

Because it should be obvious that you should prioritize the right of marginalized people to feel safe in public over the free speech of fascists, full-blown and proto alike. It should be obvious that the existence of homeless people is a condemnation of our civilization, that we have failed at even the most basic tasks of human society. It should be obvious that even debating whether human beings have a right to be healed when they are sick or injured -- to put this question mark next to whether we should all help each other not die, basically -- is nothing short of a parade of moral atrocities. This should be obvious, and we should declare all of it obvious. But the vast, vast majority of people talk and act as if all this was not obvious; that indeed the opposite could somehow be the correct priority. 

One thing that I think materialism and postmodernism teach us, however -- that's right I'm totally about to combine these two things -- is that seeing as there is no moral order to the universe (materialism) and values are therefore constructed (postmodernism) -- although I would add that the popularity and usefulness of certain values over others cannot be entirely separated from our desires and limitations as biological, fleshly animals (materialism) -- at the end of the day, we do have to simply declare our ultimate principles and, moreover, not always on the basis of utilitarianism (because who is going to conclude what the end goal is to which we make pragmatic decisions), and hope and try to have others find them as compelling as we do; enough others to create a consensual, free society on this basis. And I think of many friends I admire and realize they are always doing this, shamelessly and without apology -- saying no, freedom of speech is not as sacred as human life, fuck you -- and no, tribalism does not have more value than valuing all of humanity equally, fuck that -- and no, I will not moderate my tone in the face of racist, sexist, and classist attacks and speech, fuck off. I see with what clarity they come to these conclusions and in contrast, everyone else seems so obviously bamboozled by the ideologies of the powerful that it's almost laughably absurd at times, like you're stuck in some terrifying carnival. 

Then, of course, I remember that my enemies feel just the same, and then I just want to cry. Not because I worry that they are right and I am wrong, but because without that faith in a moral order to the universe -- I don't at all see why the moral arc of the universe has to bend towards justice -- I can't identify anything that suggests to me that those fighting for liberty, fraternity, and equality have the upper hand. Because we're more chimps than bonobos. And chimps are fucking assholes. 

Dispatches of uncertain categories to be delivered here.

Hello, welcome to my personal blog. To be honest, I'm not sure how much will be going up here; I've long been wanting to find a place other than Facebook to put my thoughts that are not really appropriate for a group blog, a journal article, or a political essay. So, that stuff will go here. 

This will likely mean a lot of musing on Peaky Blinders (hence the random accompanying photograph) & how awesome pirates were (+Black Sails stuff) but, as for now, there is just this quaint little hello message. Consider yourself warned. 

A long time ago I made up my mind to live my life as an intellectual as a whole person, to enact my belief that the false divisions between the political and the personal, the professional and the personality, needed to be broken down to open up space for a new kind of society. So, this blog is going to be my effort, on the eve of my first book coming out, of sticking to that. 

                                                              Here we go.