“When I think of it, my fingers turn to fists.”
Fiona Apple, Limp
Been awhile. I’d like to talk about all my new and ongoing projects, or even just work on them. Instead here’s the latest horrific business I don’t know how to fix because I struggle to even reach those in my limited sphere of influence. All I can do is use my words to add to the collective dismay.
The remains of hundreds of indigenous children forced to attend “residential” schools in Canada have been found, and they’ve only just started looking. People expect similar findings in the US. Between this and mass molestation cover-ups, I’m a little confused why certain organizations are allowed to run adoption agencies, or anything at all pertaining to children. #Sorrynotsorry if anyone’s offended I care more about the health and wellbeing of children than overpowered institutions.
Matt Gaetz is still in Congress despite an ongoing sex trafficking case in which he has been implicated. Paul Goser cavorts with a known white supremacist Holocaust denier, and apparently that’s okay, too. Jamie Spears still gets to leech off his daughter who has been forced to financially support him since childhood. We’re to believe Britney Spears is well enough to work a grueling schedule, but not well enough to have bodily autonomy. That’s a great sign for all the lesser known people exploited in conservatorships. Bill Cosby is no longer in jail for the admitted rape of dozens of women due to some dubious seemingly manufactured procedural “issue” (not even a technicality).
Then there’s all the partisan judges Mitch McConnell had appointed making unprofessional pop culture references and ranting about so-called ‘woke’ culture in questionable decisions like they’re auditioning for daytime television, and at this point the definition of ‘woke’ has been stretched so far, it includes anyone who follows the golden rule. The nerve of some people, what with our kindness and honesty and consideration for others.
The other new scary boogeyman is CRT, a graduate level course in law school examining the weirdly controversial but nonpartisan theory that a country built on slavery might have racism baked into its design (I mean, I picked up on that as a child just from reading between the lines and listening to authority figures rant behind closed doors), but now the term is being applied to teaching any historical facts that make some white people uncomfortable. Like I’ve said before, I don’t have a lot of patience for people who lie to themselves and others to avoid ambivalence and discomfort.
As far as I can tell, the only things cancel culture successfully comes for are justice, the truth, common sense, basic human decency, and women’s bodily autonomy – but what else is new?
Meanwhile people are celebrating the “return to normalcy” like masks are the worst thing to ever happen to them.
None of this is normal.
Stop pretending it’s normal.
It may be the “norm” but it’s gross and it’s toxic, and I hate it.
I’ll never forget the time Fiona Apple said this world is BS on the MTV Music Video Awards and people got so mad she dared to speak to an audience who didn’t share any of her privilege (which she knew, it was literally a part of her point) but understood what she was trying to say, however clumsily, instead of just accepting her plastic moonman like a good little girl. Like, a young woman expressing an opinion was somehow more shocking than men baring their bottoms or wearing strategically placed socks and nothing else in years prior.
This world is BS.
Don’t be mad she said it.
Be mad it’s true.
