Respectability Can't be Earned

Respectability politics – be they dressing as the “anti-thug” for colored boys or the virgin demeanor for women of all ages– boil down to the same thing…a desire to feel safe, the illusion of control. I can’t be mad at Kendrick Lamar. Not really. Irritated, yes, but angry? It isn’t that their stance that sagging pants or exposed midriffs don’t do harm…respectability politics are extremely dangerous. Respectability politics provide cover for awful behavior, giving excuses to “overzealous” police and “boys being boys”. It is the language that confuses productive conversation about real issues, leading people down wayward alleys that have very little to do with the problem at hand. Fashion is not at the root of racial or sexual violence. But even knowing how the conversational misdirect adds to existing problems, it is difficult for me to muster lasting anger when the people who are most impacted by it recite it like a protective mantra. I see their stance as an overwhelming desire to feel like they can control the uncertainties of the world around them, a world ready to assume they are dangerous or an object meant only for sex. 

The brutalization of black men by the police has caught the attention of the American masses these days. With the ubiquity of chronicling every moment of our existence through photos and video, we are able to see the brutal pixelated possibilities of our lives and the lives of those we love. Creatures of survival, we want to know how to avoid ending up like Tamir Rice or even Martese Johnson. We go back to survival instincts, to the simplicity of squirrels and deer and our most basic selves – we freeze, waiting to see if we have been spotted by a predator, we are looking for our camouflage, the blind spot in the pursuer’s gaze so that we can survive another day. Survival is the reason that black parents (and I suspect colored parents in general) cloak their children in the rules. It is why they tell us to be twice as good to get half as far and to remember that we can’t do what everyone else can do. It is the reason they tell our boys to wear a belt. It is about safety. 

But that safety is all a mirage. It doesn’t exist. 

When we tell our girls not to dress too provocatively or risk being called a slut. When we question why a woman was at a club or walking home or whatever it is she was doing to “get herself raped” than we are enacting the very same illusion of safety. Some women cloak themselves in it. “I would never go to a frat party so that would never happen to me.” With geography as predictor of sexual violation the belief is that it is something that can be avoided with vigilance and “good sense”. Only, acts of injustice don’t play by agreed upon rules. No rapist sees that a woman’s skirt hits just below her knees and so passes by for the woman with hers hitched up an inch above. Not to mention it cloaks the reality that 82% percent of rapes are not from strangers but people we know. Society at large is so fixated on a fallacy of control that we bestow the mantel of sexual “virtue” on our girls – making anything that happens to them their responsibility. That screams unfair, but we want to believe that that unfairness will keep us from victimization and so some people cling to it, virtue as the ultimate protector.

Injustice happens for a lot of reasons but clothing is seldom the driver. But if we can cloak ourselves in the belief that what we wear matters, that an inch of cloth above the waist for black men or below the knees for women, then we are not bogged down by possibility that our humanity could be violated. If we can blame the victim than we can examine what that victim did wrong and be sure to avoid those steps. Only, it doesn’t work that way.

The other issue with respectability politics is that it strips people who don’t follow them of their humanity, of their right to live without fear of danger or violation. It says that if you are not a college student with impeccable grades, if you have had casual sex, if you drink alcohol or do drugs, if you dance provocatively, if you wear a hoodie, if you make someone else feel any kind of way other than safe and uninterested…then you deserve what you got. You somehow asked for it. 

And how can that be ok? How can we have so little humanity that we follow rules that deny someone the most basic of rights if they show any signs of imperfection? We are all flawed. We all make mistakes. Our mistakes should not leave us bereft of protection or undeserving of empathy. If anything, our imperfections should gather us together in understanding. “I’ve been there.”

Instead, we look at people who have made life choices we, perhaps, would not make, and we are smug and self-righteous. We are cruel and unforgiving. Ignoring the cherub-faced photo of Trayvon Martin that circulated so widely when he was initially murdered – it was soon replaced with imagery of him with tattoos and looking more adult. People had coded names for what he looked like to them – “thug”, judgements about what they assumed he was like. Other people pushed back, calling the indictments of “thug” slander and thinly-veiled racism. 

Racism set aside a moment, why does it matter? Why does it matter if a victim of a crime smoked weed, got arrested, showed cleavage or had a lot of sex? Should it matter at all?

When Ramarley Graham was murdered in his home allegedly trying to flush a packet of weed down the toilet – does that make his life less important? Illegal and immoral actions don’t mean someone deserves whatever they get…bad decisions don’t’ nullify the rights we are born into under the laws of this land. At least they shouldn’t. 

Too often we ask the wrong questions. Instead of looking at what the victim could have done differently we should perhaps look at what the perpetrators should have done differently. Instead of Trayvon’s hoodie, attention should be focused on Zimmerman’s gun and willful ignoring of police instructions. Instead of focusing on what a rape survivor wore or where she wore it, focus should be brought to why her “no” was ignored, why her attacker felt justified in violating her body. 

Respectability politics are a flimsy shield for the frightened, something held up in fear with hope that it can withstand the bombardment of a world that is neither fair nor predictable. Respectability politics are an empty promise of an attacker…”I promise not to hurt you” but they renege every time and all that is left is the victim blaming anytime someone falls short of the perfection respectability politics demand for empathy to be deployed.

Rape-y

*trigger warning

We are a country of technicalities. We want to know the letter of any law so that we can summarily break it or skate the fine edge of it- a hair’s width from stepping over the line, gleeful at our success either way. But rules aren’t everything and just because something is legal – or rather, isn’t illegal- doesn’t make it right.

This article in The Guardian works through complicated feelings about a sexual encounter. Far from the narrative some people try to paint of the air quotes rape survivor flinging false accusations, the author chooses her worlds carefully, measuring the full weight of the rapist label on both her and the man involved. She lays bare where and what she consented to, when she feels herself complicit and also where she believes fault lays at her then-partner’s feet. It is a nuanced perspective I have never read before, a perspective that moved beyond the legal definition of rape and even the general accepted understanding of what rape is. Laws about rape, while necessary, only address the obvious and odious result of rape culture; a brutal and penetrating act. Laws don’t even hint at the underlying issues.

I don’t understand the underlying psyche of serial rapists, for this discussion I am referring to the “rape-y” type behavior the guardian article focused on. I’m talking about the rape culture we nurture and feed without realizing that manifests in muddled consent, confusion, and fear. I’m talking about the gray areas that women find themselves in where they haven’t said yes exactly but haven’t said no and leaves a partner feeling violated.

We shorthand violation to rape, there is shock value there. There is rawness and brutality there. No sane and moral person wants to be on the side of rape culture.

But we also limit ourselves with that language. We limit ourselves. We set the bar for disdain at one level and ignore anything below it…even though violation and humiliation and degradation can and do exist below that line. In our world of absolutes- of living by the rules – if there are no rules against something than it must be ok.

More rules aren’t the answer. I understand the cumbersome nature of too many rules. I understand the pushback from affirmative consent rules/laws. But it isn’t about the rules…or rather, the conversation shouldn’t end at the rules. It shouldn’t be that people must ask “Can I kiss you on the lips?” “Can I kiss you on the neck?” “Can I slide my hand down your pants?” the point is permission. The point is consent. The point is communication. Sometimes we make rules for things and miss the point all together- I fear we have done that with sex. We have done that with relationships. We have “ruled” ourselves out of an ability to connect with another person. That doesn’t mean every sexual encounter has to be filled with love and marriage, only that engaging with another person’s body- even if your only interest is in their body – does not abolish their humanity.  

John Hughes movies are cemented into my brain from my youth– complete with soundtracks and quotes. But re-watching those movies as an adult I am dismayed by what I was consuming without realizing it. Sixteen Candles showcases rape culture. Washed away by her after-the-fact consent and the assurance that she liked it, the truth is that her trusted partner “gave” her, in her inebriated state, to another teen. Gave her to him and told him he could do whatever he wanted with her.

And therein lies the problem. We have raised our boys and our girls to view violation only through a lens of violent rejection of advances. We have molded the definition in such a way that it almost doesn’t exist in any way removed from holding someone down and penetrating them. But violations happen every day. Violations of trust that lead to violations of body. I ended up in a conversation about consent with a student once a. I don’t remember what led to the conversation only that his face changed when I talked about power dynamics and socialization. I mentioned the different reasons that people sometimes say yes to sexual activity. He stared at me as I talked about the desire to please, feeling as if you can’t change your mind, that you owe someone something, I mentioned fear of repercussions – emotional and physical, I talked about being “liked”.

“I never thought about that,” he said quietly, his burger resting uneaten in his hand.

I don’t believe he was a rapist- but willful or by accident, I do believe he, and almost everyone, is capable of violation. Capable of walking up to the state-declared line never dreaming of crossing it but crossing it just the same. If we don’t dare to have conversations about that than we are destined to have rape-y experiences populating women’s (and men’s) lives. If we don’t have conversations about what consent means and why it is important, how can we expect to have anything but pain?

Some people are assholes.

The truth is some people hurt people because they are hurt, because they are horrible people.

Others…others make bad decisions never having thought through their actions and the repercussions of them. And we must hold people responsible - bad information or not. But oh how I wish we could have better information, better communication and less violation.

Kimchi, Kale, and Quinoa

One of my art/craft project: mosaic box

I’m mood driven. I don’t mean “I feel sad” and so I sit in a dark room. Not that that hasn’t happened, only, that is not what I’m referring to now. Maybe it is more accurate to say I function in seasons. They are varied and often unrelated.

Working out, being social, cooking, reading, meditating, art classes. For a season (or several) I’ll have it in my brain that I want to make sure my life is full of that thing…whatever that thing of the moment is. Sometimes the things thread together and inspire a shift in my lifestyle for a while.

Last year it was cooking from scratch and reading. The beginning of this year started out strong with writing, mediation, and exercise…that incarnation seems to have been a short season.

Cooking has remained though. Not every day, but without fail or too much time, I return to it. There is something meditative about cooking for me, something soothing. 

I use to take random art/craft classes…pottery, stained glass, mosaics…because I found them soothing. I love the focus of creating, the stretch of learning new skills, the triumph of a final product. My house is littered with remnants of my previous classes. 

Cooking allows me that same focus, that same creativity, and the same final product…it helps that food is essential for life and my final product is put to wonderful use as breakfast/lunch/dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I love the stained glass piece I made, even as it sits unceremoniously in my window. But if I continue to make stained glass where will it go? Same with mosaics and pottery. In the absence of smaller art projects, cooking wins.

Last year I embarked on journey of randomness…baking brownies, naan, a romesco sauce (which involved charring red peppers in the oven) so that I could make the perfect egg sandwich. The list is long. recipes came from everywhere. I love allrecipes; yummly is ok.

Sometimes, when I dive into a recipe, it requires me to buy ingredients I am unlikely to use again. I’m pretty good about substitutions, sometimes calling on the experts, other times my own palate, but some ingredients are a must. The romesco sauce, for instance, called for hazelnuts and the remaining nuts are still in my cupboard. There was a dish that I don’t recall anything about except it required miso.I disliked the dish greatly but the miso is still at the back of the fridge. I have yet to perfect hummus so a huge container (I couldn’t find a smaller one) of tahini is still in the door of my fridge (how do you know when tahini goes bad?).

Shrug.

My empty vat of kimchi

My finished product

When I decided to try a quinoa, kale, kimchi (gotta love the alliterative sound of it) dish my friend sent me, I had to find kimchi, I was unable to find a small jar of kimchi from Koreana Plaza – my go-to Asian market. I could have gone elsewhere but I figured the chances of good kimchi (and I do love kimchi) were higher there. And so I came home with a huge jar…no…vat…of kimchi.

I live alone and so I cook mostly for one. I figured that kimchi would join the tahini…I was wrong.

I didn’t make the dish once, or even twice, I make it pretty often. At this point I refer to the measurements as a starting point but not prescriptive. 

The dressing calls for soy sauce , sesame oil , peanut oil (I never have this), and ginger. I buy young/small roots of ginger specifically for this dish because otherwise the fibers are tough and I find them distracting when I’m eating. I substitute the peanut oil with olive or vegetable, grate  the ginger as fine as possible, mix it together and set it aside. I like to give the ginger time to release its flavors.

The original recipe calls for a rice/quinoa mix. I do that sometimes, when I have (interesting) rice – which is rare because mostly I use quinoa for everything these days-but I find the mix cumbersome in part because it requires me to cook two different “starches” for the same dish in different pots. I don’t mind intensive recipes but that just strikes me as difficult for no particular reason.

So my quinoa set aside, here I do my own thing. Last night I sautéed cut shitake mushrooms with garlic and onion for a wonderful meaty texture and the beautiful aroma. I threw in spinach instead of kale, not even bothering to wilt it because my quinoa was still hot. I added some raw orange peppers, cilantro, and fresh chives. Slice a 6 minute egg in half and let the oak ooze, sprinkle on the ginger dressing, kimchi to taste, and sesame seeds and the meal is unbelievably colorful and forgiving.

It calls for an avocado but, much as I love that perfect green fruit, I rarely add it. It seems an odd addition and doesn’t have an opportunity elevate or shine in this dish. 

I used the last of the kimchi last night, making space in my fridge for…more kimchi. A dish this good demands to be made with some frequency.