You don't have to listen.

One narrative that sounds pretty silly upon examination is, "You can't just delete anyone from your friends list who disagrees with you! Real life doesn't work like that." I understand the message; that it's impossible to avoid interacting with others who have a clashing worldview. That's true, but is rarely a person's actual goal.

We all know people we disagree with fundamentally on a variety of topics, and with whom we share virtually no values. Working, going to school with, and living among them is a necessary facet of belonging to human society. Learning how to talk to people we don't agree with is an important skill. But that doesn't mean we're obligated to listen to hateful, willfully ignorant, and destructive ideas in a setting where that's actually optional. I don't believe that every opinion that opposes mine is harmful, nor am I certain that I'm correct about everything. But I have blocked, deleted, and sometimes just unfollowed people for repeatedly posting malicious things. Opinions like "females are thots", "[X minority racial group] are disgusting," "Gay people deserve to be murdered," "Jews are greedy" and "Poor people are lazy moochers" are not nuanced, original ideas I've never previously been exposed to. They're so common that they're longstanding stereotypes. Saying you hate a group or that they should die/be severely punished for their existence is not an argument. Calling a group a name is not an argument; it's just a slur. Granted, that may also apply to calling certain ideologies bigoted—that saying they're bigoted isn't making an argument; just calling a name—and maybe I'm less likely to notice that because of my own biases. But when I say something is bigoted, I'm probably venting instead of trying to persuade others to agree, because it doesn't seem possible to persuade someone who's just shouting slurs. The slur-shouters honestly think they have a valid theory you need to hear, though, and that you're doing yourself a disservice by closing that channel. They also seem to think their ideas are unique and rebellious. Those who disagree are well aware that a more progressive stance is not unusual, and that it doesn't have to be unique to have value.

The Iconoclast Effect, or how Lisa Simpson teaches us to kill our heroes

            We've all become disillusioned with a personal hero at some point, whether it was someone we knew or someone idolized by many. When I hear a news story exposing a beloved figure for corruption, I'm often hesitant to share it. Not because the truth is secondary to the ideals a person may represent—it's not—but because it's painful to see their admirers' respect shattered. I've never wanted to be a killjoy. There are times when I wonder if it's really worth posting about the less positive aspects of Pope Francis, seeing as he (or at least his public image) brings hope to so many LGBT Catholics. Or if linking to articles about Mother Theresa's exploitation of the poor is too demoralizing to people who are currently living in poverty and hold her dear as an icon. Or if talking about the fact that John Lennon beat his wife is discouraging to people who find solace in his beautiful, although hypocritical, pleas for peace. I wonder if the end justifies the means, when those who admire these public heroes don't actually promote corruption or bigotry. They admire those figures because they believe them to stand for compassion. But if a person supports someone who commits harmful acts or holds toxic beliefs, then are they inadvertently promoting that same negativity? That may be the case, especially if victims of their behavior are still alive and continue to be affected. This doesn't mean it's wrong to enjoy a person's work, as the work itself may transcend its creator. But it does mean it's best not to see the creator as noble or to excuse their behavior because of what they've made.
          This always makes me think of a Simpsons episode from 1996 called "Lisa the Iconoclast." In the storyline, Lisa discovers that a historical town hero named Jebediah Springfield was actually a fraud. The whole town has revered him for a century, to the point of having a local holiday and parade in his name. Lisa tries to expose the truth about Jebediah with limited success. She writes an essay which is met with dismay from her teacher. She makes flyers to hang up on the Kwik-E-Mart windows, but Apu panics and forbids her to display them. At the end, she's standing in front of the parade and prepared to make a public statement. She's about to announce to the town that Jebediah was a murderous pirate operating under a false identity. But at the last minute, Lisa changes her statement and tells them he was great. Afterwards, the head of the Springfield historical society asks her why she did it. Lisa answers that it was more important to keep the townspeople happy than to expose Jebediah for who he was, because his legend inspires them and provides a sense of community.
           This ending bothered me a great deal as a child. I didn't see it as upholding a loftier goal, but as backing down on her principles. Springfield hero-worshipped a mass murderer and lived in ignorance. What could be more important than the truth?
           In hindsight, I see this episode as a lot more ethically complex. None of the people who had been robbed or otherwise wronged by Jebediah Springfield were still alive, and neither was anyone who would have been aware of his crimes. Placing the flyers on display in the Kwik-E-Mart would have likely jeopardized Apu's safety—not only because of the message, but because he was an Indian immigrant living in Springfield. Their region was insular and strongly focused on town pride. He was already seen as an outlier, so granting a platform for criticism of Springfield's beloved founder would have further reinforced that status. He would have gone from an outcast to a pariah. Lisa herself would have caused outrage, but most of it would have been directed at her parents. After all, her character is only eight years old. Everyone sees a young child's opinions as a direct reflection of their parents'.
            So, in Lisa's situation, I understand why she reached the conclusion she did and decided it was not a cause worth pursuing. The ending still leaves me unsatisfied, though. It feels like an injustice, both to Lisa's diligent efforts and to Jebediah's victims, to see her bury that fiery righteousness in order to appease the majority.
           In my imagination, there's an alternate world in which the Simpsons universe is real and the characters aren't suspended in time. Lisa grows up and publishes her research, which has not gone to waste. She doesn't have to announce it in front of an idealistic crowd, but it's there for those who want to find it. That's the ending I want to believe.
           And, in the end, that leads me to my conclusion about exposing flawed cultural icons. I think it's generally the ethical thing to do, but with caution and sensitivity and respect for the faith their admirers hold in their ideals. It may be difficult to find that balance, but it's worth striving for. It means knocking over a house of cards, but leaving the deck stacked for a more stable foundation.

Fetishization and fear

Most people seem to know a guy who rails against same-sex marriage but loves lesbian porn. The hypocrisy is pointed out, and it’s accurate. That type of attitude is hypocritical and wrong, although I’d say it’s not surprising.

For humans, the disgust and arousal impulses are very similar. It sounds counterintuitive because those feelings seem like opposites, but they stimulate the same part of the brain. That’s why a lot of people do things during sex that they might otherwise think of as “gross.” That’s why fetishes and phobias are often flip sides of the same coin. I learned that when a person has a fetish, it often used to be a phobia. It just happened to transform from a fear into something that intensely arouses the person, either by chance or as a coping method.

When someone is homophobic but also really into watching two women have sex, it’s both a fear and a fetish. Fetishes are usually applied to inanimate objects, whereas lesbians are obviously people, but a homophobe doesn’t see them as people. He sees them as objects he watches and fantasizes about and then rejects in disgust. (Women can definitely be homophobic too, but I’m using a straight man in this example because so many people have aptly brought up the fact that homophobic men who like lesbian porn are hypocrites.)

This can also be seen in politicians who draft anti-gay and anti-trans policies but are then caught having sex with gay and transgender people. If they’re sleeping with someone of the same gender, many people will respond by saying that homophobes are secretly gay. While it’s true that some are closeted and overcompensating, I’d say that it’s more than a matter of just being gay and not wanting the public to know. It’s a combination of fetishization and fear. If they are hostile toward the LGBT community, they are probably not respectful toward the person of the same gender whom they’re involved with. They most likely dehumanize them. And when a homophobic person is immediately assumed to be gay, that can reinforce the idea that gay people are their own worst enemies and that they’re the ones who are really oppressing each other, which absolves straight homophobes of responsibility.

How Ben Carson Inspires Anti-Choice Extremists

In light of the act of terrorism committed at a Planned Parenthood clinic last month in Colorado Springs, many have brought up the fact that mainstream anti-choice rhetoric often galvanizes the extremists. This rhetoric is frequently expressed by Republican political candidates, notably including Ben Carson. His stance is especially alarming when considering the fact that he’s lauded as the “reasonable” and “moderate” conservative option.

Carson is against same sex marriage, but enthusiastically supports the sanctity of marriage between church and state. He has also been consistently vocal about his anti-choice position. In an October interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he stated that he believes abortion should be illegal even in the cases of rape and incest. Carson presents himself as guided by even-handed logic and reason, but look at this quote from the interview: “I’m a reasonable person and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen.”

The above quote is a prime example of begging the question (although it’s a statement, not a question). He frames it in a way that already assumes certain factors—that abortion is “killing a baby”, and that people seeking abortions are doing so because they “like” to terminate pregnancies. As if they derive joy and fun from the experience. This is the type of assumption that inflames anti-abortion fanatics to the point of wanting to murder doctors and patients, because they see it as a genuine battle between good and evil.

As a person who has worked many years in the field of medicine and science, Carson should be well aware that an early-stage embryo is not a baby. Before it has a brain, it has no consciousness or subjective experience. Before it has nerves, it cannot feel pain. It makes no sense to personify such a pre-developed life form and to talk about it as if it experiences suffering. Because doctors are aware of this, their only reasoning for defining an embryo as a baby can be religious. This applies in Ben Carson’s case.

His religious ilk defends this rhetoric by citing Bible verses from Psalms saying “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.” Even purely within the context of that belief system, it can be argued that this isn't defining embryos as babies. It's King David talking about himself, not about all people. Additionally, Numbers 5:26-28 advises its readers to carry out a procedure that will cause their wives to miscarry if they suspect them of being pregnant with another man's offspring (“...If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.”) This is from a recipe to deliberately induce abortion. There are Old Testament passages in which “God” threatens to slice open the bellies of pregnant women (Hosea 13:16). Thus people can't accurately argue that the Bible forbids or even frowns upon ending the life of fetuses. Some might respond to the passages about cutting open pregnant women with, “Well, that's only under specific circumstances and only if ordered by God,” but that sounds like obvious straw-grasping. Going on to say “thou shalt not kill” is just talking in circles because no passage defines abortion as murder. Also, how many Christians take that to its absolute literal and all-encompassing conclusion? How many are vegetarians, for example? How many refuse to kill animals under any circumstance (if “all life is sacred”)?

The above argument aside, there is no reason a President or hypothetical President should be invoking religious rationale for laws in a country that is supposed to operate on separation of church and state. Ben Carson himself has acknowledged this in his explanation of why a theocratic Muslim is not fit to be president. For this issue, though, he doesn't seem to apply it to Christians.

The “Christian nation” he envisions may not include zealots opening fire at Planned Parenthood clinics, but his rationale packs the weight of their bullets. It’s time we start acknowledging the role that such viewpoints play in these acts of violence.

Passivity vs. Kindness

         Alongside the avenue of "women only date jerks," there's a common complaint that "She said she's not into him because he's 'too nice.'" I have heard people describe others as "too nice," although I've never heard a woman say she was disinterested in a man for that reason. Because it's such a commonly quoted basis for rejection, though, it's worth examining.

        Every time I have ever heard anybody described as "too nice," the person making the criticism was not saying the other was overly good-hearted, too considerate, or had too much integrity. An excess of those traits is impossible. What they were expressing was that the person was overly passive. And, while many use the word "nice" when they really mean "passive," saying someone is too passive is not just another way of saying "nice." While the traits can overlap, there is a distinction between kindness and passivity. And, for that reason, "Don't be too passive" doesn't mean "Be an asshole." It's not a spectrum; it's a whole different thing.

        "Too nice" is meant to convey that someone echoes everything you say without ever voicing a differing point of view, even when they disagree. It means they constantly apologize for things that are not their fault and they don't speak up for themselves or for others who are being mistreated, out of fear of confrontation. It means they might welcome harmful people into their own lives, or into the lives of those close to them, because they think it's "mean" to establish boundaries—which can end up causing others' boundaries to be violated as well. It means they follow another person around without seeming to have any interests, beliefs, or passions of their own. Being bland, overly meek, or clingy isn't the same as being "nice." Sometimes those qualities are actually motivated by self-interest, rather than a pure desire to please others.

         It's similar to the way that self-abasement is sometimes a defense mechanism, rather than a lack of ego (and a complete absence of ego is not something I would recommend trying to achieve, anyway). If you castigate yourself first, it can insulate you from being criticized by others. If you preemptively decide you're going to fail, it can exempt you from having to try. This is not true for everyone who has low self-esteem, but I have seen self-chastisement used defensively many times, and have caught myself doing it for those same reasons.

         You can be a good person who also happens to be passive, but passivity doesn't equate to goodness. And most people who call someone "too nice" are referring to the former quality, not the latter. Additionally, I've noticed that excessive passivity tends to be discouraged in men but praised in women, when every person should be encouraged to stand up for themselves and to have their own identity.

Raceless?

There’s a viral video by Prince Ea which has the tagline “I Am NOT Black, You are NOT White. These Labels were Made Up to Divide Us.” It’s a sentiment I’ve heard pretty often. While that often comes from benevolent intentions, it misses a necessary point.

Scientifically, there may not be much of a delineation between races, if any. And it’s absolutely true that none is innately more intelligent, capable, or worthy of being treated with dignity and afforded rights than another. But it sets us back to ignore the fact that our society continues to uphold a very Eurocentric, white supremacist standard, and that arguing that “whiteness” and “blackness” are just constructs doesn’t erase that from existence. The problem isn’t that we recognize aesthetic and cultural differences. The problem is that we place white culture and white aesthetics on a pedestal and set that as the standard by which all others are measured. When we decide not to see race, we also decide not to see racism. We decide not to see patterns of discrimination. After all, there’s no basis on which to call Jim Crow racist if we cannot acknowledge that it was white Americans oppressing black ones; if we just call it “people oppressing people.” Which it was, but to ignore the specific hierarchy is to dismiss the experiences of so many. Ignoring and denying a problem by saying its very definition is invalid doesn’t stop it from existing.

I have seen this manifest in several damaging, dismissive ways. When the Charleston church shooting occurred, there was a viral post featuring a newspaper headline with a hand blocking out the words “white” and “black,” so that it read “Man Shoots Up Church” instead of “White Man Shoots Up Black Church.” The meme said underneath, “The media is trying to divide us.” But to ignore the fact that this was a racially motivated hate crime is extremely harmful, and to say it has nothing to do with race is a lie. The shooter himself said it was racially motivated. Accepting that as truth isn’t “dividing” people; it’s being honest. He was the one trying to divide people by shooting up a black church.

This rhetoric is also damaging when used to reject “Black Lives Matter.” The blogger Onision recently tweeted, “Black Lives Matter--What the fuck is a ‘black life’??? Last time I checked, we’re all just people.” Obviously we’re all people, and the Black Lives Matter campaign has never denied this. What it highlights is the fact that people who are socially designated as black are all too often treated as though their lives don’t matter, and so taking pride in your black identity and proclaiming that your life matters is an act of empowerment. Essentially saying “Well, racism is your fault because you identify as black” is incredibly callous.

Additionally, I’ve noticed that most of the people spreading the “We’re all one race, so stop labeling yourself white or black” message are white. This doesn’t seem coincidental. Us white people can afford to see ourselves as raceless and to disassociate ourselves from our ethnicity; others don’t have that luxury because of how others treat them. This includes some people of minority races who have internalized those attitudes, but that ultimately doesn’t benefit them. Also, a lot of white people will say “there are no races” and then go on to spread propaganda about white people being persecuted by minorities, without awareness of the contradiction.

I’ve observed in my own life that whenever I’ve been “colorblind,” I’ve ended up inadvertently erasing people of color. This happens when I draw. This happens when I reblog photos on Tumblr. Unless I make a conscious effort to include people of color in the media I create and repost, they end up unrepresented. This is because I am not immune from subconscious racism, either. I’m not exempt from seeing white people as raceless default humans. This is why it’s necessary to be aware of this bias rather than deny and ignore it. We shouldn’t only be able to acknowledge that someone’s life matters when their non-white ethnicity is taken out of the equation.

The black feminist writer Audre Lorde once said, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” This is a situation to which this definitely applies.

Eulogy for a great creator

My grandparents in New Haven, CT in 1948, when Harold was a student at Yale Art School.

In one of my earliest memories of my grandpa Harold, we celebrated Hanukkah with a menorah shaped like a Christmas tree.

He wasn’t strictly religious, but he had a love for certain traditions. He didn’t follow them as prescribed, though. He had a way of making everything his own.

Passover meant sitting around my grandparents’ table with all my cousins while Harold told the story of Moses, passing candy around to demonstrate the ten plagues. The chocolate chips he gave us represented boils, and there were gummy frogs. The grand finale came when he’d bring out a big bowl of red Jell-O and “part” it by spraying a line of whipped cream down the center. Then he’d drop a handful of little plastic soldiers into the bowl, and we’d all dig in.

One year he told the Passover story by putting on a shadow play with my aunts and uncles. They set up a big screen and a light in the living room. Harold narrated while they acted it out with shadows of puppets. My grandma Kiki had made a witch puppet for the Angel of Death. She flew it across the screen on a cardboard broomstick, making it cackle with glee. Aunt Abbie’s hair was the burning bush. She crouched behind the sofa, revealing the silhouette of her wild curls as she shook her head around, mimicking fire.

Harold was an incredible storyteller. He didn’t write, but his inventive and articulate style met perfectly with his theatrical flair. He came up with thrilling sagas to tell his kids and then his grandchildren. He brought stories from the Torah to pulsating life. He invented epics about dragons and monsters. His sound effects were flawless. He knew when to whisper and when to shout. His eyes would pop wide as the momentum built. These adventures left us gripping our seats or shrieking with laughter. His everyday manner was as animated as his stories and art.

Harold did everything to maximum capacity, sucking the last bit of air from every experience yet leaving more for everyone else. He danced on tables. He rolled in the autumn leaves. He watched sad movies with tears streaming down his face. He smacked his lips in appreciation while he ate. I used to try to correct his table manners as a toddler. When I was two years old, I’d shake a finger at him and say, “Grandpa, you’re not supposed to chew with your mouth open. You’re supposed to chew like this!” I’d stuff my face and chew exaggeratedly, mouth closed, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. My whole family would laugh hysterically and I wouldn’t know why. Harold ate just as he was supposed to, though. He consumed, and he gave, with unrestrained joy.

It seems so appropriate that his middle name was Wolf. He always reminded me of a canine with his exuberant manner and love of people and food. With his exploratory nature and endless curiosity, he always seemed to gather a following that became his lifelong pack. Even his physical features were embracing and full. His round face, broad nose, and full lips conveyed generosity. I’ve never known someone so financially thrifty who gave so much.

The frugality had a lot to do with his upbringing. He grew up during the Great Depression in a family where he had to vie with his brothers for food. But this seemed to only feed his resourcefulness. When my mother and her siblings were little, he’d take them on family trips to the Bethany dump. They’d explore the junkyard to look for materials they could use in art projects. This became a time honored Rabinowitz tradition.

I can’t think of Harold without remembering that, or without thinking of Kiki. He and my grandma are forever linked in my mind. I’ve always said them as one word: “HaroldandKiki.” One of my favorite stories was the memory of how they got together. They knew each other from the time they were children. They went to junior high and high school together, but were only distant acquaintances back then. In their class photo, they’re seated next to each other. On the last day of high school, Harold signed Kiki’s yearbook with, “I’ll be seeing you! Ha ha ha.” Neither of them had any idea they’d see each other every day for seventy years.

They reconnected three years later on the day World War II ended. They found themselves at a mutual friend’s party to celebrate. They sensed an interest in each other they hadn’t felt before, and started dating. Kiki told me they went to a carnival for their first date. At one point during the night, they got stuck at the top of the ferris wheel. Harold smiled at her and asked, “Can I kiss you?” She laughed and said, “Well, I guess I can’t run away.”

            They were married a year later and rode their bicycles cross country for their honeymoon. And then, in the early ‘50s, they built their tall, gorgeously chaotic, ramshackle stone house. Kiki built it while she was pregnant. That’s how badass she is. They made friends wherever they went with their playful antics. After Kiki gave birth to their sixth child, they gifted the nurse with a watermelon wrapped in a baby blanket. Kiki told her, “We’re returning the baby. It leaks.”

Over the years, their house became a haven. It was a community in itself. They took in family friends. Many of their kids knew someone who, at least briefly, had lived at their home. They started their family business there, Rabinowitz Design Workshop (later renamed Witz End Workshop). Creative Arts Workshop also began at their house when they gave art lessons to kids from the area. They used to come over, and Kiki would make them all a big pot of spaghetti and hot dogs.

For two people who seemed like one entity, Kiki and Harold butted heads a lot. They had some pretty hilarious arguments. I’ll always remember them fighting over directions in the car. They’d be equally insistent about which way to turn. Finally Kiki would shout, “Goddammit, Harold, I’m not going to listen to you anymore!” and pointedly veer off in the opposite direction, even if it got them briefly lost. He’d do the same when he was the one driving. Despite this, I’ve never met two people more wildly in love.

They loved to dance together. Any time I visited, I’d see him grab Kiki and twirl her around in the kitchen while they laughed. If there was no music, they’d invent their own. They were constantly ad libbing silly songs and rhymes together. Harold was a master of words. He invented a game to play with his children, and later his grandkids, called Stinky Pinky. In the game, people took turns coming up with a pair of words that rhymed and then gave a short description. Everyone else had to guess what it was. For example, someone would say, “A wet puppy.” Others would guess what they had in mind until somebody said, “Soggy doggy.” If you guessed it, you won that round.

Harold could speak in iambic pentameter off the top of his head and improvise limericks and poetry. This made him really popular at parties. At one event he donned Kiki’s purple muumuu, held a pineapple in his outstretched hand, and began to recite Hamlet. At another he stood under the balcony in his living room and extended his wine glass, shouting “My cup runneth over!” At that exact moment, a guest tried to pour wine over the balcony into his glass, but it ended up spilling on his head.
               And, of course, there was the time his son had Show and Tell back in first grade and decided to stand up in front of the class and announce, “Last weekend my dad was at a party and had a lot to drink and fell into a big bucket of popcorn!” My uncle hadn’t been there to see it, but he’d heard the story. Harold wrote legends just by living.

This is why it was so sad when Harold had a stroke back in 2000 and lost a lot of his verbal abilities. He went from someone who could keep a whole room in stitches to having trouble articulating basic thoughts. I remember the look of anguish on his face as he once said, “I can’t say what I mean to say.” And, for a short time, he referred to everyone he spoke to as Kiki. It was because of the stroke, but it made sense. He loved Kiki so much that he saw a part of her in everyone.

Even so, he never stopped enjoying life. He still drew beautifully. He still saw friends and rejoiced in family. He laughed until the end and died surrounded by everyone who loved him; all the lives he had changed. In the end, I can only regret that he won’t be a part of the memorial celebration, because it would be just like him to surprise everyone by showing up in a jester hat or a purple dress, ad libbing satirical poetry. But he’ll be there regardless, because he is everywhere he’s painted and joked and sang.

          Harold is the world he created.