Well. Here we are. Alive. "Hey, I, I, oh, I'm still alive," a poet once said. Although, Trump is still president-elect and, just when I didn't think things could get any worse, he named a Green Bay Packers fan his chief of staff. I know little about football but I do know that the Green Bay Packers are very bad. Hats made of cheese. Terrible, just terrible. I hang my head in shame for my homeland of the Midwest.
The liberal paroxysm in response to Trump's win has sure been heartbreaking. I have gotten no less than a dozen emails about volunteer opportunities, which is lovely but makes me wonder if these emails would have landed in my inbox had Hillary Clinton won. Meanwhile, others are affixing safety pins to their lapels in a stand "against bigotry and hate." So now you know anyone who is not wearing a safety pin loves or is at least neutral on bigotry and hate. I'm wearing a thumbtack because I'm confused and The Outline doesn’t have any sewing supplies.
While all the crestfallen Democrats flock to our nation's community gardens, the media is having some interesting spasms of its own. The New York Times, under attack from the president-elect himself after a robust journalistic failure of an election season, cannot seem to move forward without congratulating itself.Vox, a site for Westworld hosts, is extremely proud of its horrible election coverage as well. Let us pause and golf clap for their bravery.
The liberal paroxysm in response to Trump's win has sure been heartbreaking.
I’ve discussed in this Letter how objectivity in journalism is wrong and doesn't exist because journalists are allegedly humans with the capacity to think freely, and the election of Dodo Tromp has not changed that belief. (As the great Gwen Ifill said, "The key is not to be objective, it's to be fair. There is no reason to try to separate from the way you see the world. It is not possible to be objective.") But there’s also a dark flipside to the coin of false balance, which we’re seeing in stark relief now that a national tragedy has befallen our nation’s liberal media: performative woke privilege in the name of "taking a stand."
A recent example of this was on the website eater.com, which you may not think of as a political website. But now that Tremp is our leader, it has decided to take a stand in the name of performative woke privilege. In a post titled "We're Not Going to Tell You Which Immigrant-Owned Restaurants to Support," the site’s editors write that they’ve been "inundated with requests from readers throughout the country for lists and maps of immigrant- and minority-owned restaurants to support" in the wake of Daffy Duck’s election. But Eater will not cater to this request. As the editors write:
"We feel that it would be irresponsible to publish guides to restaurants owned by people whose lives and livelihoods may right now be threatened, because of the very real possibility that they would double as cheat sheets to help intolerant actors find new people, businesses, and families to target. In this chaotic moment, we believe it would be indefensible to widely broadcast the cultural affiliations or immigration status of any individuals or their families without their explicit permission."
Ahhhh. Ah. Ack. How should a food blog be in the wake of the election of a racist? Eater has covered some interesting and critical food issues quite well, from restaurants in refugee camps in South Sudan to the local fast-food movement in Watts. But this latest non-stand is paternalistic, alarmist, performa-woke drivel.
Sure, food is political. Everything is political! Just ask my uterus and all the mice living inside it, my preferred form of birth control in this new America. But is it Eater's job to "protect" immigrants and minorities who are not necessarily asking for protection (from a food blog, no less)? What if some of those immigrants and minorities... voted for Trump? Needless to say, this blog post is practically working for Trump by suggesting that he raid ethnic restaurants in New York City and deport the people working in them. "Great idea!" says Trump, reading eater.com for the first time. "I love this website!"
Shit is extremely weird right now, and the spectre of tragedy is in the air. But blustery statements from food blogs and easily Instagrammable movements like wearing a little safety pin don’t do much, if anything, to assist those perceived as vulnerable. They are acts that serve to comfort those already in positions of power while further othering the people they are purporting to help.
Shit is extremely weird right now, and the spectre of tragedy is in the air.
Instead of asking ourselves what feeble and/or counterproductive thing we can do right now, maybe it’s better to take a moment to examine how we got to this point in our popular discourse. For example, lately I've seen a lot of people (white) on the feeds offering apologies for their race. It might behoove people who feel the need to offer an apology for their race to remember that an apology is an inherently selfish imposition. An apology, after all, is a two-way street. It is intended for someone – in this case, I'm assuming a non-white person – and that individual must either accept or reject the apology, which is an emotionally fraught process and likely, in these cases, a very confusing one. In essence, an apology from a white person for being white is in itself an act of white privilege.
So… hmm. If you feel the urge to speak or tweet or Auto-Tune in reaction to Donald Tramp and all the vile shit he and his cronies have vomited across our reefer-rich plains, think about for whom you are speaking. And why. A wise man (my therapist) once said, "Guilt is between you and yourself."
A lot of stuff coming to the surface right now. It's like America is getting a facial. Or maybe a colonic. I'm not sure if any of it is good or bad, but I do know that my skin is breaking out and I feel quite empty.
Sign up to get Leah Letter in your inbox here.
