Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1022
August 11, 2015
The Oath Keepers come to Ferguson: Race, power and the not-so-secret history of white men with guns
According to multiple media reports, a group of at least four or five heavily armed white men showed up on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, overnight on Tuesday, following the street unrest around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Mike Brown and Sunday’s shooting of another man who allegedly fired on police. The men told reporters they were members of the Oath Keepers, a militia group that describes itself as nonpartisan supporters of the United States Constitution and says it includes many current and former U.S. military personnel, police officers and first responders. One of the men said they had come to Ferguson to protect correspondents for Infowars, Alex Jones’ conspiracy-oriented site – from whom or what was not clear – although Infowars subsequently denied having asked for armed backup. As we say these days, the optics of this murky and bizarre little media moment were troubling, to say the least. White dudes with bulletproof vests and assault rifles – weapons “that aren’t available at Walmart or Cabela’s,” as a St. Louis Post Dispatch reporter put it last year – and an unmistakable good ol’ boy vibe, patrolling an African-American neighborhood. Reuters reporter Scott Malone wrote that the men’s presence “added a disquieting element” to Ferguson, an unusual intrusion of opinion or analysis in a straight news story. St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar, who has struggled against the perception that his department is racially insensitive or worse, and has repeatedly responded to Ferguson protests with military-style force, described the Oath Keepers’ presence as “unnecessary and inflammatory.” What interests me about the Oath Keepers’ return to Ferguson – a similar cadre was spotted there last November – is less the event itself than the radically different perceptions it provokes. There is the way the Oath Keepers have been perceived by mainstream media and local officials, the way the Oath Keepers and their supporters apparently perceive their actions and, behind or beneath those things, the cultural and historical gulf between those perceptions. Seen on their own, these guys are an insignificant blip in the Ferguson news. But if we can move past a simplistic depiction of them as scary racist yahoos, I suspect they represent one aspect of a resistance drama playing out beneath the surface of American life. Anyone with any minimal understanding of American history and culture should be able to see the problem here – but then, one central aspect of the Infowars and/or militia movement mind-set is a profoundly paranoid reading of American history. Whatever their conscious intentions may be, these guys are channeling two interwoven and inextricable strands of deep American mythology: The icon of the white man with a gun, defending his property and his womenfolk, and the long and ugly history of American vigilante violence. On one hand you have John Wayne in “Stagecoach” and Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry” (and for that matter Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper”); on the other, you have the Ku Klux Klan bringing down Reconstruction with its reign of terror, lynch mobs hanging black men in the town square for offenses against the Jim Crow moral code, and Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, seeking to cleanse the Manhattan streets with blood in “Taxi Driver.” To put it mildly, these phenomena look radically different from opposing sides of the racial divide. In African-American history, the white man with a gun is not a nurturing or reassuring figure, or a symbol of liberty. There may yet be living people in Ferguson who can remember the last recorded lynching in Missouri, which was in 1942. Virtually the entire black community has heard those tales of terror passed down from their parents and grandparents. While African-American activism and resistance has taken many forms at many times (and I claim no special expertise) I think we can say without fear of contradiction that the mistrust of central authority and the federal government epitomized by the militia movement is not widely shared by black people. Going back to Ulysses S. Grant’s attempts to crush the Klan and enfranchise black voters, African-Americans have repeatedly demanded that Washington step in to enforce the law and protect their rights. The fact that every president between Grant and Dwight Eisenhower declined to do so was precisely what allowed the white men with guns across the South to enforce a social order of violent repression. So it is hardly surprising if many African-American residents of Ferguson view this contingent of camo-clad, heavily strapped red-state interlopers with a mixture of emotions running the gamut from “no” to “oh hell, no.” Which seems empirically more likely, given everything that has ever happened in the last three centuries of American history: That the Oath Keepers have showed up in Ferguson to protect citizens and property owners of all races (as they claim), or that they’re there to express their kinship and solidarity with racist cowboy cops like Darren Wilson and his ilk? When Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars responds with an outraged post lamenting the “demonization campaign” directed against the Oath Keepers by mainstream media and prominent #BlackLivesMatter activists, one may reasonably inquire: Dude, WTF? Pro tip: If you genuinely want to build alliances between your fringe political movement and the African-American community, sending heavily armed white men into a black neighborhood might not be the best opening gambit. I’m inclined, believe it or not, to take Watson and Infowars and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes at their word about not being old-school racists or white supremacists. (Even the Southern Poverty Law Center, although it describes the Oath Keepers in dire terms, does not call them racist.) In fact, I suspect that the Oath Keepers’ Ferguson road trip really was exactly that kind of attempt at cross-racial outreach, however deluded and misguided in execution. That’s the only explanation that makes sense of this peculiar little news moment, given that the path of least resistance for any right-wing resistance movement is always to stir up racial animosity. Look at those videos of Oath Keepers discussing the Second Amendment and related political issues with Ferguson residents, and the sincerity is obvious -- complete with a reference to the Black Panthers, the 1960s pioneers of Second Amendment activism. That interpretation might seem unduly generous in light of the comments section for Watson’s article, which was immediately overrun by scores of vile racist trolls and elaborate New World Order theorists, as per usual. But what we glimpse here, just for an instant, is an internal conflict on the anti-government extreme right about whether to try to shed its troglodyte racial past and seek alliances with other radicalized and disenfranchised groups who feel excluded from the political system. I'm not suggesting that the militia movement is likely to win many converts in urban black America. But even this misconceived attempt is one of many indications that we’re in a period of extreme political dysfunction and unease, when people on the ideological margins begin to regard each other in a new light. There is hope there, as well as great danger.
“I Am Chris Farley” director on the “SNL” star’s legacy and choosing not to dwell on the darkness: “If people want to dig in and do the autopsy of Chris Farley, it’s there. It’s on the Internet”
In Derik Murray and Brent Hodge’s tear-jerking new Spike documentary “I Am Chris Farley," a slew of famous faces are on hand to pay homage to the late “Saturday Night Live” star, from “SNL” head honcho Lorne Michaels to Farley's comedic peers and mentors Bob Odenkirk, Mike Myers, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Bob Saget, Dan Aykroyd and Adam Sandler. The film is a touching tribute to a man widely remembered as a genius of physical comedy and as a loving, generous, pure spirit, one who is recalled by his peers in almost hagiographic terms. As Michaels put it, praising Farley's innocence and generosity of spirit as a performer, "I used to say that he was the child that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi didn’t have. There was just a joy in everything he was doing." The film also focuses intently on Farley’s pre-fame life: His idyllic upbringing as a rambunctious, attention-seeking child in Madison, Wisconsin, and his shenanigans at Marquette University as the rugby team's resident hard-drinking party animal and a virtuosic theatrical performer just beginning to come into his own. What emerges is a picture of a man whose comedy was not separate from who he was as a person; rather, Farley was a born entertainer, a larger-than-life personality and a natural team player who sought to spread joy and laughter with everything he did, from getting expelled from school for exposing his penis on a dare to his fearless physical stunts as he rose rapidly through the ranks of Chicago's Second City. Yet of course, that is only half of Farley’s story. As Odenkirk says in one of the film’s rawest moments, “With Chris, there’s a limit to how wonderful it is to me. And that limit is when you kill yourself with drugs and alcohol. That’s when it stops being so fucking magical.” While the film works as a love letter and an intimate look at Farley's childhood, it is less successful at delving into the darker side of Farley’s nature that ultimately led him to 17 rehab stints and drove him to die of an overdose at age 33, or at interrogating the self-destructive tendencies that were the flip side of the insecurity and self-flagellation that informed much of his comedy. Unlike Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain documentary "Montage of Heck" or Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse documentary "Amy" -- both of which similarly depict self-destructive stars struck down in their prime -- Murray and Hodge paint their subject in a much more positive light, choosing to focus more on the joy he gave to the world and on his enduring legacy than on his dark and troubled inner life. In a quest to find out more, we spoke to co-director Murray on how the project came to be, his collaboration with Farley's family, and the decision not to dwell on Farley's darkness. As he put it, "That’s not my disposition or interest or purpose on this planet nor is it my co-director Brent Hodge’s .... That other notion of digging dark into that would be someone else’s film." How did the project come to be? The thing about Chris Farley was that he was this incredible comic storm on “SNL,” but myself and so many people in my world didn’t know much about him. Yes, he came from Madison and had Second City roots, but beyond that, who was he? I reached out to the family and actually met [his brother] Kevin Farley in Los Angeles. I met with him a couple of times and they weren’t searching or looking to do a film on Chris. Frankly, the many ways tabloids talked about Chris before and after he passed, his family didn’t feel this was something they were interested in. I had a couple of chats with them, started to build some trust and comfort, and we realized we wanted to make a film on Chris’s life and his comedy. We certainly weren’t going to run away from his addictions, but we wanted to celebrate who Chris Farley was. Once that was in place it was really wide open in a very Farley style. They embraced us and provided everything from home movies to scrapbooks to lengthy interviews, to Chris’ friends, camp counselors, what have you. They didn’t feel the need to get involved in the creative decisions or take a look at the movie in any particular stage. If we needed something, we’d reach out and if they could help they let us know. Flash forward, I put the final cut [of the documentary] on Kevin’s desk to watch and I heard silence. That’s always interesting. He finally called me and said, “I watched the film. It took me four hours to recover. I love it.” I was like OK, we are good. There’s obviously been so much coverage of Farley’s work and his comedic legacy. Was it important to you to show that more personal, familial side? Absolutely. Particularly when we started to see and understand the story. Going into it, that was a very big part of our mission. But you never know until you dive deep. You don’t know how the story is going to pan out, what access you’re going to get. But as we got deeper into it and the family embraced us, we started to really understand where Chris came from, his roots, what he was like as a kid and teenager. We spent a lot of time with the family. You get to hear stories about Chris as an elementary school kid taking his shirt off and leading an entire bus in song. It was like are you kidding me? Then you go into high school and he’s typing with his penis. It all became clear that Chris Farley was born Chris Farley. It wasn’t a career choice. This kid was on fire from day one. There was a quote in the film from Jon Lovitz saying that not all comedians, in fact most comedians, aren’t necessarily funny when they’re not doing comedy, but everyone in the film seems to agree that Chris was really funny on a very personal level. What do you think it is that made him so instantly endearing to everyone that he met? I think his childlike innocence. I think his absolute respect for everybody that he met and his absolute embracing — and the way he looked up to people, people who were moderately accomplished or moving ahead in their career or had reached that pinnacle in their career, Chris was in awe. He didn’t ever recognize that he was the guy that people were in awe of. Lorne says it best on our show: “‘The Chris Farley show,’ that’s Chris Farley.” That’s the guy. You hear Adam Sandler, David Spade talk behind the scenes and they’re all like, Hey, I watch this show because of you, and he’s nervous and happy to meet incredible people. Here is what it is too. He was the middle child of five kids in Madison, Wisconsin, in a household where the boys were in competition with one another, they were all into comedy, they were all watching the various movies that were coming out in the '70s, they were into Jackie Gleason, they were basically competitive the entire time. And Chris, I think in our film you will see, forged his position there. And his position was I’m going to be the funniest. I’m going to be the most competitive. I’m going to win. That just carried forward. There are two schools of thought on Farley — there are a lot of people who didn’t like his work because they thought it was just slapstick and sort of of dumbed-down physical humor. Yet your film was very concerned with showing there was true genius and a real intent and skill behind the physical comedy that he was known for. Oh yes. That’s exactly right. You hear comedy people like Dan Aykroyd talking about his physicality and his sensitivity and his skill level as an actor. If you watch some of these skits — of course we watched many of these skits over and over and beyond what’s in the movie — you see the guy can act. He could really act. Once you managed to figure out the matrix of how to get people in front of [our] cameras, because, of course, these guys are extremely busy and running around doing movies and TV shows, but once they’re in front of the cameras — that’s what we wanted to see, Chris Farley through their eyes, their experiences, their perception, from everything from him as a friend, him as a fellow actor, a fellow comedian. And we just rolled cameras. I think, to a man, the amount of talent Chris had was respected by some of the most talented people in the world. Can you talk a little bit about how you got access to all the film’s participants? I know that Lorne, for one, is quite difficult to get his hands on. What was important to the talent was that [our] intent was to celebrate Chris Farley’s genius and basically bring more of the comedy than the tragedy forward. They understood we were going to go there, but they wanted to make sure our intent was for the best. They wanted to know [that his] family was on board. Once we shared that yes, the family was on board, and here’s the past work we’ve done with icons in a respectful fashion, then the doors started to open. They were so incredibly accommodating considering their crazy schedules. Lorne, as you can imagine, I interviewed Lorne on a Saturday night in his office an hour before the dress rehearsal. That was the moment he was available and we were ready and we set up and he walked in and we did the interview. And you saw behind him, that’s actually the road map for “SNL” for the season. He was very forthcoming and surprisingly candid. I don’t know if it’s because Farley was, as the film suggested, somewhat of a son figure to him, someone very dear to his heart. I think Chris Farley was absolutely somebody that Lorne loved. Dan Aykroyd says it well, Chris’ creativity was never a question for Lorne. It was his lifestyle that Lorne was concerned about. We asked those kind of questions. We wanted to know what Lorne was concerned about. We wanted Lorne to talk about when Chris had to be sent to Alabama to recover for a period of time. We wanted to know what motivated Lorne to bring Chris back when he was in such rough shape. You know, everyone talks about "Tommy Boy," such an incredible Time magazine top 10 movie, but the reality is when the reviews came out, they panned it. And what was that like for Chris? [Lorne] was incredibly candid. I thought that Lorne was an instrumental part of this movie, and he was candid about his concerns [about] some of the things that transpired, and that’s, to your point, to some degree refreshing. In my opinion, it’s because of the love he has for Chris, but also the life lessons that all of us can learn in that situation. At the end of the day, addictions are something that many people fight with and your demise can be such that it doesn’t matter if you’re talented, it doesn’t matter if you’re a comic genius or a rock ‘n' roll singer or a well-to-do businessman — addictions, drugs and alcohol, will kill you. Obviously Farley was a very complicated person and I got the sense that his need for approval, his low self-esteem and the need to suffer for his comedy — which were all things that made him great — are also what led him to down this self-destructive path. I think you said it. It’s confidence. It’s like Bob Odenkirk says, “We think you’re incredibly funny. We think you’re a great guy. You’re super-talented,” and Chris would go, “No, I’m not.” I think you’ll see that come up in the film time and time again. He did not believe that the next day he could wake up and do it again. We’re by no means qualified to dig into addiction, and what happens to people, and why it happens, but I’m an observer and I’m also somebody that can bring forth the stories of those who were there. The one thing I found interesting was that you really get a sense all the way through [the film] that Chris is a team guy. He loved playing football in high school. He loved being part of a team. He loved to do rugby at university. The whole idea of improv was team play — you’re making everybody else great. If you made them great you were great and that’s how the team won. [The] moment in time where Chris started to go on that path where he really was in danger was when Hollywood said it’s not about the team anymore, it’s all about him. Every director, every studio wanted to give him 6 million, 8 million to do this, to do that. And he’s not part of a team. It’s completely now on his shoulders. I think that’s where we really start to hear people talk about that weight and how quickly it spiraled. If you really think about it, Chris is on “SNL” from ‘90 to ‘95. That’s five years. ‘95 to ’97 he was leaving “SNL” [and making] “Tommy Boy,” “Black Sheep,” “Beverly Hills Ninja.” That was a two-year period between leaving “SNL” and dying, with a landslide of movies in between. He was, as we said in the film, at that point in time, struggling through 17 rehabs in two years — and half a dozen movie projects. The math starts to come together pretty quickly. The film very much felt like a love letter to Farley, but did you ever have any impulses to show more of Farley’s darker side? I expected to see more of his downward spiral, and the film was pretty light on that. How did you make the decision not to delve into that territory? For us the attempt was to celebrate the life of a comedy genius. I think for us it was about comedy. If people want to dig in and do the autopsy of Chris Farley, it’s there. It’s on the Internet. He had a tragic ending and he was an addict. We said it loud and clear. Tom Arnold in the movie says, “I said to him, you can’t be a drug addict, an alcoholic, and be fat. Pick one.” If you go to our movie you’re going to laugh — and, judging by the screenings we’ve done all over North America, you’re going to cry — and you’re going to know the reason behind his death. You’re going to hear it from those who were closest to him. You’re going to feel their pain. And there it is. We just felt that the details of one night, or this type of detail, in many ways diminished the overall effect. We felt that it was becoming something that was contrasting toward the comedic spirit of Chris and his innocence and those around him. As a filmmaker you’re always torn. Am I going to go there? Am I going to push this wall? Where am I going to go with it? I think we worked in a way that we wanted the emotional sensibility to come forth in terms of the loss and the circumstance, but not necessarily getting into the autopsy. I understand the impulse not to be cheap or exploitative. But there are some moments like the Chippendales sketch, which was celebrated in the film as a high watermark for Farley’s career. In the past some of Farley’s costars, like Chris Rock, have said that that sketch was a dangerous turning point and “one of the things that killed him” because it kicked off this trend of exploiting his weight and his body for laughs. Was there any impulse to explore that more negative side of that performance? Chris was an incredibly physical presence. That physicality was his strong suit. The fact that he took his shirt off on national television is really the issue. Not the physicality, because he had been doing that his entire career. I guess from the perspective of the folks we interviewed, whether it was Mike Myers or Dan Aykroyd, or Will Sasso who talks about it, that sort of dark side, the idea that that was the demise, that’s where it all began, it never came forward. Chris, as you hear in the film, from a young age was quite happy to take his shirt off on a school bus, was quite happy to take his penis out in a typing class, quite happy to be naked. This was a pattern. I think it only really came into question dancing next to Patrick Swayze on national TV, but the reality was it was who he was. It’s not necessarily my favorite sketch. I’m quite partial to Matt Foley. But my god, it’s the sketch that is [part] of the history of comedy, and at the top of the list for many, many people. He had to be brave, there’s no question about it, but it took an incredible amount of skill. You watch that skit and he’s a better dancer than Patrick Swayze, for god’s sake. Do you think that the intensive physical comedy he was pushed toward in any way contributed to his downward spiral? Do you think his downward spiral was inevitable? I don’t think the physical comedy pushed him in that direction. I think the demons Chris was carrying with him started at an early age. He was a great athlete. Chris growing up played football, and in high school he was a varsity football player. When he went to university they didn’t have a football team, so he played rugby at the highest level. Imagine this, you’re going onto David Letterman and you do cartwheels onstage. You’re this giant bear of a man doing cartwheels. And Dave Letterman’s going, "I’ve never seen anything like that in 10 years." So was it taxing on his body? I’m sure it was. Lorne Michaels and David Spade tell you in the film that Chris didn’t break his fall. He was completely committed. He just went for it. I’m sure over time — we all age — those kinds of thing aren’t particularly good for you, but I did not get the sense from our cast that the physicality of his comedy was something that was preying on him. I think people in the industry were recognizing that there was so much more to his talent. The fact that the directors and movie roles were coming in were not about "fatty falls down." They were actually more complex and relied on the talent and the genius that he had. There was a lot of talk in the film about his father being a larger-than-life presence in Chris’ life and his constant desire to please his father. There has been some talk in the past about his father being somewhat of an enabler to him and not freezing his accounts when he should have, and not encouraging him enough to curb his habits. Was that something you heard at all in your research, or something you chose not to include? Unfortunately his father passed away very shortly after Chris died. There was obviously no access to interviewing the dad. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, in the Midwest, you hear about it, if you’re working at the asphalt company, whether you’re the dad or whether you’re Chris, you would take the boys out for beers and celebrate whatever you were watching, the football game or whatever’s on the tube. There’s that camaraderie. And alcohol does play a part of that, and of course it played a part in university life. We did not hear direct stories about family members enabling, but we certainly understood and it was clear that the culture that Chris lived in, as did millions of other people, was such that exposure and access to alcohol, and also to just that sensibility of have another drink was where he came from. It’s a tough one, because people look deep into the reasons, the blame, why it happened. I don’t know. I’m not an expert, but I have had people in my life that were subject to demons and had addictions and I haven’t figured it out. I don’t know anybody in my family who figured it out. Sometimes you feel hopeless and you look for answers. From my experience, they are rarely there. I think he was a comedic genius. I don’t think there’s any question about that. I think that he suffered from low self-esteem. I think the spotlight that was put on him very few people on the planet ever had. Very few of us do. I think that’s a triple threat. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Amy Winehouse film that recently came out [Asif Kapadia’s "Amy"]. I was struck by — obviously they are from different generations and different industries and different backgrounds — how there were so many similarities in their stories. They were at similar points in their careers, and they seemed like very sweet people who just couldn’t handle the fame and the pressure of all of these expectations on them. Were you thinking about any other similar stories as you were putting the film together? The one thing that’s interesting is, when you talk about Amy and Chris, is that they had such a quick rise. They were front and center in their profession. Everything becomes, in a way, a [set of] super-, super-high expectations, but pretty much anything and everything you want is right in front of you. It’s almost sort of handed over to you. I think that very few people are prepared for that. He had the heart and innocence of a child. He came from a small town, came from a loving, big family, he stepped onto the comedy world in Second City and rose quickly. Rather than going through [the typical] 5- to 7-year period to get to the main stage, this kid did it in a matter of months. Then all of a sudden he’s on “SNL” in New York City. Then five episodes into “SNL” there’s "Chippendales." Boom. The trajectory was out of sight. Look at the cast he was with. Look at the writers who were in that room. If you have any kind of insecurity — yes you made it, but now that you made it, look at the competition, look at the people in this room. You better be on your game every second of every day. The pressure has to be astronomical. Had you not had the family working with you, would you have attempted to delve a little bit more into the darker aspects of Chris’ family? Did you ever feel constricted? No. I never felt constricted at all. Honestly, this wouldn’t be the film without the family. We just wouldn’t have gotten to know Chris. Therefore the motivation would have been, OK, we’re going to show him as a star through the people who worked with him and then dive to the dark side — that’s not my disposition or interest or purpose on this planet nor is it my co-director Brent Hodge’s. We really wanted this story to share about Chris Farley. That other notion of digging [into the] dark, that would be someone else’s film.In Derik Murray and Brent Hodge’s tear-jerking new Spike documentary “I Am Chris Farley," a slew of famous faces are on hand to pay homage to the late “Saturday Night Live” star, from “SNL” head honcho Lorne Michaels to Farley's comedic peers and mentors Bob Odenkirk, Mike Myers, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Bob Saget, Dan Aykroyd and Adam Sandler. The film is a touching tribute to a man widely remembered as a genius of physical comedy and as a loving, generous, pure spirit, one who is recalled by his peers in almost hagiographic terms. As Michaels put it, praising Farley's innocence and generosity of spirit as a performer, "I used to say that he was the child that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi didn’t have. There was just a joy in everything he was doing." The film also focuses intently on Farley’s pre-fame life: His idyllic upbringing as a rambunctious, attention-seeking child in Madison, Wisconsin, and his shenanigans at Marquette University as the rugby team's resident hard-drinking party animal and a virtuosic theatrical performer just beginning to come into his own. What emerges is a picture of a man whose comedy was not separate from who he was as a person; rather, Farley was a born entertainer, a larger-than-life personality and a natural team player who sought to spread joy and laughter with everything he did, from getting expelled from school for exposing his penis on a dare to his fearless physical stunts as he rose rapidly through the ranks of Chicago's Second City. Yet of course, that is only half of Farley’s story. As Odenkirk says in one of the film’s rawest moments, “With Chris, there’s a limit to how wonderful it is to me. And that limit is when you kill yourself with drugs and alcohol. That’s when it stops being so fucking magical.” While the film works as a love letter and an intimate look at Farley's childhood, it is less successful at delving into the darker side of Farley’s nature that ultimately led him to 17 rehab stints and drove him to die of an overdose at age 33, or at interrogating the self-destructive tendencies that were the flip side of the insecurity and self-flagellation that informed much of his comedy. Unlike Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain documentary "Montage of Heck" or Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse documentary "Amy" -- both of which similarly depict self-destructive stars struck down in their prime -- Murray and Hodge paint their subject in a much more positive light, choosing to focus more on the joy he gave to the world and on his enduring legacy than on his dark and troubled inner life. In a quest to find out more, we spoke to co-director Murray on how the project came to be, his collaboration with Farley's family, and the decision not to dwell on Farley's darkness. As he put it, "That’s not my disposition or interest or purpose on this planet nor is it my co-director Brent Hodge’s .... That other notion of digging dark into that would be someone else’s film." How did the project come to be? The thing about Chris Farley was that he was this incredible comic storm on “SNL,” but myself and so many people in my world didn’t know much about him. Yes, he came from Madison and had Second City roots, but beyond that, who was he? I reached out to the family and actually met [his brother] Kevin Farley in Los Angeles. I met with him a couple of times and they weren’t searching or looking to do a film on Chris. Frankly, the many ways tabloids talked about Chris before and after he passed, his family didn’t feel this was something they were interested in. I had a couple of chats with them, started to build some trust and comfort, and we realized we wanted to make a film on Chris’s life and his comedy. We certainly weren’t going to run away from his addictions, but we wanted to celebrate who Chris Farley was. Once that was in place it was really wide open in a very Farley style. They embraced us and provided everything from home movies to scrapbooks to lengthy interviews, to Chris’ friends, camp counselors, what have you. They didn’t feel the need to get involved in the creative decisions or take a look at the movie in any particular stage. If we needed something, we’d reach out and if they could help they let us know. Flash forward, I put the final cut [of the documentary] on Kevin’s desk to watch and I heard silence. That’s always interesting. He finally called me and said, “I watched the film. It took me four hours to recover. I love it.” I was like OK, we are good. There’s obviously been so much coverage of Farley’s work and his comedic legacy. Was it important to you to show that more personal, familial side? Absolutely. Particularly when we started to see and understand the story. Going into it, that was a very big part of our mission. But you never know until you dive deep. You don’t know how the story is going to pan out, what access you’re going to get. But as we got deeper into it and the family embraced us, we started to really understand where Chris came from, his roots, what he was like as a kid and teenager. We spent a lot of time with the family. You get to hear stories about Chris as an elementary school kid taking his shirt off and leading an entire bus in song. It was like are you kidding me? Then you go into high school and he’s typing with his penis. It all became clear that Chris Farley was born Chris Farley. It wasn’t a career choice. This kid was on fire from day one. There was a quote in the film from Jon Lovitz saying that not all comedians, in fact most comedians, aren’t necessarily funny when they’re not doing comedy, but everyone in the film seems to agree that Chris was really funny on a very personal level. What do you think it is that made him so instantly endearing to everyone that he met? I think his childlike innocence. I think his absolute respect for everybody that he met and his absolute embracing — and the way he looked up to people, people who were moderately accomplished or moving ahead in their career or had reached that pinnacle in their career, Chris was in awe. He didn’t ever recognize that he was the guy that people were in awe of. Lorne says it best on our show: “‘The Chris Farley show,’ that’s Chris Farley.” That’s the guy. You hear Adam Sandler, David Spade talk behind the scenes and they’re all like, Hey, I watch this show because of you, and he’s nervous and happy to meet incredible people. Here is what it is too. He was the middle child of five kids in Madison, Wisconsin, in a household where the boys were in competition with one another, they were all into comedy, they were all watching the various movies that were coming out in the '70s, they were into Jackie Gleason, they were basically competitive the entire time. And Chris, I think in our film you will see, forged his position there. And his position was I’m going to be the funniest. I’m going to be the most competitive. I’m going to win. That just carried forward. There are two schools of thought on Farley — there are a lot of people who didn’t like his work because they thought it was just slapstick and sort of of dumbed-down physical humor. Yet your film was very concerned with showing there was true genius and a real intent and skill behind the physical comedy that he was known for. Oh yes. That’s exactly right. You hear comedy people like Dan Aykroyd talking about his physicality and his sensitivity and his skill level as an actor. If you watch some of these skits — of course we watched many of these skits over and over and beyond what’s in the movie — you see the guy can act. He could really act. Once you managed to figure out the matrix of how to get people in front of [our] cameras, because, of course, these guys are extremely busy and running around doing movies and TV shows, but once they’re in front of the cameras — that’s what we wanted to see, Chris Farley through their eyes, their experiences, their perception, from everything from him as a friend, him as a fellow actor, a fellow comedian. And we just rolled cameras. I think, to a man, the amount of talent Chris had was respected by some of the most talented people in the world. Can you talk a little bit about how you got access to all the film’s participants? I know that Lorne, for one, is quite difficult to get his hands on. What was important to the talent was that [our] intent was to celebrate Chris Farley’s genius and basically bring more of the comedy than the tragedy forward. They understood we were going to go there, but they wanted to make sure our intent was for the best. They wanted to know [that his] family was on board. Once we shared that yes, the family was on board, and here’s the past work we’ve done with icons in a respectful fashion, then the doors started to open. They were so incredibly accommodating considering their crazy schedules. Lorne, as you can imagine, I interviewed Lorne on a Saturday night in his office an hour before the dress rehearsal. That was the moment he was available and we were ready and we set up and he walked in and we did the interview. And you saw behind him, that’s actually the road map for “SNL” for the season. He was very forthcoming and surprisingly candid. I don’t know if it’s because Farley was, as the film suggested, somewhat of a son figure to him, someone very dear to his heart. I think Chris Farley was absolutely somebody that Lorne loved. Dan Aykroyd says it well, Chris’ creativity was never a question for Lorne. It was his lifestyle that Lorne was concerned about. We asked those kind of questions. We wanted to know what Lorne was concerned about. We wanted Lorne to talk about when Chris had to be sent to Alabama to recover for a period of time. We wanted to know what motivated Lorne to bring Chris back when he was in such rough shape. You know, everyone talks about "Tommy Boy," such an incredible Time magazine top 10 movie, but the reality is when the reviews came out, they panned it. And what was that like for Chris? [Lorne] was incredibly candid. I thought that Lorne was an instrumental part of this movie, and he was candid about his concerns [about] some of the things that transpired, and that’s, to your point, to some degree refreshing. In my opinion, it’s because of the love he has for Chris, but also the life lessons that all of us can learn in that situation. At the end of the day, addictions are something that many people fight with and your demise can be such that it doesn’t matter if you’re talented, it doesn’t matter if you’re a comic genius or a rock ‘n' roll singer or a well-to-do businessman — addictions, drugs and alcohol, will kill you. Obviously Farley was a very complicated person and I got the sense that his need for approval, his low self-esteem and the need to suffer for his comedy — which were all things that made him great — are also what led him to down this self-destructive path. I think you said it. It’s confidence. It’s like Bob Odenkirk says, “We think you’re incredibly funny. We think you’re a great guy. You’re super-talented,” and Chris would go, “No, I’m not.” I think you’ll see that come up in the film time and time again. He did not believe that the next day he could wake up and do it again. We’re by no means qualified to dig into addiction, and what happens to people, and why it happens, but I’m an observer and I’m also somebody that can bring forth the stories of those who were there. The one thing I found interesting was that you really get a sense all the way through [the film] that Chris is a team guy. He loved playing football in high school. He loved being part of a team. He loved to do rugby at university. The whole idea of improv was team play — you’re making everybody else great. If you made them great you were great and that’s how the team won. [The] moment in time where Chris started to go on that path where he really was in danger was when Hollywood said it’s not about the team anymore, it’s all about him. Every director, every studio wanted to give him 6 million, 8 million to do this, to do that. And he’s not part of a team. It’s completely now on his shoulders. I think that’s where we really start to hear people talk about that weight and how quickly it spiraled. If you really think about it, Chris is on “SNL” from ‘90 to ‘95. That’s five years. ‘95 to ’97 he was leaving “SNL” [and making] “Tommy Boy,” “Black Sheep,” “Beverly Hills Ninja.” That was a two-year period between leaving “SNL” and dying, with a landslide of movies in between. He was, as we said in the film, at that point in time, struggling through 17 rehabs in two years — and half a dozen movie projects. The math starts to come together pretty quickly. The film very much felt like a love letter to Farley, but did you ever have any impulses to show more of Farley’s darker side? I expected to see more of his downward spiral, and the film was pretty light on that. How did you make the decision not to delve into that territory? For us the attempt was to celebrate the life of a comedy genius. I think for us it was about comedy. If people want to dig in and do the autopsy of Chris Farley, it’s there. It’s on the Internet. He had a tragic ending and he was an addict. We said it loud and clear. Tom Arnold in the movie says, “I said to him, you can’t be a drug addict, an alcoholic, and be fat. Pick one.” If you go to our movie you’re going to laugh — and, judging by the screenings we’ve done all over North America, you’re going to cry — and you’re going to know the reason behind his death. You’re going to hear it from those who were closest to him. You’re going to feel their pain. And there it is. We just felt that the details of one night, or this type of detail, in many ways diminished the overall effect. We felt that it was becoming something that was contrasting toward the comedic spirit of Chris and his innocence and those around him. As a filmmaker you’re always torn. Am I going to go there? Am I going to push this wall? Where am I going to go with it? I think we worked in a way that we wanted the emotional sensibility to come forth in terms of the loss and the circumstance, but not necessarily getting into the autopsy. I understand the impulse not to be cheap or exploitative. But there are some moments like the Chippendales sketch, which was celebrated in the film as a high watermark for Farley’s career. In the past some of Farley’s costars, like Chris Rock, have said that that sketch was a dangerous turning point and “one of the things that killed him” because it kicked off this trend of exploiting his weight and his body for laughs. Was there any impulse to explore that more negative side of that performance? Chris was an incredibly physical presence. That physicality was his strong suit. The fact that he took his shirt off on national television is really the issue. Not the physicality, because he had been doing that his entire career. I guess from the perspective of the folks we interviewed, whether it was Mike Myers or Dan Aykroyd, or Will Sasso who talks about it, that sort of dark side, the idea that that was the demise, that’s where it all began, it never came forward. Chris, as you hear in the film, from a young age was quite happy to take his shirt off on a school bus, was quite happy to take his penis out in a typing class, quite happy to be naked. This was a pattern. I think it only really came into question dancing next to Patrick Swayze on national TV, but the reality was it was who he was. It’s not necessarily my favorite sketch. I’m quite partial to Matt Foley. But my god, it’s the sketch that is [part] of the history of comedy, and at the top of the list for many, many people. He had to be brave, there’s no question about it, but it took an incredible amount of skill. You watch that skit and he’s a better dancer than Patrick Swayze, for god’s sake. Do you think that the intensive physical comedy he was pushed toward in any way contributed to his downward spiral? Do you think his downward spiral was inevitable? I don’t think the physical comedy pushed him in that direction. I think the demons Chris was carrying with him started at an early age. He was a great athlete. Chris growing up played football, and in high school he was a varsity football player. When he went to university they didn’t have a football team, so he played rugby at the highest level. Imagine this, you’re going onto David Letterman and you do cartwheels onstage. You’re this giant bear of a man doing cartwheels. And Dave Letterman’s going, "I’ve never seen anything like that in 10 years." So was it taxing on his body? I’m sure it was. Lorne Michaels and David Spade tell you in the film that Chris didn’t break his fall. He was completely committed. He just went for it. I’m sure over time — we all age — those kinds of thing aren’t particularly good for you, but I did not get the sense from our cast that the physicality of his comedy was something that was preying on him. I think people in the industry were recognizing that there was so much more to his talent. The fact that the directors and movie roles were coming in were not about "fatty falls down." They were actually more complex and relied on the talent and the genius that he had. There was a lot of talk in the film about his father being a larger-than-life presence in Chris’ life and his constant desire to please his father. There has been some talk in the past about his father being somewhat of an enabler to him and not freezing his accounts when he should have, and not encouraging him enough to curb his habits. Was that something you heard at all in your research, or something you chose not to include? Unfortunately his father passed away very shortly after Chris died. There was obviously no access to interviewing the dad. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, in the Midwest, you hear about it, if you’re working at the asphalt company, whether you’re the dad or whether you’re Chris, you would take the boys out for beers and celebrate whatever you were watching, the football game or whatever’s on the tube. There’s that camaraderie. And alcohol does play a part of that, and of course it played a part in university life. We did not hear direct stories about family members enabling, but we certainly understood and it was clear that the culture that Chris lived in, as did millions of other people, was such that exposure and access to alcohol, and also to just that sensibility of have another drink was where he came from. It’s a tough one, because people look deep into the reasons, the blame, why it happened. I don’t know. I’m not an expert, but I have had people in my life that were subject to demons and had addictions and I haven’t figured it out. I don’t know anybody in my family who figured it out. Sometimes you feel hopeless and you look for answers. From my experience, they are rarely there. I think he was a comedic genius. I don’t think there’s any question about that. I think that he suffered from low self-esteem. I think the spotlight that was put on him very few people on the planet ever had. Very few of us do. I think that’s a triple threat. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Amy Winehouse film that recently came out [Asif Kapadia’s "Amy"]. I was struck by — obviously they are from different generations and different industries and different backgrounds — how there were so many similarities in their stories. They were at similar points in their careers, and they seemed like very sweet people who just couldn’t handle the fame and the pressure of all of these expectations on them. Were you thinking about any other similar stories as you were putting the film together? The one thing that’s interesting is, when you talk about Amy and Chris, is that they had such a quick rise. They were front and center in their profession. Everything becomes, in a way, a [set of] super-, super-high expectations, but pretty much anything and everything you want is right in front of you. It’s almost sort of handed over to you. I think that very few people are prepared for that. He had the heart and innocence of a child. He came from a small town, came from a loving, big family, he stepped onto the comedy world in Second City and rose quickly. Rather than going through [the typical] 5- to 7-year period to get to the main stage, this kid did it in a matter of months. Then all of a sudden he’s on “SNL” in New York City. Then five episodes into “SNL” there’s "Chippendales." Boom. The trajectory was out of sight. Look at the cast he was with. Look at the writers who were in that room. If you have any kind of insecurity — yes you made it, but now that you made it, look at the competition, look at the people in this room. You better be on your game every second of every day. The pressure has to be astronomical. Had you not had the family working with you, would you have attempted to delve a little bit more into the darker aspects of Chris’ family? Did you ever feel constricted? No. I never felt constricted at all. Honestly, this wouldn’t be the film without the family. We just wouldn’t have gotten to know Chris. Therefore the motivation would have been, OK, we’re going to show him as a star through the people who worked with him and then dive to the dark side — that’s not my disposition or interest or purpose on this planet nor is it my co-director Brent Hodge’s. We really wanted this story to share about Chris Farley. That other notion of digging [into the] dark, that would be someone else’s film.
“I’m worth it”: How a self-help refrain became the pop anthem of the summer
We live in a moment of totally sick horn intros. Pharrell’s “Happy” and Ariana Grande’s “Problem” each kick off with catchy brass hooks; smash hits “Uptown Funk” from Mark Ronson and “Shake It Off” from Taylor Swift depend on horns to bring their choruses home. These four pop acts—chart-topping veterans, at this point—were joined this summer by a serviceable, slim track from a girl group called Fifth Harmony, whose unbelievably catchy “Worth It” became a surprise Billboard top 20 hit. Fifth Harmony is a five-member girl band, à la One Direction. The youngest, Dinah, is 18; the oldest, Ally, is just 22. They formed three years ago on the second season of “The X Factor,” the Simon Cowell-helmed reality-television show on Fox that was canceled after just four seasons. They’re known for having very enthusiastic fans, many of whom have followed the group since the television show. These fans are called Harmonizers, and most of them are teenagers—although for $19.99, you too can become an official Harmonizer, if you want. Still, despite the rabid fan base, “Worth It’s" success surprised Fifth Harmony; the now-platinum single followed “BO$$” and “Sledgehammer” off of their debut album, “Reflection.” After all, in addition to being performed by relative unknowns, “Worth It” features rapper Kid Ink, himself a relative unknown. That catchy horn hook is Middle Eastern-inflected saxophone, of all things—the addition of the track’s Israeli-American producer, Ori Kaplan. “Worth It” is a very manufactured pop song, but that it snuck into the incredibly managed world of top-40 pop music is fascinating indeed. Kaplan’s horns, naturally, carry a lot of the weight, and the Harmonizers, of course, deserve a lot of the credit as well. But it’s really the “I’m worth it” of “Worth It” that makes the song into an instant pop anthem; the song’s unapologetic refrain claims power both in the bedroom and the boardroom. Seriously: The lyrics work almost as well for salary negotiation as they do for sexual empowerment, and in the music video, Fifth Harmony doubles down on that. The women are backed by a wall of stock tickers, and for their solos, they’re wearing deconstructed business suits—while voguing on desks, playing mini golf in corner offices, and lounging in the backseat of chauffeured convertibles. The timing, musically, is impeccable. “Worth It” is the doppelgänger to The Weeknd’s “Earned It,” an inescapable pop hit from last year that was featured on the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack. The single is a crooning R&B serenade, albeit updated to hit hipster sensibilities, mostly with lots and lots of synth. Musically, it’s a better song. Semiotically, its “worth it” is not “I’m worth it,” but rather, “girl, you’re worth it”; the singer points out that the subject of the song is specifically worth it because she’s “earned it.” Beyoncé, on Famous Kels’ track “I’m Worth It,” sings the titular hook: “He said / He said / I’m worth it / I’m worth it.” To which Kels responds: “Damn right you’re worth it / Fuck me good on purpose.” Kels’ love song—for it is a love song, despite my selective characterization—has the rapper articulating why he thinks his girl is worth marrying. The implication from both Kels and The Weeknd, though, is that worth is something bestowed from a man to a woman. Being “worth it,” especially for women, is a constant source of struggle—whenever a subsection of the population is historically defined for their utility to their oppressors, some internal angst is expected. Naturally, the struggle of female worth is one that marketing has seized on—L’Oreal’s most famous slogan is “Because I’m worth it,” which was amended to “Because you’re worth it” and then, later, “Because we’re worth it.” It’s a sticky wicket—one that sounds like empowerment, but hinges on the purchase of cosmetics to deliver that power. You see the same thread in that most-dreaded section of the bookstore, self-help. “I’m worth it” goes hand-in-hand with the self-help conception of self-worth, and can be found said emphatically in any number of texts that speak to people in dire straits, physically, emotionally or financially. It can be sincere, but there’s desperation in its tone; the self-worth doth posture too much. The person most likely to lean on “I’m worth it” is the one who doesn’t feel it. This is encapsulated rather beautifully in Nicki Minaj’s plaintive “Marilyn Monroe,” she raps, “I’ll never be perfect / believe me I’m worth it.” This is not an anthem of perceived strength, it’s a ballad of vulnerability; Minaj is trying to convince the listener or herself that she’s better than what she feels herself to be. Trust Missy Elliott, way back in 2002, to have seized upon “worth it” and turned it into part of a narrative on having sex when and how she pleases, with “is it worth it? / let me work it,” the first lines of “Work It.” In Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It,” there is not even a question—no opportunity for even the merest hesitation: “Give it to me / I’m worth it / Baby I’m worth it / Uh huh I’m worth it / Gimme gimme I’m worth it.” Later lines include: “I think I’m a call you bluff / Hurry up / I’m waiting out front” and “I don’t wanna waste my time … Come and make it worth my while.” In an interview with MTV about their corporate-inflected music video, Fifth Harmony directly referenced feminism.
Camila revealed how they fan-sourced the messages scrolling across the ticker. “We also wanted to incorporate feminism and girl power and our fans, so we kind of did this Twitter thing where we… told them to send in tweets saying why they think feminism is sexy and why they think it’s cool and why they think women empowerment is awesome,” she said. “We can also say that the gender roles were kind of swapped within the music video,” Normani added. “That’s a point that we really wanted to make sure that stood out.”There is something hilariously reductive about “feminism” and “girl power” in the above quotes; certainly, Normani explaining that the “gender roles were kind of swapped” is so earnest it’s almost painful. But at the same time, there’s something incredible about how simply the lines are drawn for Fifth Harmony, from attitudinal assurance to gender equality. It could be seen as reductive, but there’s something ideologically refined about it, too. “I’m worth it” is so self-evident it needs no lyrical qualifiers—just a long saxophone riff. Beyoncé’s “All the Single Ladies” transformed a club DJ’s standard refrain—that all the single women put their hands up, so that men looking for partners could find them—into an anthem of empowerment. To paraphrase Martin Seay, no DJ will be able to call out “all the single ladies, put your hands up” again without invoking a different message entirely. The same, to some degree, is true of “Worth It”—L’Oreal’s condescending “Because you’re worth it” responded to with a raucous “gimme gimme.” “Worth It” is a reminder of the effortlessness that feminism aspires to, an effortlessness that does not seem possible in our world of made-up Planned Parenthood controversies and apologizing Megyn Kellys. A world where the struggle for gender equity is not all-encompassing, because the implication that women were not worth it right from the start would be risible. Fortunately, as it’s ideally listened to at high volume with the windows down — or turned all the way up on the dance floor — it’s one hell of a vision for the future.We live in a moment of totally sick horn intros. Pharrell’s “Happy” and Ariana Grande’s “Problem” each kick off with catchy brass hooks; smash hits “Uptown Funk” from Mark Ronson and “Shake It Off” from Taylor Swift depend on horns to bring their choruses home. These four pop acts—chart-topping veterans, at this point—were joined this summer by a serviceable, slim track from a girl group called Fifth Harmony, whose unbelievably catchy “Worth It” became a surprise Billboard top 20 hit. Fifth Harmony is a five-member girl band, à la One Direction. The youngest, Dinah, is 18; the oldest, Ally, is just 22. They formed three years ago on the second season of “The X Factor,” the Simon Cowell-helmed reality-television show on Fox that was canceled after just four seasons. They’re known for having very enthusiastic fans, many of whom have followed the group since the television show. These fans are called Harmonizers, and most of them are teenagers—although for $19.99, you too can become an official Harmonizer, if you want. Still, despite the rabid fan base, “Worth It’s" success surprised Fifth Harmony; the now-platinum single followed “BO$$” and “Sledgehammer” off of their debut album, “Reflection.” After all, in addition to being performed by relative unknowns, “Worth It” features rapper Kid Ink, himself a relative unknown. That catchy horn hook is Middle Eastern-inflected saxophone, of all things—the addition of the track’s Israeli-American producer, Ori Kaplan. “Worth It” is a very manufactured pop song, but that it snuck into the incredibly managed world of top-40 pop music is fascinating indeed. Kaplan’s horns, naturally, carry a lot of the weight, and the Harmonizers, of course, deserve a lot of the credit as well. But it’s really the “I’m worth it” of “Worth It” that makes the song into an instant pop anthem; the song’s unapologetic refrain claims power both in the bedroom and the boardroom. Seriously: The lyrics work almost as well for salary negotiation as they do for sexual empowerment, and in the music video, Fifth Harmony doubles down on that. The women are backed by a wall of stock tickers, and for their solos, they’re wearing deconstructed business suits—while voguing on desks, playing mini golf in corner offices, and lounging in the backseat of chauffeured convertibles. The timing, musically, is impeccable. “Worth It” is the doppelgänger to The Weeknd’s “Earned It,” an inescapable pop hit from last year that was featured on the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack. The single is a crooning R&B serenade, albeit updated to hit hipster sensibilities, mostly with lots and lots of synth. Musically, it’s a better song. Semiotically, its “worth it” is not “I’m worth it,” but rather, “girl, you’re worth it”; the singer points out that the subject of the song is specifically worth it because she’s “earned it.” Beyoncé, on Famous Kels’ track “I’m Worth It,” sings the titular hook: “He said / He said / I’m worth it / I’m worth it.” To which Kels responds: “Damn right you’re worth it / Fuck me good on purpose.” Kels’ love song—for it is a love song, despite my selective characterization—has the rapper articulating why he thinks his girl is worth marrying. The implication from both Kels and The Weeknd, though, is that worth is something bestowed from a man to a woman. Being “worth it,” especially for women, is a constant source of struggle—whenever a subsection of the population is historically defined for their utility to their oppressors, some internal angst is expected. Naturally, the struggle of female worth is one that marketing has seized on—L’Oreal’s most famous slogan is “Because I’m worth it,” which was amended to “Because you’re worth it” and then, later, “Because we’re worth it.” It’s a sticky wicket—one that sounds like empowerment, but hinges on the purchase of cosmetics to deliver that power. You see the same thread in that most-dreaded section of the bookstore, self-help. “I’m worth it” goes hand-in-hand with the self-help conception of self-worth, and can be found said emphatically in any number of texts that speak to people in dire straits, physically, emotionally or financially. It can be sincere, but there’s desperation in its tone; the self-worth doth posture too much. The person most likely to lean on “I’m worth it” is the one who doesn’t feel it. This is encapsulated rather beautifully in Nicki Minaj’s plaintive “Marilyn Monroe,” she raps, “I’ll never be perfect / believe me I’m worth it.” This is not an anthem of perceived strength, it’s a ballad of vulnerability; Minaj is trying to convince the listener or herself that she’s better than what she feels herself to be. Trust Missy Elliott, way back in 2002, to have seized upon “worth it” and turned it into part of a narrative on having sex when and how she pleases, with “is it worth it? / let me work it,” the first lines of “Work It.” In Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It,” there is not even a question—no opportunity for even the merest hesitation: “Give it to me / I’m worth it / Baby I’m worth it / Uh huh I’m worth it / Gimme gimme I’m worth it.” Later lines include: “I think I’m a call you bluff / Hurry up / I’m waiting out front” and “I don’t wanna waste my time … Come and make it worth my while.” In an interview with MTV about their corporate-inflected music video, Fifth Harmony directly referenced feminism.
Camila revealed how they fan-sourced the messages scrolling across the ticker. “We also wanted to incorporate feminism and girl power and our fans, so we kind of did this Twitter thing where we… told them to send in tweets saying why they think feminism is sexy and why they think it’s cool and why they think women empowerment is awesome,” she said. “We can also say that the gender roles were kind of swapped within the music video,” Normani added. “That’s a point that we really wanted to make sure that stood out.”There is something hilariously reductive about “feminism” and “girl power” in the above quotes; certainly, Normani explaining that the “gender roles were kind of swapped” is so earnest it’s almost painful. But at the same time, there’s something incredible about how simply the lines are drawn for Fifth Harmony, from attitudinal assurance to gender equality. It could be seen as reductive, but there’s something ideologically refined about it, too. “I’m worth it” is so self-evident it needs no lyrical qualifiers—just a long saxophone riff. Beyoncé’s “All the Single Ladies” transformed a club DJ’s standard refrain—that all the single women put their hands up, so that men looking for partners could find them—into an anthem of empowerment. To paraphrase Martin Seay, no DJ will be able to call out “all the single ladies, put your hands up” again without invoking a different message entirely. The same, to some degree, is true of “Worth It”—L’Oreal’s condescending “Because you’re worth it” responded to with a raucous “gimme gimme.” “Worth It” is a reminder of the effortlessness that feminism aspires to, an effortlessness that does not seem possible in our world of made-up Planned Parenthood controversies and apologizing Megyn Kellys. A world where the struggle for gender equity is not all-encompassing, because the implication that women were not worth it right from the start would be risible. Fortunately, as it’s ideally listened to at high volume with the windows down — or turned all the way up on the dance floor — it’s one hell of a vision for the future.
Rand Paul’s desperate Trump gambit: Convenient shape-shifter blasts The Donald’s convenient shape-shifting
Rand Paul is working hard to find a way to get himself back into the presidential race. As the summer has worn on, his 2016 campaign has hit the skids and begun showing all the telltale signs of a failing political operation: weak fundraising, staff infighting bleeding into news reports, plunging poll numbers, and transparently desperate bids for attention. Headed into last week’s debate he suffered yet another setback: the staffers and longtime aides he’d picked to run his super PAC were indicted in connection with a 2012 campaign finance scandal. And so ever since the debate, Rand has been trying out a new strategy: he’s positioning himself as the anti-Trump. He was the first and really only Republican candidate in the main stage debate to aggressively go after Donald Trump. He attacked him as a fraud, a phony and a corrupt plutocrat. Trump is every single one of those things (he admits to giving money to politicians so that he can cash in favors later on) and Paul was completely justified in attacking him on those points. In the days since the debate, Paul has kept up the pressure on Trump in television interviews and Op-Eds. The crux of Paul’s attack on Trump is that he’s a fake conservative. “I honestly have no idea what Mr. Trump’s real philosophy is,” Paul wrote in an Op-Ed for Independent Review Journal. “He was liberal before he was conservative, and has openly professed for decades that his views are those of a Democrat.” It’s a straightforward message to the base of the Republican Party: you can’t trust this guy, he’s not one of us, be very wary of what he’s selling. It’s an interesting move on Rand’s part for a couple of reasons. First off, it was not too long ago that the Rand Paul campaign considered any sort of engagement with Trump to be beneath them, a waste of time, and incongruent with their overall strategy. Just a couple of weeks back, the Washington Post reported on Team Paul’s insistence that they were deliberately laying low and staying out of the “media glare” because there was no point in trying to get noticed while Trump was soaking up all the press attention:
Several campaign staffers made the same point: No one is cutting through the fog of Donald Trump. Why send the candidate to the same all-day cattle calls the rest of the field has been dutifully trucking to, only to wind up earning him one paragraph, one moment of B-roll, in yet another story about the rampaging billionaire?Apparently that strategy is no longer operative – assuming it was the actual strategy and not just an attempt at rationalizing Rand’s diminished standing and conspicuously low media profile. Either way, the candidate is now working doggedly to steal that one paragraph of coverage and that one moment of B-roll from Trump. But it’s also something of a bold play for Rand Paul to try and play up conservative doubts about another candidate, given that he’s making his own ideologically heterodox pitch to Republican base voters and trying to convince them that he’s conservative enough to merit their approval. “Are conservatives really willing to gamble about what Donald Trump really believes in?” Rand Paul asks in a question that could just as easily be turned around on him. The idea animating Rand Paul’s presidential run is that he is, in his own words, “a different kind of Republican.” These differences show up in various policy positions he’s taken that conservatives won’t readily approve: cutting off foreign aid to Israel, slashing the military budget, marijuana decriminalization, and restricting government surveillance programs. He’s further complicated this already fraught dynamic by abandoning or discreetly modifying positions he’s taken in the past, insisting all the while that he’s never once changed his mind. Who is the real Rand Paul when it comes to defense spending? Is it the Rand Paul who once wanted to slash the military budget to cut overall spending, or the Rand Paul who proposed additional military spending offset by cuts to domestic programs? What would President Rand Paul do on immigration policy? That’s a difficult question to answer, given that in the five-plus years he’s been a U.S. senator, Paul has taken just about every position on immigration reform, from hardline opposition to any sort of “amnesty” to support for a path to citizenship. He is in many ways the political chameleon he accuses Trump of being. The difference is that Rand Paul casts his deviations from Republican orthodoxy as a political asset that will imbue him with “crossover” appeal and enable him to eat into the Democrats’ traditional constituencies. When it comes to Trump, he casts those deviations and disqualifying political heresies. He’s making the case that Trump is too far outside of the GOP mainstream, while he’s just the right amount outside of it.
Dear White America: I know it’s hard, but you have to acknowledge what’s happening in this country
As we mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of young Mike Brown and the uprisings it sparked in Ferguson, much-needed conversations about race that have occurred as a result are increasingly on our lips and our smartphone screens. As an actress and writer who is black, and whose work often addresses race, I aim to contribute to the conversation, but today I’m pausing to do something I don’t usually do; I’d like to specifically address white people who continue to deny the existence of white privilege. Far too many of you refuse to simply state that white privilege is real, and I’m here to say something that might surprise you: I understand. First of all, I’ve seen people angry about the moniker “white privilege” in and of itself, bemoaning the very existence of this annoying two-word phrase (and even more so the three words “check your privilege”) as nothing more than the verbal folly of the Outrage Committee and Social Justice Warriors who want to ruin the Confederate flag and gay jokes and everything good about America. I can understand the fatigue at the sheer amount of times we say the phrase—I even get tired of saying/typing it. But can you allow for the possibility that we’re saying it so much because you haven’t heard us yet and it’s crucial that you accept it as reality? Some of you say we’re the confused ones; that when we speak of “white privilege” we actually mean discrimination or prejudice, that we should focus on the specific bad stuff happening to us instead of the good stuff we think you possess. Well, we’ve been trying that, and some of us think it’s not been working out so well. Besides, white privilege and racial discrimination are neither interchangeable terms nor mutually exclusive ideas, and it helps to understand that so much “specific bad stuff” might not be happening specifically and disproportionately to black people without systemic privilege as America’s societal foundation. Semantics work against us in this fight, because the word “privilege” has a traditionally positive meaning, conjuring up images of champagne wishes and caviar dreams, and the biggest obstacle for so many is that you feel you can’t experience white privilege because your own life is not “privileged.” Poor white people, and the rich white people who don’t care about them but seek to use them to bolster their argument, simply point to Appalachia and think the conversation is over. The intersection of class and race come into play here, but white privilege cannot be dismissed as just a mangling of what is solely a class struggle; conquering structural racism will never come down simply to who has the most money. You could be living in significant financial and social struggle, or you could just be one of the millions of Americans dealing with unemployment or living paycheck to paycheck, making ends meet but certainly not feeling “privileged.” I get it. Jay-Z has more money that you ever will, he’s married to the preternaturally talented and beautiful Beyoncé, Michael Jordan reigns supreme and you’re wearing his sneakers on your feet right now, and Oprah changed the world. Meanwhile, you’re facing everyday ordinary challenges and possibly trying to keep your checking account on the right side of overdraft, and I have the nerve to call you privileged? Yes. To add to those black luminaries, President Obama’s two terms in office are wonderful (to me, anyway), and symbolize progress, but the individual achievements of specific black superstars don’t disprove white privilege as a systemic ill. It would be reductive to say “the exceptions prove the rule,” but when you breathlessly point out exceptions in the form of rich black entertainers and athletes, you are agreeing that they are remarkable and literally exceptional. Just as individual achievement does not disprove systemic oppression, nor does your individual innocence. Asking you to simply accept the reality of your privilege does not mean saying that you, personally, are actively or even consciously A Racist. As a white person in America today, you may not have personally ever done anything “wrong.” You’ve certainly never owned slaves, and if you’re reading this, you’re likely not a member of an extremist white supremacist group. Yet you can be complicit in a system that is much larger than you without ever even knowing it, and your lack of initial awareness doesn’t excuse continued denial once it’s been pointed out. Even “innocent” and well-intentioned white allies do themselves and the notion of racial equality a disservice if they persist in resisting the concept of privilege, but I can understand those who never even considered it. To be able to carry on day to day and not have your race impact your life to the point of reflection or critical examination is the very essence of the thing. Your privilege blinds you to your privilege in a sort of Russian nesting doll setup of exponential denial. Until you accept it. As I’ve written here, “people who resist the truth of privilege feel [justified] because in a world where we constantly compare paychecks and skin color and scholarships and such, it’s difficult for them to comprehend that you could be benefitting from what you don’t have, what you don’t fear, what you don’t even know about.” Our brains are not hardwired to accept absence before presence, potentiality before actuality, or theory over tangible evidence. This is why it’s difficult for many to understand that their white privilege manifests most often as what they don’t have, rather than what they do. It’s much easier to react to the word and say “but I’m poor!” than it is to imagine that you were born into a world where you’re the norm, the standard of perceived humanity from which others deviate. Slavery was abolished, yes. But that’s not like suddenly flipping a switch to the “freedom and equality for all” setting. The heinously discriminatory practice of redlining carried on until almost 1970 and influences the racial composition of many American cities right now. When you suggest that we “leave the past in the past” or “move on” or “wonder why we “make everything about race,” I answer that we can’t move on through denial, and the hole dug by the horrors of the past is getting filled bit by bit, but it’s presently still a gaping hole that requires attention. As far as “making everything about race,” we didn’t do that. That was done to us. Since we were historically enslaved and denigrated, seen as three-fifths and segregated even upon being given our “freedom,” we are not the ones who “made everything about race” because we are not the ones who did the enslaving or drafted the legislature by which we were tortured. But neither are you! Not literally, anyway. So why must you be made to feel bad for things you had no control over, just because of the skin you were born in? No reasonable person is asking that. White Guilt and White Tears are pejorative phrases because they do nothing to help the problems at hand, and you just feeling bad does nothing to help society. The message has been muddled by those who don’t truly understand it, but acknowledging white privilege is not about pointing the finger or making white people as a whole feel bad. C’mon. We consistently fight for the right to not be seen as a monolith. Why would we turn around and do it to you? It is undeniable, however, that if you are a sensible person with empathy, accepting white privilege is going to make you feel bad, and no rational adult wants to feel bad. Furthermore, if you really look at it, you may feel powerless, adding to your reasons for wanting to deny it. I get it. The exhaustion of hopelessness or feeling like you don’t know what you can do is a common emotional response to a negative shock. And it’s terrifying. I can only imagine the fear of having been living your life, probably thinking that you’re one of the “good ones,” not being racist, possibly not even thinking about race, only to be told one day that you’re actually a part of this system of oppression. Such a terrible M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist ending must surely be rejected as a fabrication, right? Because if you accept it, you’ll replay your personal movie from the beginning and perhaps see where you’ve benefitted from this thing, unwittingly and completely unintentionally wielding it against someone else. “Oppressor” is a horrific word, and certainly not one that can be applied to you… right? In response, you may want to lash out, to say that black people who speak about white privilege are using it as an excuse; that this country is all about the right to make anything you want to of your life. You may want to quote Dr. King. Please don’t. America as a genuine meritocracy is a lofty goal and certainly far truer here than in other nations, but we’re not fully there, and your birthright in the majority must be noted as giving you a head start, as well as potential for greater ease in even the most mundane of experiences. You could absolutely still have empathy for Sandra Bland’s death, but you have a far lesser chance of seeing yourself reflected in pictures of her face, and you don’t have the experience of logging on to social media to see that police brutality and systemic racism have claimed the life of yet another person who looks like your family, who could be you. I have no interest in addressing the racially charged violence, death, or injustice of the day when so many persist in dismissing these near-daily occurrences as isolated incidents, magically unique to each day and not at all tethered to a larger power structure in America at play. I mean it when I say that I understand your reasoning for rejecting white privilege, and also when I say that your shock and awe pale in comparison with continued loss of rights and life, and that every time you ignore or deny white privilege you are a part of the problem. All I’m asking is that we can stand together and acknowledge the gaping hole of institutionalized inequality. From there, it’s up to you how you contribute (or don’t) to dismantling systemic racism and continuing the march toward that post-racial world so many of you speak of as though it’s already here.As we mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of young Mike Brown and the uprisings it sparked in Ferguson, much-needed conversations about race that have occurred as a result are increasingly on our lips and our smartphone screens. As an actress and writer who is black, and whose work often addresses race, I aim to contribute to the conversation, but today I’m pausing to do something I don’t usually do; I’d like to specifically address white people who continue to deny the existence of white privilege. Far too many of you refuse to simply state that white privilege is real, and I’m here to say something that might surprise you: I understand. First of all, I’ve seen people angry about the moniker “white privilege” in and of itself, bemoaning the very existence of this annoying two-word phrase (and even more so the three words “check your privilege”) as nothing more than the verbal folly of the Outrage Committee and Social Justice Warriors who want to ruin the Confederate flag and gay jokes and everything good about America. I can understand the fatigue at the sheer amount of times we say the phrase—I even get tired of saying/typing it. But can you allow for the possibility that we’re saying it so much because you haven’t heard us yet and it’s crucial that you accept it as reality? Some of you say we’re the confused ones; that when we speak of “white privilege” we actually mean discrimination or prejudice, that we should focus on the specific bad stuff happening to us instead of the good stuff we think you possess. Well, we’ve been trying that, and some of us think it’s not been working out so well. Besides, white privilege and racial discrimination are neither interchangeable terms nor mutually exclusive ideas, and it helps to understand that so much “specific bad stuff” might not be happening specifically and disproportionately to black people without systemic privilege as America’s societal foundation. Semantics work against us in this fight, because the word “privilege” has a traditionally positive meaning, conjuring up images of champagne wishes and caviar dreams, and the biggest obstacle for so many is that you feel you can’t experience white privilege because your own life is not “privileged.” Poor white people, and the rich white people who don’t care about them but seek to use them to bolster their argument, simply point to Appalachia and think the conversation is over. The intersection of class and race come into play here, but white privilege cannot be dismissed as just a mangling of what is solely a class struggle; conquering structural racism will never come down simply to who has the most money. You could be living in significant financial and social struggle, or you could just be one of the millions of Americans dealing with unemployment or living paycheck to paycheck, making ends meet but certainly not feeling “privileged.” I get it. Jay-Z has more money that you ever will, he’s married to the preternaturally talented and beautiful Beyoncé, Michael Jordan reigns supreme and you’re wearing his sneakers on your feet right now, and Oprah changed the world. Meanwhile, you’re facing everyday ordinary challenges and possibly trying to keep your checking account on the right side of overdraft, and I have the nerve to call you privileged? Yes. To add to those black luminaries, President Obama’s two terms in office are wonderful (to me, anyway), and symbolize progress, but the individual achievements of specific black superstars don’t disprove white privilege as a systemic ill. It would be reductive to say “the exceptions prove the rule,” but when you breathlessly point out exceptions in the form of rich black entertainers and athletes, you are agreeing that they are remarkable and literally exceptional. Just as individual achievement does not disprove systemic oppression, nor does your individual innocence. Asking you to simply accept the reality of your privilege does not mean saying that you, personally, are actively or even consciously A Racist. As a white person in America today, you may not have personally ever done anything “wrong.” You’ve certainly never owned slaves, and if you’re reading this, you’re likely not a member of an extremist white supremacist group. Yet you can be complicit in a system that is much larger than you without ever even knowing it, and your lack of initial awareness doesn’t excuse continued denial once it’s been pointed out. Even “innocent” and well-intentioned white allies do themselves and the notion of racial equality a disservice if they persist in resisting the concept of privilege, but I can understand those who never even considered it. To be able to carry on day to day and not have your race impact your life to the point of reflection or critical examination is the very essence of the thing. Your privilege blinds you to your privilege in a sort of Russian nesting doll setup of exponential denial. Until you accept it. As I’ve written here, “people who resist the truth of privilege feel [justified] because in a world where we constantly compare paychecks and skin color and scholarships and such, it’s difficult for them to comprehend that you could be benefitting from what you don’t have, what you don’t fear, what you don’t even know about.” Our brains are not hardwired to accept absence before presence, potentiality before actuality, or theory over tangible evidence. This is why it’s difficult for many to understand that their white privilege manifests most often as what they don’t have, rather than what they do. It’s much easier to react to the word and say “but I’m poor!” than it is to imagine that you were born into a world where you’re the norm, the standard of perceived humanity from which others deviate. Slavery was abolished, yes. But that’s not like suddenly flipping a switch to the “freedom and equality for all” setting. The heinously discriminatory practice of redlining carried on until almost 1970 and influences the racial composition of many American cities right now. When you suggest that we “leave the past in the past” or “move on” or “wonder why we “make everything about race,” I answer that we can’t move on through denial, and the hole dug by the horrors of the past is getting filled bit by bit, but it’s presently still a gaping hole that requires attention. As far as “making everything about race,” we didn’t do that. That was done to us. Since we were historically enslaved and denigrated, seen as three-fifths and segregated even upon being given our “freedom,” we are not the ones who “made everything about race” because we are not the ones who did the enslaving or drafted the legislature by which we were tortured. But neither are you! Not literally, anyway. So why must you be made to feel bad for things you had no control over, just because of the skin you were born in? No reasonable person is asking that. White Guilt and White Tears are pejorative phrases because they do nothing to help the problems at hand, and you just feeling bad does nothing to help society. The message has been muddled by those who don’t truly understand it, but acknowledging white privilege is not about pointing the finger or making white people as a whole feel bad. C’mon. We consistently fight for the right to not be seen as a monolith. Why would we turn around and do it to you? It is undeniable, however, that if you are a sensible person with empathy, accepting white privilege is going to make you feel bad, and no rational adult wants to feel bad. Furthermore, if you really look at it, you may feel powerless, adding to your reasons for wanting to deny it. I get it. The exhaustion of hopelessness or feeling like you don’t know what you can do is a common emotional response to a negative shock. And it’s terrifying. I can only imagine the fear of having been living your life, probably thinking that you’re one of the “good ones,” not being racist, possibly not even thinking about race, only to be told one day that you’re actually a part of this system of oppression. Such a terrible M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist ending must surely be rejected as a fabrication, right? Because if you accept it, you’ll replay your personal movie from the beginning and perhaps see where you’ve benefitted from this thing, unwittingly and completely unintentionally wielding it against someone else. “Oppressor” is a horrific word, and certainly not one that can be applied to you… right? In response, you may want to lash out, to say that black people who speak about white privilege are using it as an excuse; that this country is all about the right to make anything you want to of your life. You may want to quote Dr. King. Please don’t. America as a genuine meritocracy is a lofty goal and certainly far truer here than in other nations, but we’re not fully there, and your birthright in the majority must be noted as giving you a head start, as well as potential for greater ease in even the most mundane of experiences. You could absolutely still have empathy for Sandra Bland’s death, but you have a far lesser chance of seeing yourself reflected in pictures of her face, and you don’t have the experience of logging on to social media to see that police brutality and systemic racism have claimed the life of yet another person who looks like your family, who could be you. I have no interest in addressing the racially charged violence, death, or injustice of the day when so many persist in dismissing these near-daily occurrences as isolated incidents, magically unique to each day and not at all tethered to a larger power structure in America at play. I mean it when I say that I understand your reasoning for rejecting white privilege, and also when I say that your shock and awe pale in comparison with continued loss of rights and life, and that every time you ignore or deny white privilege you are a part of the problem. All I’m asking is that we can stand together and acknowledge the gaping hole of institutionalized inequality. From there, it’s up to you how you contribute (or don’t) to dismantling systemic racism and continuing the march toward that post-racial world so many of you speak of as though it’s already here.As we mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of young Mike Brown and the uprisings it sparked in Ferguson, much-needed conversations about race that have occurred as a result are increasingly on our lips and our smartphone screens. As an actress and writer who is black, and whose work often addresses race, I aim to contribute to the conversation, but today I’m pausing to do something I don’t usually do; I’d like to specifically address white people who continue to deny the existence of white privilege. Far too many of you refuse to simply state that white privilege is real, and I’m here to say something that might surprise you: I understand. First of all, I’ve seen people angry about the moniker “white privilege” in and of itself, bemoaning the very existence of this annoying two-word phrase (and even more so the three words “check your privilege”) as nothing more than the verbal folly of the Outrage Committee and Social Justice Warriors who want to ruin the Confederate flag and gay jokes and everything good about America. I can understand the fatigue at the sheer amount of times we say the phrase—I even get tired of saying/typing it. But can you allow for the possibility that we’re saying it so much because you haven’t heard us yet and it’s crucial that you accept it as reality? Some of you say we’re the confused ones; that when we speak of “white privilege” we actually mean discrimination or prejudice, that we should focus on the specific bad stuff happening to us instead of the good stuff we think you possess. Well, we’ve been trying that, and some of us think it’s not been working out so well. Besides, white privilege and racial discrimination are neither interchangeable terms nor mutually exclusive ideas, and it helps to understand that so much “specific bad stuff” might not be happening specifically and disproportionately to black people without systemic privilege as America’s societal foundation. Semantics work against us in this fight, because the word “privilege” has a traditionally positive meaning, conjuring up images of champagne wishes and caviar dreams, and the biggest obstacle for so many is that you feel you can’t experience white privilege because your own life is not “privileged.” Poor white people, and the rich white people who don’t care about them but seek to use them to bolster their argument, simply point to Appalachia and think the conversation is over. The intersection of class and race come into play here, but white privilege cannot be dismissed as just a mangling of what is solely a class struggle; conquering structural racism will never come down simply to who has the most money. You could be living in significant financial and social struggle, or you could just be one of the millions of Americans dealing with unemployment or living paycheck to paycheck, making ends meet but certainly not feeling “privileged.” I get it. Jay-Z has more money that you ever will, he’s married to the preternaturally talented and beautiful Beyoncé, Michael Jordan reigns supreme and you’re wearing his sneakers on your feet right now, and Oprah changed the world. Meanwhile, you’re facing everyday ordinary challenges and possibly trying to keep your checking account on the right side of overdraft, and I have the nerve to call you privileged? Yes. To add to those black luminaries, President Obama’s two terms in office are wonderful (to me, anyway), and symbolize progress, but the individual achievements of specific black superstars don’t disprove white privilege as a systemic ill. It would be reductive to say “the exceptions prove the rule,” but when you breathlessly point out exceptions in the form of rich black entertainers and athletes, you are agreeing that they are remarkable and literally exceptional. Just as individual achievement does not disprove systemic oppression, nor does your individual innocence. Asking you to simply accept the reality of your privilege does not mean saying that you, personally, are actively or even consciously A Racist. As a white person in America today, you may not have personally ever done anything “wrong.” You’ve certainly never owned slaves, and if you’re reading this, you’re likely not a member of an extremist white supremacist group. Yet you can be complicit in a system that is much larger than you without ever even knowing it, and your lack of initial awareness doesn’t excuse continued denial once it’s been pointed out. Even “innocent” and well-intentioned white allies do themselves and the notion of racial equality a disservice if they persist in resisting the concept of privilege, but I can understand those who never even considered it. To be able to carry on day to day and not have your race impact your life to the point of reflection or critical examination is the very essence of the thing. Your privilege blinds you to your privilege in a sort of Russian nesting doll setup of exponential denial. Until you accept it. As I’ve written here, “people who resist the truth of privilege feel [justified] because in a world where we constantly compare paychecks and skin color and scholarships and such, it’s difficult for them to comprehend that you could be benefitting from what you don’t have, what you don’t fear, what you don’t even know about.” Our brains are not hardwired to accept absence before presence, potentiality before actuality, or theory over tangible evidence. This is why it’s difficult for many to understand that their white privilege manifests most often as what they don’t have, rather than what they do. It’s much easier to react to the word and say “but I’m poor!” than it is to imagine that you were born into a world where you’re the norm, the standard of perceived humanity from which others deviate. Slavery was abolished, yes. But that’s not like suddenly flipping a switch to the “freedom and equality for all” setting. The heinously discriminatory practice of redlining carried on until almost 1970 and influences the racial composition of many American cities right now. When you suggest that we “leave the past in the past” or “move on” or “wonder why we “make everything about race,” I answer that we can’t move on through denial, and the hole dug by the horrors of the past is getting filled bit by bit, but it’s presently still a gaping hole that requires attention. As far as “making everything about race,” we didn’t do that. That was done to us. Since we were historically enslaved and denigrated, seen as three-fifths and segregated even upon being given our “freedom,” we are not the ones who “made everything about race” because we are not the ones who did the enslaving or drafted the legislature by which we were tortured. But neither are you! Not literally, anyway. So why must you be made to feel bad for things you had no control over, just because of the skin you were born in? No reasonable person is asking that. White Guilt and White Tears are pejorative phrases because they do nothing to help the problems at hand, and you just feeling bad does nothing to help society. The message has been muddled by those who don’t truly understand it, but acknowledging white privilege is not about pointing the finger or making white people as a whole feel bad. C’mon. We consistently fight for the right to not be seen as a monolith. Why would we turn around and do it to you? It is undeniable, however, that if you are a sensible person with empathy, accepting white privilege is going to make you feel bad, and no rational adult wants to feel bad. Furthermore, if you really look at it, you may feel powerless, adding to your reasons for wanting to deny it. I get it. The exhaustion of hopelessness or feeling like you don’t know what you can do is a common emotional response to a negative shock. And it’s terrifying. I can only imagine the fear of having been living your life, probably thinking that you’re one of the “good ones,” not being racist, possibly not even thinking about race, only to be told one day that you’re actually a part of this system of oppression. Such a terrible M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist ending must surely be rejected as a fabrication, right? Because if you accept it, you’ll replay your personal movie from the beginning and perhaps see where you’ve benefitted from this thing, unwittingly and completely unintentionally wielding it against someone else. “Oppressor” is a horrific word, and certainly not one that can be applied to you… right? In response, you may want to lash out, to say that black people who speak about white privilege are using it as an excuse; that this country is all about the right to make anything you want to of your life. You may want to quote Dr. King. Please don’t. America as a genuine meritocracy is a lofty goal and certainly far truer here than in other nations, but we’re not fully there, and your birthright in the majority must be noted as giving you a head start, as well as potential for greater ease in even the most mundane of experiences. You could absolutely still have empathy for Sandra Bland’s death, but you have a far lesser chance of seeing yourself reflected in pictures of her face, and you don’t have the experience of logging on to social media to see that police brutality and systemic racism have claimed the life of yet another person who looks like your family, who could be you. I have no interest in addressing the racially charged violence, death, or injustice of the day when so many persist in dismissing these near-daily occurrences as isolated incidents, magically unique to each day and not at all tethered to a larger power structure in America at play. I mean it when I say that I understand your reasoning for rejecting white privilege, and also when I say that your shock and awe pale in comparison with continued loss of rights and life, and that every time you ignore or deny white privilege you are a part of the problem. All I’m asking is that we can stand together and acknowledge the gaping hole of institutionalized inequality. From there, it’s up to you how you contribute (or don’t) to dismantling systemic racism and continuing the march toward that post-racial world so many of you speak of as though it’s already here.
Scott Walker is America’s biggest hypocrite: The “fiscal conservative” is giving $450 million to wealthy sports owners
Tomorrow, Scott Walker will stand on a stage at State Fair Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and betray virtually every conservative economic principle there is by handing out up to $450 million in taxpayer money to wealthy sports owners to pay for private infrastructure at a time when public infrastructure is crumbling. The massive sum will go toward the building of a new sports arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball franchise, pleasing the team’s billionaire hedge-fund-manager owners, who threatened to move the team if they weren’t given taxpayer tribute. Conservatives in recent years have feigned concern about corporate welfare, and this deal is really the ultimate expression of it: hundreds of millions of dollars from teachers, waitresses, factory workers and shop owners funneled to pay for an aristocrat’s show palace rather than needed public service. Of all the things desperately wrong with this, perhaps the most salient is the fact that the “old” arena, the BMO Harris Bradley Center, is only 27 years old, inaugurated in 1988. Incredibly, this makes it the 3rd-oldest arena housing a professional basketball franchise, behind only Madison Square Garden in New York and the Oracle Arena in Oakland, both of which have been substantially renovated over the years. We don’t upgrade anything in this country after 27 years. There are pipes carrying water to homes that date back to the 19th century. In Milwaukee, in fact, hundreds of those pipes burst at a record pace in 2014 due to the cold weather. Seventy-one percent of Wisconsin roads are in mediocre or poor condition, and fourteen percent of its bridges are structurally unsound. If you wanted to prioritize infrastructure projects needing attention in the Badger State, “replacing the arena we built in the late 1980s” would fall down the list, somewhere below “make sure the thing Wisconsinites are riding on in cars doesn’t crash to the ground.” Herb Kohl, the former Democratic senator, sold the Milwaukee Bucks to two New York-based hedge fund managers, Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens, in 2014; and they immediately demanded a new arena, lest they abandon Milwaukee. Lasry and Edens are worth around $2 billion each, but under the purchasing agreement they would only put up $150 million for the arena, with Kohl kicking in another $100 million. The rest would come from city, county and state taxpayers. The usual discredited arguments propped up this deal. Wisconsin lawmakers promised great economic benefits from a new downtown arena. Walker said repeatedly it would be cheaper to keep the Bucks in Wisconsin than to lose them to some other city. This ignores the fact that the alternate universe where Wisconsinites don’t have a Bucks game to attend in April is not necessarily to sit in their homes and contemplate the darkness of existence. They’d maybe go out to dinner, with the economic activity simply substituted. Numerous studies have shown no economic benefits to building a new stadium; it’s just something rich people say to get someone else to pay for the construction. Seattle is not a deserted wasteland because they lost the SuperSonics in 2008. They’re doing okay. None of this mattered to politicians who could tell sports fans they “saved the Bucks,” however, and the legislature, with Walker’s prodding, agreed to cover $250 million of the $500 million needed to build the stadium. Walker’s budget literally cuts $250 million for the state university system, precisely the public share of the arena. They’re paying for it partially through borrowing, which adds interest. And if you tally up other subsidies like property tax abatements and sales tax exemptions, the 20-year cost could be as much as $500 million. That’s effectively the entire cost of the arena itself, and taxpayers will have no ownership stake in the property. In fact, the owners will get to pocket all revenue made off the stadium, including the $4 million a year for arena naming rights, none of which has to go back into city, county or state coffers. There’s no telling how Milwaukee County will scrounge up their $80 million share, all of which could be covered by 20 years of naming rights revenue. As it is, the county will try to make their annual payment by trying harder to collect unpaid debt, a dubious strategy that puts them at risk of default. Tomorrow’s big ceremony to hand out cash to billionaires is particularly ironic in light of conservative condemnation of crony capitalism, the way government picks winners and losers in the business community based on relationships and favors. Walker benefactors the Koch Brothers called for unity against “welfare for the rich” just last week. The Wisconsin chapter of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity has savaged the stadium deal. In this case, Walker joined the push to publicly finance the Bucks stadium shortly after his presidential PAC received a $150,000 donation linked to Jon Hammes, a longtime Walker supporter and an investor in the Bucks franchise. Hammes is now the Walker campaign’s national finance co-chairman. You’d be excused for thinking that the existing friendship helped get wealthy team investors and the political leadership in sync. There’s actually an existing policy proposed by the current president, the office Walker wants, to limit public financing for stadiums, by eliminating the ability to use tax-free municipal bonds to pay for it. This would make public funding less attractive and save the federal government billions. After forking over a half a billion on impoverished hedge funders so they can make more money with upgraded luxury boxes, Walker is perhaps an imperfect messenger for such an idea. It’s going to take more than a John Oliver segment to end the stadium swindle. Politicians have powerful incentives to get headlines for protecting sports fans’ favorites while sticking future taxpayers with the bill. But Scott Walker making this deal while trying to become president as a “fiscal conservative” may at least put a larger spotlight on the hypocrisy. You can’t preach belt-tightening and living within our means while giving giant handouts to rich welfare kings.
Look out, Dan Brown: Scientists discover second da Vinci smile
Ed. Note:
Some of the information here about the Mona Lisa was previously described in: Martinez-Conde, S. and Macknik, S.L. (2010, May 1st). What's in a Face? Scientific American, 3-4. Perhaps The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in history because her enchanting smile is art’s most enigmatic mystery. By looking directly at Mona Lisa's lips, we notice that her smile is understated, almost nonexistent. But after looking into her eyes or the part in her hair (while paying attention to her mouth), her smile becomes much wider. Indeed, as we gaze around Mona Lisa's face, our eyes’ movements animate her smile—a dancing grin that is altered with our perceptions. These mechanisms distinguish stimuli in the middle versus the margins of our sight, which scientists refer to as the central versus peripheral retina. In the visual field, the center and the periphery possess a different initial effect on perception. While the neurons at the center of our vision see a very small portion of the world—giving us high-resolution vision—neurons in the periphery perceive larger portions of the visual scene, and hence possess lesser resolution. THE DA VINCI CODE OF PERCEPTION Mona Lisa's ambiguous smirk has thus been explained by a simple visual principle: when images are blurred in the periphery of our vision, her smile is also blurred: Professor Margaret Livingstone at Harvard Medical School first explained this conundrum through a simulation. She wanted to know how the visual system saw Mona Lisa's smile in the far periphery, the near periphery, and in the center of our gaze. The experiment was conducted in Adobe Photoshop. By merely obscuring and clarifying the painting to replicate the transformation in resolution from the center of our visual field to the far periphery, Livingstone got her answer: Mona Lisa’s smile deepens in the figure below as it becomes more blurred towards the right. It is also explained through the notion that different retinal neurons are adjusted to varying the content of spatial size information in the image, which scientists refer to as its spatial frequency distribution. By some estimations, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa as a fusion; a happy Mona Lisa overlaid on a sad one, with each possessing a different spatial-frequency. A veritable cottage industry of scientific studies on Mona Lisa followed. Now a new study examines another enigmatic da Vinci smile, from a painting that—until recently—was lost. LA BELLA PRINCIPESSA Alessandro Soranzo and Michael Newberry from Sheffield Hallam University have examined a painting called La Bella Principessa that only recently was shown to be painted by da Vinci himself. The study, published in—Vision Research—determined that the smile’s enigmatic qualities followed from the same principles as the Mona Lisa Smile. They confirmed that it did, and that a similar painting (by a different artist) from the same period, did not. They argue that Mona Lisa’s own enigmatic smile—which was painted after La Bella Principessa’s—was therefore not a fluke, but an intentional feature of da Vinci’s mastery in expressing subtle emotions. 
Top: Progressively blurred La Bella Principessa (da Vinci). Middle: The Mona Lisa (da Vinci). Bottom: Portrait of a Girl (Piero del Pollaiuolo, 1470). From: Soranzo A., Newberry M. (2015) “The uncatchable smile in Leonardo da Vinci’s La Bella Principessa portrait”. Vision Research. Volume 113, pp. 78-86.
Ed. Note:
Some of the information here about the Mona Lisa was previously described in: Martinez-Conde, S. and Macknik, S.L. (2010, May 1st). What's in a Face? Scientific American, 3-4. Perhaps The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in history because her enchanting smile is art’s most enigmatic mystery. By looking directly at Mona Lisa's lips, we notice that her smile is understated, almost nonexistent. But after looking into her eyes or the part in her hair (while paying attention to her mouth), her smile becomes much wider. Indeed, as we gaze around Mona Lisa's face, our eyes’ movements animate her smile—a dancing grin that is altered with our perceptions. These mechanisms distinguish stimuli in the middle versus the margins of our sight, which scientists refer to as the central versus peripheral retina. In the visual field, the center and the periphery possess a different initial effect on perception. While the neurons at the center of our vision see a very small portion of the world—giving us high-resolution vision—neurons in the periphery perceive larger portions of the visual scene, and hence possess lesser resolution. THE DA VINCI CODE OF PERCEPTION Mona Lisa's ambiguous smirk has thus been explained by a simple visual principle: when images are blurred in the periphery of our vision, her smile is also blurred: Professor Margaret Livingstone at Harvard Medical School first explained this conundrum through a simulation. She wanted to know how the visual system saw Mona Lisa's smile in the far periphery, the near periphery, and in the center of our gaze. The experiment was conducted in Adobe Photoshop. By merely obscuring and clarifying the painting to replicate the transformation in resolution from the center of our visual field to the far periphery, Livingstone got her answer: Mona Lisa’s smile deepens in the figure below as it becomes more blurred towards the right. It is also explained through the notion that different retinal neurons are adjusted to varying the content of spatial size information in the image, which scientists refer to as its spatial frequency distribution. By some estimations, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa as a fusion; a happy Mona Lisa overlaid on a sad one, with each possessing a different spatial-frequency. A veritable cottage industry of scientific studies on Mona Lisa followed. Now a new study examines another enigmatic da Vinci smile, from a painting that—until recently—was lost. LA BELLA PRINCIPESSA Alessandro Soranzo and Michael Newberry from Sheffield Hallam University have examined a painting called La Bella Principessa that only recently was shown to be painted by da Vinci himself. The study, published in—Vision Research—determined that the smile’s enigmatic qualities followed from the same principles as the Mona Lisa Smile. They confirmed that it did, and that a similar painting (by a different artist) from the same period, did not. They argue that Mona Lisa’s own enigmatic smile—which was painted after La Bella Principessa’s—was therefore not a fluke, but an intentional feature of da Vinci’s mastery in expressing subtle emotions. Top: Progressively blurred La Bella Principessa (da Vinci). Middle: The Mona Lisa (da Vinci). Bottom: Portrait of a Girl (Piero del Pollaiuolo, 1470). From: Soranzo A., Newberry M. (2015) “The uncatchable smile in Leonardo da Vinci’s La Bella Principessa portrait”. Vision Research. Volume 113, pp. 78-86. 
8 stories Donald Trump would really rather you not remember
Pando writer Mark Ames has dug up some old Spy Magazine issues from the 1980s and early '90s detailing the legendary satirical magazine's early spade work in revealing what a dedicated jerk Donald Trump is. Over the course of several issues, the magazine probed into the details of Trump's exploits and outrages.
Here are some of the highlights:
Lesson He Learned From Punching His Music Teacher: In a book he wrote in 1987, Trump admitted to punching his music teacher in the second grade. While many would look back at such an event as immature furor, Trump didn't seem reflective about it at all: “In the second grade...I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music....I’m not proud of that, but it’s clear evidence that even early on I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinions known in a very forceful way.”
Instant Missile Expertise: “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump boasted. “I think I know most of it anyway.” He claimed he should be in charge of nuclear negotiations with the Soviet Union.
Less Than Perfect Understanding of the Working Class: Trump claimed that electricians “make a hundred and some odd dollars an hour. The concrete people just make fortunes. Laborers make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”
Attacking Lawyers for Stopping His Unlawful Evictions: A group of lawyers defended tenants at one Trump property who claimed they were being unlawfully evicted. When the courts sided with the tenants, Trump tried to launch a racketeering lawsuit against the lawyers, claiming they were trying to “prevent, frustrate, and inhibit” him from making profits. The courts dismissed Trump's case.
Exploiting the Homeless, Bashing Refugees: Trump offered to put homeless tenants in his Central Park South building in a bid to try to drive the current tenants out so he could tear the whole thing down. The city offered to put Polish refugees there, but Trump countered he'd only allow “people who live in America now, not refugees.”
Bashing Ronald Reagan: Although not particularly crazy sounding, this may be a crazy thing for a leader in the polls of the Republican presidential primary to say. He compared rival developers to Ronald Reagan because they were “people who talk a good game but don't deliver.”
Telling the World African Americans Have It Easy: Spy quoted Trump telling reporters in 1989, “If I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.”
Blaming Other People For His Business Failings: In the early 1990s, Trump made a deal with Poland's tourism minister to build a series of “hotels, shops and gambling casinos in Warsaw,” but two years after the $55 million payment was made, ground wasn't even broken. “They've been patient? I've been patient,” said Trump. “Did you ever try to get quality marble in Warsaw? It's pathetic.” What all this demonstrates is even though Trump may have changed his viewpoint on a number of things – such as his previous embrace of single-payer health care – one thing has not changed over the years. Trump remains an unrepentant blowhard, where it's 1985 or 2015.Pando writer Mark Ames has dug up some old Spy Magazine issues from the 1980s and early '90s detailing the legendary satirical magazine's early spade work in revealing what a dedicated jerk Donald Trump is. Over the course of several issues, the magazine probed into the details of Trump's exploits and outrages.
Here are some of the highlights:
Lesson He Learned From Punching His Music Teacher: In a book he wrote in 1987, Trump admitted to punching his music teacher in the second grade. While many would look back at such an event as immature furor, Trump didn't seem reflective about it at all: “In the second grade...I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music....I’m not proud of that, but it’s clear evidence that even early on I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinions known in a very forceful way.”
Instant Missile Expertise: “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump boasted. “I think I know most of it anyway.” He claimed he should be in charge of nuclear negotiations with the Soviet Union.
Less Than Perfect Understanding of the Working Class: Trump claimed that electricians “make a hundred and some odd dollars an hour. The concrete people just make fortunes. Laborers make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”
Attacking Lawyers for Stopping His Unlawful Evictions: A group of lawyers defended tenants at one Trump property who claimed they were being unlawfully evicted. When the courts sided with the tenants, Trump tried to launch a racketeering lawsuit against the lawyers, claiming they were trying to “prevent, frustrate, and inhibit” him from making profits. The courts dismissed Trump's case.
Exploiting the Homeless, Bashing Refugees: Trump offered to put homeless tenants in his Central Park South building in a bid to try to drive the current tenants out so he could tear the whole thing down. The city offered to put Polish refugees there, but Trump countered he'd only allow “people who live in America now, not refugees.”
Bashing Ronald Reagan: Although not particularly crazy sounding, this may be a crazy thing for a leader in the polls of the Republican presidential primary to say. He compared rival developers to Ronald Reagan because they were “people who talk a good game but don't deliver.”
Telling the World African Americans Have It Easy: Spy quoted Trump telling reporters in 1989, “If I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.”
Blaming Other People For His Business Failings: In the early 1990s, Trump made a deal with Poland's tourism minister to build a series of “hotels, shops and gambling casinos in Warsaw,” but two years after the $55 million payment was made, ground wasn't even broken. “They've been patient? I've been patient,” said Trump. “Did you ever try to get quality marble in Warsaw? It's pathetic.” What all this demonstrates is even though Trump may have changed his viewpoint on a number of things – such as his previous embrace of single-payer health care – one thing has not changed over the years. Trump remains an unrepentant blowhard, where it's 1985 or 2015.Pando writer Mark Ames has dug up some old Spy Magazine issues from the 1980s and early '90s detailing the legendary satirical magazine's early spade work in revealing what a dedicated jerk Donald Trump is. Over the course of several issues, the magazine probed into the details of Trump's exploits and outrages.
Here are some of the highlights:
Lesson He Learned From Punching His Music Teacher: In a book he wrote in 1987, Trump admitted to punching his music teacher in the second grade. While many would look back at such an event as immature furor, Trump didn't seem reflective about it at all: “In the second grade...I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music....I’m not proud of that, but it’s clear evidence that even early on I had a tendency to stand up and make my opinions known in a very forceful way.”
Instant Missile Expertise: “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump boasted. “I think I know most of it anyway.” He claimed he should be in charge of nuclear negotiations with the Soviet Union.
Less Than Perfect Understanding of the Working Class: Trump claimed that electricians “make a hundred and some odd dollars an hour. The concrete people just make fortunes. Laborers make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”
Attacking Lawyers for Stopping His Unlawful Evictions: A group of lawyers defended tenants at one Trump property who claimed they were being unlawfully evicted. When the courts sided with the tenants, Trump tried to launch a racketeering lawsuit against the lawyers, claiming they were trying to “prevent, frustrate, and inhibit” him from making profits. The courts dismissed Trump's case.
Exploiting the Homeless, Bashing Refugees: Trump offered to put homeless tenants in his Central Park South building in a bid to try to drive the current tenants out so he could tear the whole thing down. The city offered to put Polish refugees there, but Trump countered he'd only allow “people who live in America now, not refugees.”
Bashing Ronald Reagan: Although not particularly crazy sounding, this may be a crazy thing for a leader in the polls of the Republican presidential primary to say. He compared rival developers to Ronald Reagan because they were “people who talk a good game but don't deliver.”
Telling the World African Americans Have It Easy: Spy quoted Trump telling reporters in 1989, “If I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.”
Blaming Other People For His Business Failings: In the early 1990s, Trump made a deal with Poland's tourism minister to build a series of “hotels, shops and gambling casinos in Warsaw,” but two years after the $55 million payment was made, ground wasn't even broken. “They've been patient? I've been patient,” said Trump. “Did you ever try to get quality marble in Warsaw? It's pathetic.” What all this demonstrates is even though Trump may have changed his viewpoint on a number of things – such as his previous embrace of single-payer health care – one thing has not changed over the years. Trump remains an unrepentant blowhard, where it's 1985 or 2015.
5 ways Donald Trump is blatantly sabotaging his own party
Is it too much of a stretch to suppose that we have Bill Clinton to thank for the new Donald show? Remember, nothing is too much of a stretch for right-wing conspiracy nuts when it comes to the Clintons. Actually, it’s far better than that. As everyone watching the GOP debate learned, Trump not only makes big donations to both parties, he expects payback. When pressed by Fox News moderators about what he received for donating money to the Clinton Foundation, he said his $100,000 got Hill and Bill to come to his last wedding. So, if Trump is cozy with the Clintons, it would be an expected courtesy to privately inform the Clintons of his presidential plans before making a public announcement. Hence, we have what is arugably the most intriguing backroom moment of the 2016 race so far. If Bill replied, “Do what you gotta do,” he surely earns the award as the most brilliant politican in America today. Let’s consider what Bill may have helped unleash. 1. More Americans saw the unflitered GOP in technicolor than ever before. The debate had the largest audience ever for non-sports event on cable—24 million people saw the primetime debate and 6 million the second tier forum. That was because of Trump’s surge in the polls. And boy were they informed! There is no doubt where this party stands on abortion (if women have to die, so be it!), god, guns, gays, government regulation, war and more. 2. Republicans are now officially at war with themselves. Hours before Trump’s post-debate tweets resulted in the most amazing spectacle yet (right-wingers attacking Fox News), the big tent of business conservatives tolerating social conservatives collapsed. That happened seconds into the debate, when Trump said he’d consider running as an independent, third-party candidate if he didn’t get the GOP nomination. The audience reaction, mixing cheers and boos, set the ensuing tone as various candidates piled on Trump, either praising him for striking a vein with voters (John Kasich) or saying he didn’t deserve to be there at all (Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham). Either way, a political firestorm erupted, and it only got worse as the weekend unfolded. 3. Trump’s defenders started attacking Fox News. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Trump’s defenders quickly took their cues from the candidate himself and joined him in pouncing on moderator Megyn Kelly, who dared confront Trump on his long history of very public sexist and misogynist comments: basically, is it presidential to be a male chauvinist pig in 2015? To which Trump replied he was sorry if he offended her irrelevant politically correct sensibilities. But just savor this moment: Fox News is now being attacked by a good slice of its audience for going after a racist, sexist pig. Let’s repeat that: Republicans are now attacking Fox News. 4. The right-wingers started attacking each other. This is even more amazing to behold. As everyone watching the news knows, Trump went further and suggested that maybe Megyn Kelly was unduly hormonal when she eagerly questioned his misogyny before a national audience. That prompted the organizer of the next big GOP event, Erick Erickson and his Red State summit, to disinvite Trump. (Trump later attacked Erickson and others for having dirty minds and misinterpreting the tweets.) It gets even better, because, of course, other GOP candidates stood behind Erickson’s we-can’t-have-that-slob-be-our-nominee line in the sand. But at the event Saturday, Erickson was reading tweets from Trump supporters on his big stage, which CNN eagerly carried nationwide. And what did it mean besides showing their love of the Donald and how the party has a serious racist, nativist, misogynist wing? Ponder this: for years, Erickson and his ilk have tried to promote the radical right as a legitimate part of the GOP. But by reading those tweets, Erickson is helping to destroy the very movement of crazies he helped build. For political junkies, this is more delicious than tiramisu at the White House! 5. Hillary is loving this, but Bernie not so much. Could all of this have started with a slight prod from the political world’s Elvis Presley, a nod from Bill Clinton? It’s hard to say, but you can be sure Hillary Clinton is one of the happiest people in America right now. The new Donald show has not only taken her out of the spotlight, which only helps in a still very long campaign, but it also eclipses the Bernie surge. Bernie may be drawing the biggest crowds on the Democratic side, but the Republican Party’s uncivil war is a truly remarkable and eminently coverable news event, and a gift that keeps on giving. Do We Have Bill to Thank? Those who know the real answer to that question are not going to say anything. But gee, if the Republican right breaks down into the domestic political equivalent of Syria—a failed would-be state of warring factions—well, it certainly couldn’t happen to more deserving guys. And if it all started with a prod from Bill, atop a hefty dose of Trump’s ego, is there any politican in America who is a more brilliant strategist? One final point; Hillary isn't the only one loving this moment. You can be sure the GOP pro-corporate establishment is thrilled-thrilled-thrilled that, for whatever reason, its immature rebels are dissembling. Yes, it’s embarassing on a national stage. But American attention spans are short. And soon we will see the party’s grownups—those embraced by the Koch brothers and billionaire-saturated wing—surface as “uniters.” That’s coming, and with it, more of the predictable politics-as-usual to and fro. But for now, the right-wingers are cannabalizing themselves, attacking Fox News, and revving up to support Trump’s third-party run. Do we have Bill Clinton to thank for such a fun and consequential political moment? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But if so, he is the reincarnation of Niccolo Machiavelli, the brilliant political strategist. Savor the moment.
Is it too much of a stretch to suppose that we have Bill Clinton to thank for the new Donald show? Remember, nothing is too much of a stretch for right-wing conspiracy nuts when it comes to the Clintons. Actually, it’s far better than that. As everyone watching the GOP debate learned, Trump not only makes big donations to both parties, he expects payback. When pressed by Fox News moderators about what he received for donating money to the Clinton Foundation, he said his $100,000 got Hill and Bill to come to his last wedding. So, if Trump is cozy with the Clintons, it would be an expected courtesy to privately inform the Clintons of his presidential plans before making a public announcement. Hence, we have what is arugably the most intriguing backroom moment of the 2016 race so far. If Bill replied, “Do what you gotta do,” he surely earns the award as the most brilliant politican in America today. Let’s consider what Bill may have helped unleash. 1. More Americans saw the unflitered GOP in technicolor than ever before. The debate had the largest audience ever for non-sports event on cable—24 million people saw the primetime debate and 6 million the second tier forum. That was because of Trump’s surge in the polls. And boy were they informed! There is no doubt where this party stands on abortion (if women have to die, so be it!), god, guns, gays, government regulation, war and more. 2. Republicans are now officially at war with themselves. Hours before Trump’s post-debate tweets resulted in the most amazing spectacle yet (right-wingers attacking Fox News), the big tent of business conservatives tolerating social conservatives collapsed. That happened seconds into the debate, when Trump said he’d consider running as an independent, third-party candidate if he didn’t get the GOP nomination. The audience reaction, mixing cheers and boos, set the ensuing tone as various candidates piled on Trump, either praising him for striking a vein with voters (John Kasich) or saying he didn’t deserve to be there at all (Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham). Either way, a political firestorm erupted, and it only got worse as the weekend unfolded. 3. Trump’s defenders started attacking Fox News. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Trump’s defenders quickly took their cues from the candidate himself and joined him in pouncing on moderator Megyn Kelly, who dared confront Trump on his long history of very public sexist and misogynist comments: basically, is it presidential to be a male chauvinist pig in 2015? To which Trump replied he was sorry if he offended her irrelevant politically correct sensibilities. But just savor this moment: Fox News is now being attacked by a good slice of its audience for going after a racist, sexist pig. Let’s repeat that: Republicans are now attacking Fox News. 4. The right-wingers started attacking each other. This is even more amazing to behold. As everyone watching the news knows, Trump went further and suggested that maybe Megyn Kelly was unduly hormonal when she eagerly questioned his misogyny before a national audience. That prompted the organizer of the next big GOP event, Erick Erickson and his Red State summit, to disinvite Trump. (Trump later attacked Erickson and others for having dirty minds and misinterpreting the tweets.) It gets even better, because, of course, other GOP candidates stood behind Erickson’s we-can’t-have-that-slob-be-our-nominee line in the sand. But at the event Saturday, Erickson was reading tweets from Trump supporters on his big stage, which CNN eagerly carried nationwide. And what did it mean besides showing their love of the Donald and how the party has a serious racist, nativist, misogynist wing? Ponder this: for years, Erickson and his ilk have tried to promote the radical right as a legitimate part of the GOP. But by reading those tweets, Erickson is helping to destroy the very movement of crazies he helped build. For political junkies, this is more delicious than tiramisu at the White House! 5. Hillary is loving this, but Bernie not so much. Could all of this have started with a slight prod from the political world’s Elvis Presley, a nod from Bill Clinton? It’s hard to say, but you can be sure Hillary Clinton is one of the happiest people in America right now. The new Donald show has not only taken her out of the spotlight, which only helps in a still very long campaign, but it also eclipses the Bernie surge. Bernie may be drawing the biggest crowds on the Democratic side, but the Republican Party’s uncivil war is a truly remarkable and eminently coverable news event, and a gift that keeps on giving. Do We Have Bill to Thank? Those who know the real answer to that question are not going to say anything. But gee, if the Republican right breaks down into the domestic political equivalent of Syria—a failed would-be state of warring factions—well, it certainly couldn’t happen to more deserving guys. And if it all started with a prod from Bill, atop a hefty dose of Trump’s ego, is there any politican in America who is a more brilliant strategist? One final point; Hillary isn't the only one loving this moment. You can be sure the GOP pro-corporate establishment is thrilled-thrilled-thrilled that, for whatever reason, its immature rebels are dissembling. Yes, it’s embarassing on a national stage. But American attention spans are short. And soon we will see the party’s grownups—those embraced by the Koch brothers and billionaire-saturated wing—surface as “uniters.” That’s coming, and with it, more of the predictable politics-as-usual to and fro. But for now, the right-wingers are cannabalizing themselves, attacking Fox News, and revving up to support Trump’s third-party run. Do we have Bill Clinton to thank for such a fun and consequential political moment? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But if so, he is the reincarnation of Niccolo Machiavelli, the brilliant political strategist. Savor the moment.
