Lyrics in the Key of Life, Part II

Picking up from Lyrics in the Key of Life, Part I
Still, a man [or woman] hears what he [or she] wants to hear/And disregards the rest. I find myself going to this line from Paul Simon’s The Boxer with increasing frequency now that I spend so much time on the Internet. Read through any online thread on any given day and you're sure to come upon thousands of examples of people talking right past each other. And it's not just about politics and religion, I once came upon a nasty exchange on which New England state had the best lobster rolls. Below is one of a gazillion (ho-ho) dialogs that make my case. First, some background: the original post Black girls' sexual burden: Why Mo'ne Davis was really called a "slut" was about how the twitter incident in which Mo'ne Davis was called a slut was indicative of what black women have always had to endure. Two women, who should be allies, respond....

White woman: This bias everyone is speaking of is GENDER bias, race is not why men sexualize girls and women. Curt Schilling's daughter was the target of this kind of bias, and anyone remember Martina Navratilova?  Men use sexist rhetoric to diminish the accomplishments of girls and women. This is a world wide problem, and all girls and women are subject to this mistreatment. The two things that are most harmful to women are gender and economic disparity. Women must stand together, all races and ethnicities, as there is power in numbers. Let's focus on our common ground and put an end to all biases.

Black woman: It is most definitely a racial issue in addition to being one related to gender. Here's a term you need to look up: intersectionality. I'm amazed you haven't heard of it yet. I'm sure you would not deny that either sexism or racism are problems, yet racist sexism targeted specifically at black women and girls is apparently beyond you. Ms. Cooper is using this incident with Mo'ne as the catalyst and basis for her discussion, but it goes much deeper than that. You should do your research before you talk. You are speaking for and over black women, and you are doing it in order to contradict a *black woman.* Does that really make sense to you?

White Woman: Direct your anger at someone else. I am not here to hurt or silence anybody.

Black Woman: Why so many white women don't understand anything about black women? You think you and I are exactly the same in our experiences as women and I'm just, what? Lying about how different I know my experience to be from yours? You think I would lie? You think all black women are lying? And for that matter, many other women of color? You think you can force your narrative down my throat, force me to agree that you and I are exactly equal in both our privileges and our struggles? Does that seem like solidarity to you? You think you and I are on the same page, and yet look, here we are, not on the same page. Amazing.

White woman: you don't sound like you are interested in a discussion, you sound angry. Amazing indeed.

1 day ago

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone—from Leonard Cohen’s sublime Suzanne.  Whenever I find myself in a "dialog" like the one above, I close it by saying (to myself at least): "I've sunk beneath your wisdom like a stone." I know it sounds a touch smug and condescending, but I think it beats the alternatives--a rude and crude "Fuck you" or the uber passive-aggressive "You just don't get it". 

When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez/And it’s Eastertime too/And your gravity fails/And negativity don’t pull you through—This is the other Dylan line that I reach for most often. It's a more poetic treatment of How does it feel/ to be on your own/like a rolling stone, but basically the same idea—loss is an essential and unavoidable part of life. You can put on airs, call in the doctor, find fortune and fame, but somewhere along the line you’re going to have to make do without props. If you’re ever standing behind me in Starbucks and hear me singing this line to myself, I'm not trying to strike up a conversation about physics, self esteem or race relations, I'm merely trying to find my way through my wit’s end.  
It’s a sad man, my friend, who’s livin’ in his own skin and can’t stand the company--Back to the beginning...the lyric that set me off on this self-examination. It's from Springsteen's Better Days, and speaks rather succinctly to the whole Norman O. Brown Love’s Body thing, which is the touchstone of this blog. With his more lyrical Love’s Body and more literal Life Against Death, Brown put forth his thesis that most of the world's troubles spring from humankind's discomfort with itself—its sense of dismemberment and loss. When Brown says that homicide is a case of suicide through mistaken identity, we need look no further for a graphic example than Andreas Lubitz crashing a plane into a mountainside with 149 men, women and children onboard who did not share his psychosis. Brown redirects us to think of murder in particular, and crime in general, not as supernatural evil, but as desperate attacks on that which we hate or fear in ourselves. Interviews with sex offenders undergoing chemical castration reveal how relieved they are to achieve some level of comfort in their own skin:

"These pills have actually given me the chance to take a step back and think, 'Hang on, you don't want to go down that road again.' I can watch a TV programme simply for what it is, without hoping the presenter would part her legs so I could see up her skirt." He still has "the odd slip" but is functionally impotent now. "I get the stirrings, but nothing else." His entire relationship with the world has changed. "Because my head isn't full of sex all the time, I'm able to speak to people. How I used to manage even the mundane things – walk, talk, sleep – I don't know."

Having empathy for those who suffer demons of the mind does not mean condoning what they do; it means understanding that what they do is part of the total human experience. It's not some alien evil beyond our comprehension. Comprehending what drives some to such madness that they'll kill masses in an airline crash or behead a lone unarmed person in the desert should not be beyond us as long as we keep in mind that at the root of most human badness is human suffering.