May 2022, please stop telling me to vote
Donating money to your local abolition groups or any other organization working to replace the police. I can’t make a solid recommendation for gun control organizations but I’m sure some of those
I wish I’d started writing this before a kid murdered a bunch of other kids in Uvalde, Texas but I didn’t. When I used to use twitter more regularly, I remember starting to check what was trending before I tweeted something I thought was particularly clever or funny. It had become all too common to tweet something like “why is Channing Tatum so sexy but I don’t want to have sex with him” right as some truly awful news broke. It’s usually a mass shooting. I won’t spend time repeating the angry, heartbroken, dejected, often meaningless things people say after a mass shooting, but what I will say is this — stop fucking telling me to vote.
I won’t speak for everyone though I am sure many people agree but stop telling me to vote. I was devastated when I was unable to vote for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. The election was my senior year of high school and I was so envious of my classmates who were old enough to vote. I did really like John Kerry, for reasons I cannot recall or justify, but I also just really wanted to vote George W. Bush out of office. I really, really didn’t like George W. Bush. I was an extremely angsty atheist teen who hated the bible and anti-gay legislation and the war in Iraq. I still don’t like any of those things but at 17, I couldn’t vote so I had to do other stuff instead. I pulled W yard signs from yards around my mostly liberal neighborhood in Shoreline, Washington. I phone banked for Kerry-Edwards, reminding people of election deadlines I couldn’t participate in myself. I’m still so mad that Bush got reelected.
I’ve never missed an election, big or small, since August 17, 2005. I also do not vote in favor of gun rights, in favor of anti-abortion laws, in favor of killing the planet, in favor of helping the rich get richer. And yet, here we are.
There are so many calls to vote after a tragedy or the threat of regression but I think it’s time we considered that the people we’re forced to vote for just aren’t up to snuff. The closest I ever got to not voting for president, or going rogue from the two parties, was this past presidential election. I did not want to vote for Joe Biden. I did not think he is capable of being the president and I do not think he is doing a good job. I think we have a lot of leadership, even on the smallest scale like your local boss, who just aren’t fit to be in a position of leadership. I think the people with the most power are often the most disconnected from regular people but regular people don’t stand much of a chance of gaining leadership for myriad reasons we all are well aware of.
Anyway, everyone is screaming “vote” all the time and sometimes directly at me and the thing is I wanted to vote for someone else but it came down to two people like it always does. Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden felt like choosing between cantaloupe and honeydew on a picked-apart fruit platter at your least favorite friend’s baby shower. I fucking did it but I didn’t want to.
I believe in community outreach but I don’t believe in weird, blanket statements or contributing to the white noise. Take stronger action than repeating the word “vote” over and over as if you’re changing anyone’s mind. We’re voting. We’re just stuck voting for people who don’t give a shit.
We’re all pissed off right now, aren’t we? Anyway, here’s some stuff I read in May.
[Books I Read]
Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos (2022) | Quick summary: An exploration into writing about intimacy.
I think I thought this was something else when I picked it up but it ended up being super motivating for me. This is the kind of book I’m about 1/4 through when I realize I’ll need to purchase it and actually use it as a guide. I like to write and want to carve more time out for it. This memoir-ish dive into writing about the most vulnerable parts of us was a good reminder for me.
[creative writing, reference/memoir-vibes, written by a queer American author, short-ish read but deserves a study]
Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King (2021) | Quick summary: Part pop-culture reflection, part personal (mostly dating) stories.
It really seems like I’d love this but I didn’t. I appreciated a lot of King’s directness and reflection about her own experiences and, at times, lack of integrity. She’s also a funny writer. Pop culture heavy writing is hit or miss. King covered a lot of pop culture I don’t have a relationship to or just don’t care about — Hot Topic, specific scents from body shops, Meat Loaf, Degrassi — and some I know about but don’t care to deep dive into, like Sex and the City. However, there were a series of essays toward the end of the book that I appreciated for a variety of reasons including insight into how depressing sexting can feel and the magic of the Cheesecake Factory.
[pop culture, reference/essay/memoir, written by a “James Beard award-nominated bitch,” medium-length read unless you skip around by subject; then it’s quick-ish]
Nobody’s Magic: a novel by Destiny O. Birdsong (2022) | Quick summary: Three separate stories about Black women living with albinism in the south.
At a later time, I’ll probably explain some of my weird, specific thoughts around code switching and how I really didn’t think that concept applied to me until embarrassingly recently. Without diving into that full explanation, I will at least note that listening to one episode of a podcast that featured people of color with albinism drove me to seek out books written by people of color with albinism. What a story! Nobody’s Magic is written by a Black woman with albinism from Louisiana and, like I’m frequently drawn to stories of Black people being adopted by white people, there’s something appealing to me about these stories of Black women with light skin, especially growing up in the south. I went to Louisiana for work for a quick twoish days this month and the energy isn’t quite there yet to share one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever had, but I had it. And I thought of this book and this writer and all of the Black women who have their identities questioned throughout their lives.
[fiction, southern fiction, Black lit, written by a Louisiana-born poet, essayist, and fiction writer, medium-length read]
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha; various contributors (2020) | Quick summary: Essays, strategies, and resources for accountability beyond calling the cops and relying on the criminal justice system.
The quick summary is plenty. I can’t read enough about organizing, transformative justice, abolition, and policing in general. I bought a copy of this to refer back to, even though I read it on my kindle via my beloved library.
[essays, social theory, edited by a Black queer American organizer and political strategist (Dixon) and a “queer disabled femme writer and performer of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent,” longish read if you want it to be]
[Books I Heard]
Grief is Love: Living with Loss by Marisa Renee Lee (2022) | Quick summary: Coping with loss and grief throughout your life.
Lee’s memoir is an exploration into coping with loss and the reality that grief is not linear. I read a lot about grief and loss and I guess it feels like a way to be prepared for future losses in my life while also being able to support and be present to people in my life who are currently grieving. And folks, that’s a lot of people. I like getting older, I like feeling my age, learning new things, feeling the most myself I’ve ever felt. I like the little weird eye wrinkle and I’m thrilled for the day I can have a stylist help pull out and highlight my gray hairs for that Rogue-from-X-Men look I’ve coveted since young childhood. But something about getting older that pulls me away from old-lady-in-a-rocking-chair fantasies is the reality of parents dying. I’ve had a lot of friends lose their parents in the past few years and I know deep down it’ll just keep happening. I’ll always be the friend who knows how to navigate this shit and I’ll never be the friend that asks you to hurry up your grief. I feel so lucky to have navigated the deep loss of a beloved family member or friend really only once, maybe twice, in my life. But if you’re not so lucky or have recently ceased being so lucky, I want to be here for that and for you. This memoir is a gut-punch of realistic grief and loss and it’s excellent.
[memoir, writing on grief, written by a Black American writer, speaker, and entrepreneur, shorter listen, read by the author]
Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon (2022) | Quick summary: SNL fave Molly Shannon’s memoir about her family, comedy, and her career.
This doesn’t need much explanation from me or anyone. I’d highly recommend listening to Shannon read this herself because listening to her joyous, heartfelt narration is a gift. Plus, you get her intonations — lots of “delicious!” and other average words that Shannon is so good at making funny. Though I knew she’d lost her mother, I previously had no idea there was such a tragic car accident that resulted in the loss her mother, sister, and cousin. Shannon starts out her memoir with this accident and it’s woven throughout every bit of her story, even the funniest parts. What a talent, what a heart.
[celebrity memoir, writing on comedy and grief, written by an American actress and comedian, shortish listen (and she speaks quickly!), read by the author]
[What I Recommend]
- If you’re a writer or have been curious about writing: Body Work by Melissa Febos
- If you’ve lost someone or know someone who has lost someone: Grief is Love by Marisa Renee Lee
- If you need to laugh and maybe cry a little: Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon
- Donating money to your local abolition groups or any other organization working to replace the police. I can’t make a solid recommendation for gun control organizations but I’m sure some of those are good too.
