Dear friends, family, fellow travelers,
I hope everyone is staying warm (if you currently live in a cold climate) and cool (if you don't). Here in Roslindale, Massachusetts it's in the low 30s (Fahrenheit) which is up from the snappy temperatures of yesterday that were in the teens. It's been a winter without much snow but has still been quite nippy out, as my grandmother used to say, and we are grateful for hats and gloves and mittens.
It turned out I put a lot of sadness and anger into this Tinyletter? So that's a thing. That happened. And I feel like that just merits a content note. If you don't need that in your life right now, I won't hold it against you! Go watch this video of Teazle pleading with me to go out into the cold dark Out that she would hate but is sure from the warmth of the Inside she would love if only I would just open the door.
I have also provided regular breaks from the sad/mad by way of kitten pictures. So there's that too. Anyhoo. It's 2020 y'all and that's how we roll.
Have a cat.
Image: Teazle crouched at the foot of our bed, judging me for staying up to finish a sewing project.
My year in reading has begun with a run of forthcoming titles on white Christian nationalism, which is a longstanding interest of mine made more urgently and unhappily relevant by the 2016 election. I read Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation's Capital and Redeem a Christian America by Lauren Kerby (April 2020) over the December break; Kerby's enthographic research into the world of white Christian heritage tourism was a fascinating window onto how white Christian evangelicals construct a historical imaginary of America's past that places them simultaneously at the rightful center of power and exiled from it. In January I read Sarah Posner's Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump (May 2020), Robert P. Jones' White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (June 2020), and Kristin Kobes Du Mez's Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (May 2020). Posner, a longtime reporter on the religious right, does an excellent job showing how Trump “was the strongman the Christian right had long been waiting for," through whom God would act, aggressively restoring white Christian evangelicals to their rightful place as autocratic leaders of a wayward nation. Jones, a sociologist, blends memoir with history and sociological analysis to document the legacy of white supremacy within white Christian communities across the United States. Historian Du Mez offers a cultural history tracing the development of the modern white Christian man as a racist, patriarchal nationalist from Billy Graham (and John Wayne) to Donald Trump. All sadly timely, all unique enough to feel complementary rather than duplicative.
Have a cat.
Image: Christopher asleep on his favorite radiator.
I'm also reading an intellectual history of the Christian Reconstruction movement and its thought leader, R. J. Rushdoony, who sounds like That Guy In Your MFA crossed with That Youth Pastor Who Loved The Bible Code. There's also, I gotta say, something uniquely bracing, as a bisexual, about reading the words of a man who thought -- in the latter half of the twentieth century -- that being queer was a crime worthy of execution. Particularly when you know he's a guy whose work influenced an entire generation of Christian activists who now hold power in our government. It's just -- you know, you're reading along and there it is, this dude wanted you dead. It's a special kind of research experience that researchers from marginalized communities, I think, are taught to gloss over. I'm done glossing over it.
Have a cat.
Image: Christopher sunbathing in the dining room window.
I do, white supremacist bigots aside, love book reviewing because of the excuse it brings to read new and forthcoming nonfiction. It's also brought me into community with the editors at Library Journal, particularly, who are working hard (often behind the scenes and with little thanks) to change the universe of publishing, reviewing, collection development, and libraries to be more truly inclusive and equitable. And on a sweet up note for the winter, I was honored to be named one of Library Journal's 2019 Reviewers of the Year. It's an honor and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.
Have a cat.
Image: Teazle counting down the minutes until Kitty Dinner Time (5pm).
The Romance Writers of America ethics process audit was released earlier this week and I have been carrying just tremendous amounts of renewed sadness, anger, and secondary trauma in my body over the last two days as I digest how thoroughly the organization's white leadership targeted and dehumanized a woman of color who advocated for meaningful change, and how the organization will likely never meaningfully apologize or offer any -- any -- recompense for the harm they did both to their original target and to everyone else who has suffered across the years as a result of the organization's entrenched racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The audit report is both woefully incomplete and utterly damning -- a combination that is incredibly telling to me, because it demonstrates that the principle actors felt safe enough to offer up the contents of this report (the damning one!) as a report that covers their asses. This is the version they're comfortable with going public. It's exhausting, and an inescapable echo of the type of out-in-the-open abusive relationship dynamic we are currently in as a nation with the GOP.
Have a cat.
Image: Teazle asleep against my hip on the couch.
I wish I had words of clarity and wisdom to offer as we head into (are already in the midst of) the 2020 presidential election cycle. Since early 2017, Hanna and I have found that it's fairly necessary for us to screen out 90% of the daily news in order for us to focus on the work we are committed to doing in our own lives and communities of care. I think it's realistic to acknowledge that many of us face down this election cycle still carrying the traumas of 2016 alone -- even before we consider the abusive presidency we've been living under since January 2017, and the damage it has done. Someone asked me recently how I felt about Elizabeth Warren as a candidate and I realized in struggling to answer them that it feels almost impossible to bring desire to this election because I need everything I have in reserve to keep me moving forward under the present regime should it continue. Desire feels beyond reach. My desires are, like, I just want the carnage and inhumanity to stop. And I hate so much that the Republican machine loves white supremacist patriarchal power so much that those are the political goals I feel capable of having.
But. In the meantime. Warren has earned my respect as our senator, and our representative Ayanna Pressley has endorsed her as a presidential candidate. So on March 4th I will be casting my vote for Elizabeth Warren in the Massachusetts primary.
Let's all keep on moving forward.
Have a cookie.
Image: A rainbow heart cookie for Valentine's Day, from Solid Ground Cafe in Mission Hill, Boston.
Love,
Me
I hope everyone is staying warm (if you currently live in a cold climate) and cool (if you don't). Here in Roslindale, Massachusetts it's in the low 30s (Fahrenheit) which is up from the snappy temperatures of yesterday that were in the teens. It's been a winter without much snow but has still been quite nippy out, as my grandmother used to say, and we are grateful for hats and gloves and mittens.
It turned out I put a lot of sadness and anger into this Tinyletter? So that's a thing. That happened. And I feel like that just merits a content note. If you don't need that in your life right now, I won't hold it against you! Go watch this video of Teazle pleading with me to go out into the cold dark Out that she would hate but is sure from the warmth of the Inside she would love if only I would just open the door.
I have also provided regular breaks from the sad/mad by way of kitten pictures. So there's that too. Anyhoo. It's 2020 y'all and that's how we roll.
Have a cat.
Image: Teazle crouched at the foot of our bed, judging me for staying up to finish a sewing project. My year in reading has begun with a run of forthcoming titles on white Christian nationalism, which is a longstanding interest of mine made more urgently and unhappily relevant by the 2016 election. I read Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation's Capital and Redeem a Christian America by Lauren Kerby (April 2020) over the December break; Kerby's enthographic research into the world of white Christian heritage tourism was a fascinating window onto how white Christian evangelicals construct a historical imaginary of America's past that places them simultaneously at the rightful center of power and exiled from it. In January I read Sarah Posner's Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump (May 2020), Robert P. Jones' White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (June 2020), and Kristin Kobes Du Mez's Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (May 2020). Posner, a longtime reporter on the religious right, does an excellent job showing how Trump “was the strongman the Christian right had long been waiting for," through whom God would act, aggressively restoring white Christian evangelicals to their rightful place as autocratic leaders of a wayward nation. Jones, a sociologist, blends memoir with history and sociological analysis to document the legacy of white supremacy within white Christian communities across the United States. Historian Du Mez offers a cultural history tracing the development of the modern white Christian man as a racist, patriarchal nationalist from Billy Graham (and John Wayne) to Donald Trump. All sadly timely, all unique enough to feel complementary rather than duplicative.
Have a cat.
Image: Christopher asleep on his favorite radiator.I'm also reading an intellectual history of the Christian Reconstruction movement and its thought leader, R. J. Rushdoony, who sounds like That Guy In Your MFA crossed with That Youth Pastor Who Loved The Bible Code. There's also, I gotta say, something uniquely bracing, as a bisexual, about reading the words of a man who thought -- in the latter half of the twentieth century -- that being queer was a crime worthy of execution. Particularly when you know he's a guy whose work influenced an entire generation of Christian activists who now hold power in our government. It's just -- you know, you're reading along and there it is, this dude wanted you dead. It's a special kind of research experience that researchers from marginalized communities, I think, are taught to gloss over. I'm done glossing over it.
Have a cat.
Image: Christopher sunbathing in the dining room window.I do, white supremacist bigots aside, love book reviewing because of the excuse it brings to read new and forthcoming nonfiction. It's also brought me into community with the editors at Library Journal, particularly, who are working hard (often behind the scenes and with little thanks) to change the universe of publishing, reviewing, collection development, and libraries to be more truly inclusive and equitable. And on a sweet up note for the winter, I was honored to be named one of Library Journal's 2019 Reviewers of the Year. It's an honor and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.
Have a cat.
Image: Teazle counting down the minutes until Kitty Dinner Time (5pm). The Romance Writers of America ethics process audit was released earlier this week and I have been carrying just tremendous amounts of renewed sadness, anger, and secondary trauma in my body over the last two days as I digest how thoroughly the organization's white leadership targeted and dehumanized a woman of color who advocated for meaningful change, and how the organization will likely never meaningfully apologize or offer any -- any -- recompense for the harm they did both to their original target and to everyone else who has suffered across the years as a result of the organization's entrenched racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The audit report is both woefully incomplete and utterly damning -- a combination that is incredibly telling to me, because it demonstrates that the principle actors felt safe enough to offer up the contents of this report (the damning one!) as a report that covers their asses. This is the version they're comfortable with going public. It's exhausting, and an inescapable echo of the type of out-in-the-open abusive relationship dynamic we are currently in as a nation with the GOP.
Have a cat.
Image: Teazle asleep against my hip on the couch.I wish I had words of clarity and wisdom to offer as we head into (are already in the midst of) the 2020 presidential election cycle. Since early 2017, Hanna and I have found that it's fairly necessary for us to screen out 90% of the daily news in order for us to focus on the work we are committed to doing in our own lives and communities of care. I think it's realistic to acknowledge that many of us face down this election cycle still carrying the traumas of 2016 alone -- even before we consider the abusive presidency we've been living under since January 2017, and the damage it has done. Someone asked me recently how I felt about Elizabeth Warren as a candidate and I realized in struggling to answer them that it feels almost impossible to bring desire to this election because I need everything I have in reserve to keep me moving forward under the present regime should it continue. Desire feels beyond reach. My desires are, like, I just want the carnage and inhumanity to stop. And I hate so much that the Republican machine loves white supremacist patriarchal power so much that those are the political goals I feel capable of having.
But. In the meantime. Warren has earned my respect as our senator, and our representative Ayanna Pressley has endorsed her as a presidential candidate. So on March 4th I will be casting my vote for Elizabeth Warren in the Massachusetts primary.
Let's all keep on moving forward.
Have a cookie.
Image: A rainbow heart cookie for Valentine's Day, from Solid Ground Cafe in Mission Hill, Boston.Love,
Me