Shouting and Sweating in Snake Prints
8/9/19 - In vintage CYG fashion, Amina and Ann discuss their Harry Potter houses (as sorted by Gina) and then move on to sadder and more serious topics. The intractable problems of hate and guns, men who abused their power and want it back. And, Rest in Power, Toni Morrison.
Content warning: gun violence and the fact of sexual violence are acknowledged in this episode.
Transcript below.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
Mona Chalabi’s charts on domestic terrorism
Metoo check in: Age of consent laws and Epstein
Alan Dershowitz profile
Epstein case explained
Al Franken (New Yorker profile / Jezebel report) and Aziz Ansari (reporting on Babe.net / “reflective” new set) stage their comebacks
Toni Morrison's 2011 commencement address at Rutgers:
"I am myself a storyteller, and therefore, an optimist—a firm believer in the ethical bend of the human heart; a believer in the mind’s appetite for truth and its disgust with fraud and selfishness. From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny. From my point of view, your life is already artful—waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art."
TRANSCRIPT: SHOUTING AND SWEATING IN SNAKE PRINTS
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(0:50)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Hi Ann Friedman, how's it going?
Ann: You know, I know you didn't ask what are you wearing but I'm going to answer that question instead. [Laughter]
Aminatou: You know Ann I respect my friends and I don't objectify them so, you know, tell me. What are you wearing?
Ann: Okay, I am wearing a kind of railroad stripe Big Mac like men's set of coverall jumpsuit thing that I got at a clothing swap a couple years ago. I put it on when I have some serious words work to do. It's like I'm under the hood. I'm really getting in there. Like she's about to perform some labor on these documents. That is my look and my attitude today.
Aminatou: I love this. I am wearing my Emily Myers snake print cabana shirt. Cabana?
Ann: Cabana?
Aminatou: Cabana.
Ann: Cabana.
Aminatou: Which is like the perfect cut for the summer but also this print always makes me feel like I'm going to get some real shit done so I'm really into that.
Ann: Snake print?
(2:00)
Aminatou: I love a snake. It's because of my Harry Potter house, whichever one that sounds like a snake. Can you tell I've never read Harry Potter? [Laughs]
Ann: But I do feel like Gina is one of those Harry Potter is my astrology borderline people and so I recall conversations -- like I think Gina is the one who fully diagnosed my Harry Potter house as well.
Aminatou: Oh yeah, she also diagnosed my Harry Potter house and my rising Harry Potter house and my moon Harry Potter house.
Ann: Wow.
Aminatou: So I feel sorted on the Harry Potter front.
Ann: Wait, so you're a Slytherin with a what and what?
Aminatou: Oh wow, so you knew. Slytherin. I couldn't even remember the name.
Ann: I've read Harry Potter. I participate in popular culture.
Aminatou: Ann, you've read Harry Potter?
Ann: All of them.
Aminatou: How come you never talked about -- what?
Ann: I don't know. I consume a lot of culture I don't talk about all the time. [Laughs]
Aminatou: You know what, let me unpack this. The reason I feel that you had not read Harry Potter is not because I think it's a good or bad thing to read Harry Potter. Clearly very popular books. It's become people who read Harry Potter won't shut the fuck up about it. Is this one of those older millennial things? Is that why? Or is it because you're not a joiner?
Ann: Actually I love this question. I fully believe it's because I'm the oldest millennial (TM), like technically the very first year qualifying as millennial. I do identify more as Generation Catalano for those listening who are in my 1979 to '82 range.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: And I will say this: I read Harry Potter on breaks in-between my semesters at college. It was like my turn my brain off when I'm off school. And that is a very different experience I think from reading Harry Potter in elementary school or even as a teenager. It is a thing I participated in and was interested in but it was not formative to me and therefore as an astrological orientation or whatever it holds no water and I don't feel the need to talk about it all the time. But I have read them all and I've seen most of the movies I think.
Aminatou: I have read none of them and it's not because I didn't think they were cool. I just have a like -- I'm on a very solid magazine rotation so a 1,000 page book is tough for me.
Ann: Stop. [Laughs]
(4:00)
Aminatou: Also here's the actual real truth of Harry Potter is that at my high school they wouldn't let us have them because it was witchcraft. So I was like you know what? I'm busy fighting on a lot of fronts. I can't also be fighting the witchcraft front. So I didn't get into that with the school librarian. But you know, Ann, the age thing is interesting because I know people your age who also won't shut the fuck up about Harry Potter so I just always . . . I just thought it was like a cult. I have only seen one movie, the one with like wizard Olympics is what I call it. I don't know their like . . .
Ann: The Triwizard tournament? [Laughs]
Aminatou: Oh my god, it's so good. It's so good. The first time I watched it I watched it with our friend Mercedes and it's truly one of my favorite things in the entire world because now any time it's on TV I watch it obsessively no matter what part it's at. I still watch it. But I don't know anything about the Harry Potter universe outside of that, so . . .
Ann: Wait, so how were you identified as a Slytherin then by someone who is deep in the Harry Potter universe?
Aminatou: Gina.
Ann: Of course.
Aminatou: Gina was just like you're -- who else? [Laughs] Who else?
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: Who else?
Ann: Gina, the sorting hat of this podcast. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I know! Okay, this makes me happy. You know I've always said that whenever . . . one day when I have an illness or I'm recovering from some sort of surgery I'd watch Harry Potter and then I did have an illness and a surgery to recover from and I was like no, all I want to do is watch Housewives from beginning to end. It was beautiful. But maybe one day I'll have another illness that is less serious and I can engage in the seriousness of Harry Potter. [Laughs]
Ann: You can fully immerse yourself.
Aminatou: Also can I just tell you my other favorite thing about not being a Harry Potter head at all is actually reading the -- what's the woman's name, JK Rowling? Reading her tweets. Because it seems to me as somebody who was not a part of this world that she's just retconning her entire body of work. She's always like "Oh no, definitely. That person was like a Muslim trans person. No, no, definitely. This was about other elevated topic, like discuss." And I'm just like are you making shit up now? What is going on here?
(6:05)
Ann: Or like no, it was about giant spiders and owls delivering post and spells and things. Like that's what it was about. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Okay, owls delivering post is great. Okay. Now the entire world knows that I'm an illiterate person. I will engage in Harry Potter.
Ann: Also the fact that you are scared as snakes and Gina identified you as Slytherin, the snaky house, I am like wow.
Aminatou: I know. And do you see how much snake print I'm wearing these days? Nobody is more afraid of snakes than me.
Ann: Full circle. Full circle.
Aminatou: But I'm out here like handbags, shirts, shoes. I'm like you don't own me. So this is my exposure therapy. [Laughs]
Ann: Wow.
Aminatou: It's just like wearing the print. Ann, I've known you for ten years and I did not know that you were a Harry Potter head. This is amazing.
Ann: I mean that is true but also it took Gina to sort me into Ravenclaw. I am not so deep that I could sort myself. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Oh my god, I just -- you know, this is what I love about friendship. You can know someone so long and then you find this kind of shit out about them.
Ann: Layers.
Aminatou: This is lit.
Ann: Layers to this.
Aminatou: Lit. What else am I going to find out next week? What?
Ann: Ugh, oh man. Okay, maybe we should start the show.
Aminatou: [Laughs] You know I secretly hate all those podcasts where they make all those asides before they get to the show.
Ann: Oh my god, me too!
Aminatou: And now we have fully turned into those people.
Ann: I always fast-forward through the beginning banter.
Aminatou: I know! And some of them are worse at it than others of them.
Ann: Well guess what? This whole episode is basically banter so if you are not here for the beginning you won't be here for the whole thing.
Aminatou: [Sighs] I know. I'm just saying this is how life humbles you. Like one minute you're like somebody else is the problem. Next thing you're like "No, je souis la problem is me." So okay, let's get into it.
Ann: Okay, wait, before we get into it we do have to announce one more time the cities that we're visiting on tour this fall.
Aminatou: Wow, these podcasts announcements. Will they ever end? Where are we going?
Ann: Will they ever end? I can do it quickly. We're going to Toronto, Detroit, Denver, Austin, and Houston. We would love to see all of your faces there and you can find the exact dates we're in all those places and get your tickets at callyourgirlfriend.com/tour or tell a friend in one of those cities to come see us because we want to meet them too.
Aminatou: Ann, I don't really want to get into it but as we have previously discussed it's Toronno.
Ann: T-O-R-O-N-N-O?
Aminatou: But spelled C-H-U-R-N-N-N-O. Churonno.
Ann: Churonno. Churonno sounds like a delicious dessert.
Aminatou: Or Toronno. It's like there's cities where you never say the end, Toronno, Alanna.
Ann: Okay, this makes a lot of sense because I feel like locals in many cities will just drop a syllable. For example my dear friend Laura used to live in Kansas City but she would only say Kan City.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(8:55)
Ann: Kan City.
Aminatou: I've never heard that but I'm charmed.
Ann: And my other bestie Bridget lived in Milwaukee for many years but she would say Milwaukee like Mwaukee.
Aminatou: Mwaukee? Interesting.
Ann: It was almost like mwa at the beginning.
Aminatou: Let's actually do the show before the people drop off.
Ann: Oh my god, I feel like we're ten minutes deep. The people who are here are here for it so everyone else is gone already.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: But yes, okay. Let me hit you with the agenda. On this week's agenda we're talking about domestic terrorism and misogyny and what we can do now and in the long-term. We're also doing a check-in on the state of Metoo including consent laws, come-back cases, and men who still don't understand the power they hold. And also rest in power Toni Morrison.
[Theme Song]
(10:03)
Ann: You know before we talk about anything else we really wanted to pause and acknowledge the recent terrorist violence in various places across the United States. We both feel a certain level of exhaustion or the sense of what there is to be said about radicalized white men motivated by hate committing crimes of mass violence because they have easy access to guns that do a lot of harm in a short period of time. I mean I feel like every layer of that argument I have seen made so thoroughly and I don't feel like I'm the one to make it in a more articulate or profound way than anyone else. But we just have to acknowledge that this is going on and continue -- continue to point it out.
Aminatou: It's just very exhausting to both feel really under assault, like literal assault all the time, with what's going on with our gun laws and our legislators not doing enough and also really trying to balance that with the fact that it's not something that we cannot pay -- that we cannot not pay attention to. I am feeling . . . I have to admit that I'm feeling very . . . I just get very sad when I think about which incidents we choose to publicize and the ones we don't hear about at all. Like to me it's actually like a public health problem, you know? I was like oh, wow, if this were happening somewhere else the news would talk about it differently but also people are literally dying from the epidemic of gun violence. It's just incredibly depressing to feel like not a lot is getting done but I'm really grateful that there are people actually who are doing a lot.
Ann: Yeah. I mean what is there to be done right? There are definitely some very concrete pieces of legislation relating to guns and who can access them and when that have been stalled after passing the house, like the senate has just completely declined to take up. Maybe we'll see some movement there. But when I think about this issue it is not just how or whether someone has access to a gun. Not someone -- sorry, a radicalized white man. Let's not just be . . . there's not just a faceless someone in most of these cases. How a person who has been consuming ideologies of hate and wants to perpetrate them through this very concrete act of violence, it's not just how they can get their hands on a gun or not which is what the laws that have passed the house address or attempt to start addressing.
(12:25)
It also just for me this question of how is that ideology allowed to flourish? After the El Paso attack I was doing some reading through the ACLU's website because I was like I'm really curious how are some places that really try to walk this line between protecting speech and also recognizing that really explicit and direct hate speech with very direct consequences, where that flourishes online. Who's talking about more widespread attempts to address and regulate that? That's not just like throw our hands up and be like it's the culture and wait for a widespread cultural shift. And I really didn't find a lot and I'm really curious about -- that's one reason why I found myself thinking like I don't have a lot to say about this topic right now because when I think about a lot of other issues I care about it's not just how do we stop a symptom of something. It's like how do we kind of look at the more root causes, right? We're always thinking structurally.
And I'm like man, when I think structurally about the motivations and what gave these violent men permission to do what they did or make them feel like it was kind of like a supported decision, like that there was an ideological rationale for it, that's when I start to feel frankly kind of hopeless about the short-term possibilities for positive change.
(13:45)
Aminatou: Well can I hit you with something that will make you feel not hopeless?
Ann: I would love that.
Aminatou: Shannon Watts who's the founder of Moms Demand Action has this actually really great book out called Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World. She writes about her experience being a stay-at-home mom of I believe she has five kids when Sandy Hook happened in 2012. And she used her Facebook page to rally all the other moms to start volunteering and organizing and she hasn't stopped since.
It's been such a good reminder for me that in a place that I feel incredibly desperate and despondent people are doing a lot and they're really running with it. And yes I know a lot of this hinges on legislation and those people, they eventually will catch up with us, but it was just like very good to have a book that is -- you know, it's part manifesto, part memoir, and really like a part manual. All of the activist tips that are in there and the statements and the things that you can do I was like yes, there are still things we can do. Like I can't be so -- feel so despondent that I think this is never going to change.
And I think either I said this on the podcast or I was telling you, Ann, in a conversation that I had with our friend Rebecca Traister onstage somebody had asked her what she thought about gun violence and, you know, why are things not happening faster? And Rebecca was just like -- you know, really smartly laid out the case that all progress takes a really long time and she gave the example of suffrage that took over 100 years. And so for me when I start zooming the lens out I was like okay, there's a day-to-day of how I can feel awful about this but in the arc of history what is happening ?And I think that I feel a little better about that. Also I just always have to remind myself that -- Cecile Richards points this out in her work a lot -- Planned Parenthood has more members than the National Rifle Association.
Ann: Yeah.
(15:50)
Aminatou: There's just like from a numbers perspective there are more of us. Like I know that that's a very simplistic way of putting it for sure but I think for me that helps me sleep a little better at night and it also makes me feel that if we all do a little bit every day we're going to get there.
Ann: I know and I think that that really addresses the kind of like -- and maybe I wasn't clear about where my despair comes in. It's not about how long it's taking to get gun legislation passed or whether there is support for orgs like Moms Demand Action for me it's more like the underlying -- like for example the terrorist who drove hundreds of miles from his home in suburban Dallas to specifically target people he perceived to be Latinos or immigrants, things like that. That's kind of what I mean by the bigger picture.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: Less about it takes a long time to pass gun reform and more about thinking about the motivations of the people who pick up guns to enact violence for these reasons. You know, and I hear you. One of these things we can do something about in the concrete now and one of those things is a bigger lifelong fight against creeping fascism frankly. But yeah, I was just trying to articulate those -- the difference between how I feel about the possibilities for gun control or more common sense gun laws versus essentially the hate that underpins these shooters' motivations.
Aminatou: Trust me I hear you. I am just trying to focus on the places that I know I won't lose my mind in. I hear you. [Laughs]
Ann: And look, you know, it is well-taken. And I also think this is why we are talking about it today. Friend and recent guest of the podcast Mona Chalabi has a couple of charts on her Instagram that we will link to that really lay bare the probability that a mass shooter will be described as mentally ill. Guess what? If they're white they're 19 times more likely to be described as mentally ill so that really is a way of sidestepping the conversation about the ideological reasons or the hate-motivated reasons why these people are doing what they're doing. And also just the frequency of who is committing these crimes. Like again you see whiteness pop up and white men.
(18:00)
And so I think that is just another reason too where I'm like okay, continuing pointing out and re-framing this conversation as one about terrorism and pointing out who is feeling very directly scared and targeted in the wake of this is really important too.
Aminatou: I'm feeling so sad. [Laughs]
Ann: I know. Well let's take a little break.
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(22:08)
Aminatou: Because I was gone this summer I was not doing a lot of reading and upon my return I finally dove into this New Yorker story on Alan Dershowitz who is, if you watch a minimum amount of television you know who he is. He's a lawyer and an academic but he's also a TV pundit. He's just somebody who's been in public life for I would say my entire life and is one of those people that's always asked to comment on politics. And this profile of him in the New Yorker was really interesting because it's basically in connection to Jeffrey Epstein who is -- not financial mastermind who is under indictment currently.
But the profile was disturbing for many, many reasons because here is a person who's a renowned lawyer and legal scholar and you're finding out all these things that you're like hmm, maybe power should be examined and interrogated at every level. Things that you find out in the profile for example: a lot of women in his law school classes said that the lectures he made made them really uncomfortable because he had this really strong point-of-view about how rape cases should be prosecuted. There's such a telling quote in the piece where a source says that there's a woman in his class who finally was like "You know, we're so tired of you talking about rape all the time. Why are you so gung-ho about this?" He also has a history of smearing victims including people who have accused him of all sorts of misconduct.
(23:45)
But the thing that was really interesting to me in the piece was this kind of revelation that he really suggests that the age of consent should be 15. And he argues this in this op-ed I want to say in 1997 basically where he's arguing against statutory rape laws because, and let me quote him accurately, "there must be criminal sanctions against sex with very young children but it's doubtful whether such sanctions should apply to teenagers above the age of puberty since voluntary sex is so common in their age group." And so he goes on to suggest that basically 15 is, quote, "a reasonable age of consent no matter how old the partner was."
That really kind of stopped me in my tracks. Why is this person so hellbent on having a number that makes sense, right? Because the number is so arbitrary. It's like before or after puberty, like those are not linear things for everyone.
Ann: Right. And different in many states too, the age.
Aminatou: Right, the age is different in many states. And it's just very interesting to me that men have decided that maybe 15 or 16 is when young women are ready to have sex with anyone, right? It's just something that stayed with me for a long time and he . . . on Twitter there's this damning profile of him and the one thing he chooses to harp on is the -- he's like "Actually I'm going to address one thing" and he addresses the consent issue and he really doubles down on it.
But anyway following that I was really happy that a couple of weeks later in New York Magazine's The Cut Lux Alptraum wrote this I would say provocativish piece really talking about the age of consent. The title is literally like Why 16, right? Like where does that number come from? And she really goes through this I think very rigorous examination of where all of these laws come from, these consent laws. Because a lot of people will talk about age of consent and then they will use it to criminalize sex between consenting teenagers, right? As opposed to looking at uh, what does it look like when the power imbalance is there and it's a 16-year-old with somebody who is in their 30s or in their 40s?
(25:52)
And here is the money paragraph that I will read to you because it's one of those things that I was like if this were a book I would highlight it. "And for young people who act on sexual urges prior to the age at which they're legally presumed able these laws can have severely negative impacts. In addition to criminalizing teens who have sex with other teens or labeling a 16-year-old who takes a naked selfie as a child pornographer age of consent laws can cause harm to young people who find themselves in sexual relationships with adults. Rather than protecting vulnerable young people from exploitation these laws can discourage them from coming forward about their relationships and isolate them from potential support systems capable of protecting them from abuse."
And a reason that this jumped out at me so much is because people tout consent laws as a way to, you know, they've always been taught to me as a way to protect children. And the more you peel back the layers you realize that no, they're actually to protect older men who want to have sex with children. And . . .
Ann: Right, so you can have a bright line where they don't -- you're not forced to interrogate a power differential but there's a rule on paper.
Aminatou: Totally. They're like "She's 15" or "She's 16" and then that's the -- and also I am using the pronouns that I'm using because that's the predominant way and the way this power imbalance perpetrates itself but that is not true across the case.
The New York Magazine piece kind of really blew . . . it really blew my mind because I just didn't realize that the problem just really arises when you use criminal law to regulate adolescent sexuality, right? And so I've just been thinking about this a lot and she connects the dots to the work of Woody Allen and all these other places where you're like what is going on here? And she really falls in this place that if we create a society that prioritizes sex education and we raise young people to understand that sexual desire is good and it's fine to be curious that's a way that we can create safe, age-appropriate scenarios for young people.
(27:55)
But this piece of it where I just really -- I am so stuck on is how all of these . . . you know, it's like the people who have shaped our laws and the people who shape our laws around issues of consent and issues of sexual violence and coercion, I just . . . it makes me really depressed when I look at who the people are that are doing that.
Ann: And I think like for me this connects to the bigger Metoo conversation and also a few sort of like -- for lack of a better word -- comeback narratives that we're currently facing related to men who fail to understand power dynamics. Because we recorded an episode a year ago, a year-and-a-half ago, about essentially a failure to acknowledge and account for power imbalance being at the root of a lot of this. And when I think about things like age of consent laws it's like right, this is a shortcut -- in the most charitable interpretation this is a shortcut so that we don't have to expect people to really examine a power differential or own their own power. And that was really at the forefront of my mind when I read this unfortunate reexamination of Al Franken's retirement for lack of a better word in the New Yorker.
Aminatou: Ooh.
Ann: And also some of the fallout from that. Jezebel took issue with the way that some of the women who had accused him of behaving poorly and crossing some physical boundaries with them were dismissed or characterized -- not really included in this New Yorker revisiting. But it is like this textbook read of how a man who is not aware of a power imbalance is apologized for and I actually don't know . . . it doesn't matter to me whether it's sort of like a well-meaning I don't acknowledge this or know about it or whether it's I am choosing to exploit a power differential. I think the effect is the same.
And I think it's really interesting when you think about cases like Al Franken or Aziz Ansari, another recent comeback, people who were the kind of -- for lack of a better word -- fringe cases of the Metoo movement, the kind of men who people were like "Well it's not like he's a Weinstein," those are people who again got into trouble because of a failure to understand a power difference. And watching them essentially make their comeback bids and watching those incidents reconsidered now I find myself so frustrated that that is not at the fore.
(30:20)
So for example in this New Yorker piece about Franken he's described, let's see, I'll read this little section. "Franken could be physically obtuse. Staffers had told him not to swing his arms so much when he walked and to close his mouth when he chewed. Peterson told me that he had, quote, 'monster hands' and sometimes clapped her on the back so hard that he knocked the wind out of her. When he ate spittle often flew across the table. Quote, 'He's sort of clumsy,' Gabrielle Zuckerman who worked with him at Air America told me."
And I'm just like this really is the kind of thing where it may be true that he is not a predator, a clumsy man who does not understand physical boundaries. And I'm like that is still cause for considering whether we want him in a position of explicit power. This should be a skill that you as a person in a position of power have to develop which is to say I have essentially the upper hand over everyone who works for me and it is up to me to recognize that power imbalance in the way I conduct myself physically, sexually, emotionally, like in every sense. And I'm just like -- sorry now I'm in full rant mode. I'm like in a lather in the way that I felt when I read this profile because, you know, for me this really ties to a greater narrative that powerful men are in fact the victims right? And I think Rebecca actually, to bring her up again, is one of many people who have pointed out that one way that power protects itself is to turn itself into a victim right?
(31:50)
So all of a sudden Al Franken is not a powerful man who failed to wield his power responsibly, who failed to recognize the boundaries that he needed to set as the person with power, and instead he becomes just kind of clumsy. Like, you know, a victim of other people looking to make a political point and take him down. And that is really . . .
Ann: If your backside didn't look so inviting maybe he wouldn't slap it. If you didn't -- if your breasts didn't fall in his way maybe he wouldn't touch them. Like it's so infantilizing though. I mean it's -- do you know what I mean? I understand it as a tactic but at the same time I was like this is . . . this is where the real dark arts are at.
Ann: Yes.
Aminatou: This is so textbook.
Ann: Yeah. And I actually, like I said, I actually think that a failure to misunderstand power is a problem that needs to be addressed and it should probably disqualify you from holding explicit power whether or not you are a serial predator. I mean obviously predators are worse. We're not trying to like, you know . . . I'm not trying to be like Al Franken is as bad as someone who, you know, is deliberately waking up thinking about how he can victimize people. But I do think the root cause is the same, like we can't know what's in people's heads. We have to set boundaries based on what is acceptable conduct among all of us. And I think that I'm really nervous about watching this kind of revised narrative about him and to a lesser extent Aziz Ansari unfold without the power conversation being at the fore.
Aminatou: I agree with you. I think too that for me one of the ways that this is really frustrating, and this is true in the Franken case, it's true in pretty much any case, it's a fundamental refusal to examine power but it's also a refusal to engage with what the meaning of consent is. Basically the Franken New Yorker profile is classic for this where it's like oh, wow, written by one of our best -- I would say our best journalistic minds, Jane Mayer -- and it was disappointing the ways where I was like you are basically saying the TL;DR of this article is what he did is not so bad. He might've done it but this is not so bad. And I was like actually touching people non-consensually, that is 101. That is the bottom of this understanding right?
(34:05)
And so for me this was frustrating because essentially what we're saying is that if we don't agree that a woman was wounded in a way that society thinks is horrific, which a lot of times it has to be very, very horrific and also nobody will believe you anyway, that we're just saying some of this is just this is the cost of doing business. And it bothers me because these are all people that are . . . like we're not talking about Fox News reporters here or conservatives. We're talking about men who have made their money saying that they were liberal people. It's really disgusting because yeah, the TL;DR on Franken is like he's like "Well, these women were plants." And one of them I'm like yeah, that's maybe true. It's definitely true. The evidence points it was a ratfuck. But guess what? He got caught because he did it.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: You're not supposed to do that even if the person is somebody who is your political enemy. Maybe you should not touch them. It doesn't matter. And so to me we're always focusing on the wrong thing and we are always asking the wrong questions. It's like did you do this? It doesn't matter who you did it to. Did you do it? Why did you do it? And why do you think that it's okay to do? It's just it's not okay to do.
And also the idea that any of these people are indispensable, like Franken for example comes to mind because people are like oh, I don't understand fighting so much for someone who is a bad '80s sketch comedian. He's not the person who was going to save the Democratic Party. I'm like there are other people that come to mind for me that I'm like okay, if they're accused of misconduct actually we do have a serious problem, you know, in the sense that this affects a lot of people.
Ann: Like Barack Obama or something. Yeah, yeah.
Aminatou: Yes. You know, god forbid. I couldn't even say it out loud. Or even somebody who is, I don't know, a more relevant player in the party. Then I would say okay, great, things have to happen. Losing Al Franken, what did we gain from it? His replacement has been amazing. She handedly won her election so didn't lose anything there. The judiciary committee by losing him didn't have to deal with not being able to interrogate Kavanaugh. Can you imagine what the Kavanaugh hearings would've been like if Al Franken was still there?
Ann: They were bad enough as it was.
(36:18)
Aminatou: I can't even breathe thinking about that. None of these people are irreplaceable. Also if he wants to run for office again he should do that and he should plead his case with the people who elect him but leave the rest of us out of it in the sense of saying we have canceled someone and ruined their career. Cancel culture does not exist. All of the women who are in Democratic leadership are who are getting blamed like namely Kirsten Gillibrand.
Ann: Yep.
Aminatou: It's really fascinating to me this thing where I'm like okay, a man did a thing but a woman is who -- like it's all her fault. And one, the reporting does not bear that out. It's like the New Yorker piece literally says that Chuck Schumer is who asked him to step aside. And two, I was like well let's also not say that the media has clean hands in this because I'm old enough that I was alive when Al Franken was about to quit his job. And guess what? Every single day reporters would ask the women who were his colleagues what they thought about that. And it was like maybe you should ask him. Maybe you should ask the other men why do you put pressure on women who work with men -- whether they're good or bad -- to explain their behavior?
And so all of this to me is just we're just on this very sick continuum where we still don't center victims. Like Al Franken has harmed people. He has actually harmed people. His behavior has harmed people. However you want to qualify his behavior it is not a small thing to have somebody just like -- somebody that you trust or somebody that you don't know put their hand on your body somewhere that you don't want to. That is not a small thing.
Ann: Or to quote one woman, "I felt demeaned. I felt put in my place." Like that alone is something that you should be apologizing for and held accountable for.
(38:00)
Aminatou: And, you know, I think the other thing too where I start to get a little just like ugh, this drives me up the wall is that not to harp on him as an example but the reason that I do is he's such a good example for the fact that among liberal people I just realize that oh, yeah, part of watching conservatives go down for sexual misconduct is that you're just like rooting against them in general, you know? But what does it look like when the trouble is inside your own house? Like what do you do with that? And this is what we're seeing with Al Franken. It's what we're seeing with so many of these men are people going yeah, but this guy is my friend. That guy wasn't my friend so I'm fine to watch his entire life catch fire. And you realize that the support, it was never support. It was just glee at watching an enemy fall.
This leaves us not in a good place because human beings, namely women, are suffering. And that's still not at the center of any of these conversations and they're harmed and they're diminished and they're humiliated and this is still not what we're focused on. We're focused on whether someone who used to do SNL in 19-whatever is going to come back to be a middle-grade politician from Minnesota. Like no thank you.
Ann: Yeah. And so much of this just on a level -- like another thing we love to harp about, how do you critically read coverage of something like this? You and I and lots of people who we know are the sort of person who's going to say like look, it doesn't matter that Franken isn't Kavanaugh or isn't Roy Moore or isn't Weinstein but what does matter is that we consider, like you said, who was really affected by this behavior? It's that we consider this as a power imbalance. It's that we consider this as his inability to act appropriately and wield the power that he has ethically. And instead you get things like Sarah Silverman being like no big deal. You know what I mean? She pops up in a couple different places in this piece as kind of a voice of women aren't all that bothered or something like that. And I'm like you know that's where I really feel . . . I get in a J school huff about it because I'm like this isn't just a straight reporting on the fallout from this incident. That's where it starts to feel like it has a perspective which is fine.
(40:12)
I'm like look, people are allowed to write things from any perspective but the thing is this is not the case of Al Franken as it's headlined; it's the case for Al Franken. And if you headlined it that I'd be like fine, I understand what you're doing. Just don't frame this as a report by an award-winning investigative reporter to figure out what really happened and what needs to happen in the future. Frame it for what it is which is you found people to say Al Franken's my friend and this is no big deal.
Aminatou: Right. And also say it with your whole chest. Like just say this person is my friend and this is what we're engaged in right here. Also I can never let a Sarah Silverman mention pass without noting that she is a gleeful and known wearer of black face so that's all I need to know about Sarah Silverman.
Ann: Right. I mean it is all connected. [Laughs] Yeah.
Aminatou: It's all connected. It's all connected. It's like hi, yes, please find a high-profile comedian and have her be a woman of the people. Like no.
Ann: But also failure to understand power dynamics, right? Like the reason she thinks that is funny or at one point thought it was funny is because she failed to understand something about the way power works in our society. You know what I mean? It's like it's totally related.
Aminatou: Ugh. I am like in a huff now. [Laughs]
Ann: I'm shouting, sweating, and wildly gesticulating alone in my room. [Laughs]
Aminatou: This is why we don't like doing these episodes. We just get like huffy. We get so huffy. But the other thing that's good is I'm actually angry and I feel like that anger is good and productive and it just -- it reminds me everybody is capable of wielding their power against somebody less powerful in a non-harmful way and I think that that's something that needs to be front of mind all the time.
[Music]
Ann: As a palate cleanser/total departure shall we talk about one of our favorite wielders of power, specifically the power of words?
Aminatou: Yes. Let's please talk about our dearly departed Toni Morrison who I think maybe this is the first time . . . this is the first time for me that a person that I do not know that has had so much -- their work has had such significance in my life. It's the first time that I find myself very, very, very emotional and grieving in this way. And so I'm going to try to do this without crying but Toni Morrison, what a human being.
Ann: I really feel that she is the total package in the sense of on a level of pure skill like someone who takes a combination of letters and words and sentences and understands that that is power, right? The power of words. Understands the absolute difference between minor changes in sentences. Things that are just on a level of craft that I find her to be in a category all her alone far and away. But then with this layer of someone who is truly mission-driven, like is truly out to center her experience in the world and not apologize for it and center the experience of people who share aspects of that experience and not apologize for it. And recognizing that that makes the work stronger, like not in fact more marginal or weaker on every single level of importance.
(43:55)
Like, you know, there's often a public figure where I'm like you are just a master of your craft and at the same time when it comes to understanding, you know, on a political level what you're doing or on an emotional level or on a justice level it's missing, right? Or there are people who do important justice work but I'm like you know what? At the end of the day the sentences are probably not my favorite but that's okay because the work's amazing. Toni Morrison was just everything. Everything.
Aminatou: The total package. Also you're right, like someone who was so mission-driven. I just think so much about she talked so much about how the point of being free is that you have to free other people and that's what she did relentlessly. The fact that she was . . . she was a black writer who wrote for black people and never apologized for it, never once apologized for it, and really embraced the label of black writer. That has felt really significant to me.
You know, and she's also someone who just in every way just reinforced that the ways that we communicate whether it is writing or it's speaking or whatever it is that you do that connecting with people is so important. That is . . . I just feel so lucky that we lived to read her words.
Ann: I know and I want to read a quote from the commencement address she gave at Rutgers University in 2011 which we will link to in the show notes because it's actually the perfect sentiment when you think about all of the injustice that we discussed in this episode and all the injustice that's around us constantly. Let's listen.
[Clip Starts]
Toni: I am myself a storyteller and therefore an optimist. A firm believer in the ethical bend of the human heart. A believer in the mind, appetite for truth and its disgust with fraud and selfishness. From my point-of-view your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny. From my point-of-view your life is already artful, waiting. Just waiting for you to make it art. Congratulations and bless us class of 2011.
[Clip Ends]
(46:25)
Aminatou: I am very emotional so maybe that's a good place to end.
Ann: Yeah, and thank you Toni Morrison. Like that's really the word -- that's what I've got.
Aminatou: And if you have never read Toni Morrison and you're listening to this don't be ashamed. Don't feel sheepish. Pick up any one of her books and start and I am incredibly jealous that you are getting to experience her for the first time.
Ann: I know. I'm going to dip into her essays which I have not really engaged with the way I've engaged with her novels. Like that's where I'm going next.
Aminatou: Hey, I love you. Thanks for being my friend.
Ann: I love you too! Thanks for being my friend.
Aminatou: See you in . . . see you in Ibiza.
Ann: Oh my god. See you in Toronto. [Laughs] Okay.
Aminatou: Oh my god, see you very soon. Bye-bye.
Ann: Bye.
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf where Sophie Carter-Kahn does all of our social. Our associate producer is Jordan Baley and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.