...And alligators.
I am not anti-alligator. I don’t have an iota of animosity against them—even the ones who loiter in Disneyland parking lots lunching on stray babies. In fact, I have a healthy respect for crocodiles, Gila monsters and all modern-day dinosaurs. I appreciate the power of their jaws and the sharpness of their teeth. My general attitude toward alligators is to not give a fuck about them unless they fuck with me; in the same way, I imagine, that they don’t give a damn about people named Michael Harriot unless I fuck with them.
So, when I watched a Florida bruh (which is different than a Florida Man) coax an eight-foot alligator into a garbage can using nothing but ingenuity and the unfailing grip of Adidas slides, I was shocked when people sided with the alligator.
We don’t even have to describe the pro-alligator people. Y’all know who they are. They are the people who are more concerned about Sea World’s mass incarceration of Orcas than they are about America’s mass incarceration of Black bodies. They truly believe that “all lives matter” but not really. Killing an animal that kills people is more despicable than an animal killing an actual human being. So, again, to the people who value killer whales, killer gators and killer police, again, I say: Fuck alligators.
...And Kyrsten Sinema.
I am not anti-Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). In fact, I have a healthy respect for women named Kyrsten, Kirsten, Karen and white women in general. I know what happened to Emmett Till, Rosewood and Black Wall Street, so I appreciate the power of their jaws and the sharpness of their teeth. My general attitude toward white women is to not give a fuck about them unless they fuck with me; in the same way, I imagine, that white women don’t give a damn about Black people unless we fuck with them.
So when I watched activists in Arizona confront Trashcan Sinema at Arizona State University where she teaches, I thought it was fair game when they followed the woman they elected into the bathroom of a building they paid for to voice their displeasure over the actual thing they pay her a salary to do.
As she was exiting a classroom at ASU’s campus in downtown Phoenix, activists from the organization Living United for Change in Arizona, or Lucha, the Spanish word for fight, confronted Sinema. They told her that “we need a ‘build back better’ plan right now,” invoking the name of the $3.5 trillion domestic policy bill that would expand the social safety net.
“Actually, I am heading out,” Sinema told the activists as she walked into a bathroom. One person followed her into the bathroom, standing outside the stall that the senator entered, while another person stood at the entrance, recording the interaction.
“We knocked on doors for you,” the person filming told Sinema while she was in the stall. A toilet flushed, and Sinema ignored the people as she washed her hands. She then walked back to the classroom as the activists chanted, “Build back better! Back the bill!”
Imagine my surprise when I discovered there are people who sided with Sinema the Killer dinosaur. Joe Biden said he didn’t think the activists used “appropriate tactics.” Bangor Daily News opinion columnist Matthew Gagnon called the demonstration “ a horrendous violation of any notion of civil behavior in a political debate,” explaining that no one “deserves to be subjected to that kind of attempted intimidation.” In a statement still wet with the tears of a clown–Sinema declared the demonstrations were “not legitimate.”
“Yesterday, several individuals disrupted my class at Arizona State University,” Sinema said on Twitter. “After deceptively entering a locked, secure building, these individuals filmed and publicly posted videos of my students without their permission, including footage taken of both my students and I using a restroom.”
Although this sounds like they busted into a stall and filmed Sinema dookeying, they basically captured her doing the same thing she would have been doing if they had actually kicked her classroom door open.
This kind of civil disobedience cannot be tolerated. If we allowed every citizen to talk to their political representatives about politics and how to represent their constituents, what’s next? Will we make firefighters fight fires? Will policemen be forced to police men? Do you want to live in a world where Chance the Rapper is expected to rap? This is about freedom!
“Yesterday’s behavior was not legitimate protest,” Sinema continued, whitely. “It is the duty of elected leaders to avoid fostering an environment in which honestly held policy disagreements serve as the basis for vitriol—raising the temperature in political rhetoric and created a permission structure for unacceptable behavior.”
Before we continue, let us examine the sheer Caucasity of that collection of letters and punctuation marks. This white woman, this sparkly, bedazzled troll doll, this privileged Senate Smurfette really opened her mouth and said the words “not legitimate protest”–perhaps the dumbest combination of words that have exited a white mouth. As if she knows. As if some protests are legitimate. As if the gods of law and order have bestowed upon her–and her alone–the authority to separate the obedient wheat from the disobedient chaff. She stole these women’s labor and their votes and–again, this is the important part–in the place that belonged to them as much as it belonged to her, essentially told her actual constituents to “stay out of my face with your illegitimate bullshit.”
She. Said. Their. Protests. Isn’t Real.
Jesus Kyrsten Christ!
Wait until Kill’em Sinema learns about how unruly negroes’ planned to march from Selma, Ala., to a closed building in Montgomery to confront their governor in 1965. I can’t imagine what she’d think of those Black students who sat at lunch counters, “raising the temperature in political rhetoric and created a permission structure for unacceptable behavior.”
When she hears about that one whose “honestly held policy disagreements served as the basis for vitriol,” I bet she’ll condemn his actions. He explicitly said his tactics were meant to “foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue” and “dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” I can’t wait to see how Sen. Crocodile Tears feels about the belief that “there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth...so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society.”
Sen. Cinnabun, meet Martin Luther King Jr.
Of course, TrashKaren Sinema probably has a good reason why she continues to serve as the most prominent member of the Congressional Becky Caucus along with Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Marsha Blackburn. Everyone read Sinema’s nonsensical statement about why she voted against an amendment that would have raised the minimum wage (Honestly, I still don’t understand what the hell she was talking about). She wrote a Washington Post op-ed about why she continues to oppose eliminating the filibuster (It didn’t make any sense, either). We know why she stands in the way of voting rights legislation, the infrastructure bill and police reform.
Kyrsten Sinema doesn’t give a fuck about Black people.
And, I am not saying that white women don’t give a fuck about Black people. In fact, I’m saying the opposite. I think they care about a lot of things, including puppies, kittens, global warming, power, money, attention and, most of all, white women. I don’t know if she hates Black people—that would require either a psychological analysis or for me to peer inside her cold, Caucasian soul. That is unnecessary because Sen. Sinema’s actions expose what she thinks of Black people. She doesn’t give a fuck. Her actions make it apparent. You can see it in her voting record. It is embedded in her woe-is-me bullshit backstory. It trickles out of her mouth when she speaks. You can see it in her smile. And her thumb. And her teeth...
Those goddamned teeth.
Surely someone will use this article as an example of how journalism has disintegrated into an exercise in profanity and hot takes. Fuck those people, too. Because the preachy gatekeepers of respectability never have the same energy for the Kyrstens curtseying politely while simultaneously slapping the shit out of the poor, powerless and disenfranchised citizens the throat-slitting Sinemas want shushed.
Why is it always incumbent upon us to maintain some sense of decorum? Why should we observe the unwritten rules white people made up out of whole cloth while we watch Kirsten Sinema dine on our children? Why must we be civil while our civil rights are flushed down the toilet of Sinema’s safe space? Why does the world protect Kyrstens and Karens and every variation of white woman while feeding us to the alligators?
Meanwhile, if these dainty goddesses’ path to power and glory is impeded by the filibuster, Black people’s voting rights, or the actual will of the people, they have no problem opening their mouths, unlocking their jaws and devouring us whole. But that’s also why people run to her aid. She must be protected from people who give a fuck about their own lives because none of this is Sinema’s fault. She doesn’t have the capacity to give a fuck about anyone other than herself. After all, that’s what Kyrstens, killer whales and white people have always done.
It’s an American tradition.