Everything about her felt performative, theatrical and superficial. The controlled voice, upturned lips when enunciating words that felt piercing, the glint in her eyes…sinister, chilling & pointed (sharp as knives)
The underlying tone felt threatening and manipulative, with promises of vengeance. I found it profoundly disturbing.
As a white woman of privilege who has used her waist-length blonde hair as a weapon or a tool (depending on your POV) for 40 years I 🗣️: her entire performance is nauseatingly manipulative and performative. I know whereof I speak.
"i keep thinking about kirk and this moment and grief -- and how this group of people who reject empathy, who practice the dark alchemy of turning grief into grievance, who cause endless grief and then deny the emotion and shit on the mourning -- how they are now demanding the performance of grief in THIS case. and anyone who does not pretend to join in these rituals of mourning is targeted and attacked… "
precisely puts words to what I couldn't about this whole display - and calling it a display is by no means to undercut what is, for Erika, probably a very real grief. This, combined with the hypocrisies of being mad about "sicko leftists" on the internet "celebrating" his death when he so loudly celebrated so many other brutal deaths, and his comments about how having gun deaths is okay if it means retaining that Sacred Second Amendment... I am continually astonished heads aren't exploding from the cognitive dissonance.
I had the same exact thought about Emmett Till. A perversion of that. Also, hair, especially female hair, is power. I wrote a lot about when I was a graduate student studying religion, many years ago. And of course blond hair is highly symbolic in white supremacy.
I am very familiar with grief. I have lived in acute grief for over a year now. I have met regularly with others who are tolerating the same pain. There is a great loss of meaning to one’s life that has to be rebuilt elsewhere.
For me and other mourners I know, the most obvious source of meaning is heightened compassion for everyone’s suffering. We aren’t the only people who have lost spouses, children, siblings — loved ones who didn’t die, as parents do, in the normal course of things, but shockingly in the bloom of life. People die from violence, accidents, disease. Grief is everywhere. It’s common as dirt. It’s inherent in mortality. Everywhere around us people are sadly, bravely, carrying on.
I believe grief is holy, but precisely as it humbles and opens us. I don’t recognize this grief that seeks vengeance, seeks to expand the suffering. How could anyone want that? That’s narcissism. That’s replacing the world with one’s own wounded self. There’s no solace there, just more death.
“i've been thinking about emmett till; we were in memphis when the 70th anniversary happened last month. anyhow I couldn't help thinking of Kirk's open casket as a kind of perverse echo of Till's…”
I remember , decades ago, reading some very conservative woman’s advice to young ladies. The whole purpose of intelligence in women was to select and capture the best possible man, thereby bearing children who would “improve the breed.” Seeing her speak reminded me of that. Finding out here that she competed in beauty pageants made sense. Charlie built an empire based upon Christian sweetness and light to his in-group and derision and spite toward everyone else. There will be a mad scramble for his mantle (and control of his highly-profitable organization.) She’s throwing down her marker.
I’m thinking about Mary Lincoln and Jackie Kennedy. Mary was next to Lincoln when he was shot at the theater. They brought him to a bed nearby. Mary and his aids crowded around him as he died, but evidently her grief, her audible, grief, were too unsettling, annoying, and distracting for the men, so she was sent out of the room. Mary did not attend the funeral. When Kennedy was shot, Jackie, too, was next to her husband. On Air Force One en route to DC, Ladybird Johnson urged Jackie to change her bloody clothes, to clean up. But Jackie refused. “Let them see what they've done.” of course she wore black to the funeral, and her own face was covered in a veil. She did not speak. She was visibly grieving. Historians say that this helped the nation to grieve.
Reading your description of historical imagery and seeing the photos, my first thought was the story from Christian scriptures of Mary, sister of Martha, who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, which was later interpreted as a prophecy that she was preparing him for burial.
I enjoyed Ann’s commentary - if we were chatting, I’d remind her of Mary and her hair that she used to dry Jesus’s feet. I think the parallel was definitely intentional. Use all that hair to wipe your own tears
What we see here is the resurrection of Charlie – not in the old sense of rising from the dead, since few today still believe in that – but as a trans-formation into Erika. It is not resurrection but trans-ition: a passage from one stance of power to the next. As he himself put it in his final words: today, everything is about trans.
Oh that’s great - “oh, I’m just a pitiable widow, mourning her slain husband, wondering what evil could have begat such heartbreak… BUT YOU OUT THERE - YOU KNOW WHO I MEAN - YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO, AM I RIGHT?”
ALL liberal TV hosts & pundits should cut their hair immediately....or shave it like Joy Reid. Especially the blondes. That long blonde loose curl "veil" is so over !
Everything about her felt performative, theatrical and superficial. The controlled voice, upturned lips when enunciating words that felt piercing, the glint in her eyes…sinister, chilling & pointed (sharp as knives)
The underlying tone felt threatening and manipulative, with promises of vengeance. I found it profoundly disturbing.
Brilliant article & analysis.
Especially with her constant use of “they”.
As a white woman of privilege who has used her waist-length blonde hair as a weapon or a tool (depending on your POV) for 40 years I 🗣️: her entire performance is nauseatingly manipulative and performative. I know whereof I speak.
Really? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she’s a cheater even in hair.
"i keep thinking about kirk and this moment and grief -- and how this group of people who reject empathy, who practice the dark alchemy of turning grief into grievance, who cause endless grief and then deny the emotion and shit on the mourning -- how they are now demanding the performance of grief in THIS case. and anyone who does not pretend to join in these rituals of mourning is targeted and attacked… "
precisely puts words to what I couldn't about this whole display - and calling it a display is by no means to undercut what is, for Erika, probably a very real grief. This, combined with the hypocrisies of being mad about "sicko leftists" on the internet "celebrating" his death when he so loudly celebrated so many other brutal deaths, and his comments about how having gun deaths is okay if it means retaining that Sacred Second Amendment... I am continually astonished heads aren't exploding from the cognitive dissonance.
I had the same exact thought about Emmett Till. A perversion of that. Also, hair, especially female hair, is power. I wrote a lot about when I was a graduate student studying religion, many years ago. And of course blond hair is highly symbolic in white supremacy.
I am very familiar with grief. I have lived in acute grief for over a year now. I have met regularly with others who are tolerating the same pain. There is a great loss of meaning to one’s life that has to be rebuilt elsewhere.
For me and other mourners I know, the most obvious source of meaning is heightened compassion for everyone’s suffering. We aren’t the only people who have lost spouses, children, siblings — loved ones who didn’t die, as parents do, in the normal course of things, but shockingly in the bloom of life. People die from violence, accidents, disease. Grief is everywhere. It’s common as dirt. It’s inherent in mortality. Everywhere around us people are sadly, bravely, carrying on.
I believe grief is holy, but precisely as it humbles and opens us. I don’t recognize this grief that seeks vengeance, seeks to expand the suffering. How could anyone want that? That’s narcissism. That’s replacing the world with one’s own wounded self. There’s no solace there, just more death.
This is some of the best, saddest, most terrifying writing I've read in my life.
Gorgeous writing. Thanks for sharing these potent thoughts from Ann and Sandhya.
This rings some sort of bell -
“i've been thinking about emmett till; we were in memphis when the 70th anniversary happened last month. anyhow I couldn't help thinking of Kirk's open casket as a kind of perverse echo of Till's…”
Ominous.
I remember , decades ago, reading some very conservative woman’s advice to young ladies. The whole purpose of intelligence in women was to select and capture the best possible man, thereby bearing children who would “improve the breed.” Seeing her speak reminded me of that. Finding out here that she competed in beauty pageants made sense. Charlie built an empire based upon Christian sweetness and light to his in-group and derision and spite toward everyone else. There will be a mad scramble for his mantle (and control of his highly-profitable organization.) She’s throwing down her marker.
I’m thinking about Mary Lincoln and Jackie Kennedy. Mary was next to Lincoln when he was shot at the theater. They brought him to a bed nearby. Mary and his aids crowded around him as he died, but evidently her grief, her audible, grief, were too unsettling, annoying, and distracting for the men, so she was sent out of the room. Mary did not attend the funeral. When Kennedy was shot, Jackie, too, was next to her husband. On Air Force One en route to DC, Ladybird Johnson urged Jackie to change her bloody clothes, to clean up. But Jackie refused. “Let them see what they've done.” of course she wore black to the funeral, and her own face was covered in a veil. She did not speak. She was visibly grieving. Historians say that this helped the nation to grieve.
Reading your description of historical imagery and seeing the photos, my first thought was the story from Christian scriptures of Mary, sister of Martha, who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, which was later interpreted as a prophecy that she was preparing him for burial.
I enjoyed Ann’s commentary - if we were chatting, I’d remind her of Mary and her hair that she used to dry Jesus’s feet. I think the parallel was definitely intentional. Use all that hair to wipe your own tears
Indeed her tears would have been genuine and from her heart.
What we see here is the resurrection of Charlie – not in the old sense of rising from the dead, since few today still believe in that – but as a trans-formation into Erika. It is not resurrection but trans-ition: a passage from one stance of power to the next. As he himself put it in his final words: today, everything is about trans.
Eoooo ! You bad boy. You nailed it Max.
Oh that’s great - “oh, I’m just a pitiable widow, mourning her slain husband, wondering what evil could have begat such heartbreak… BUT YOU OUT THERE - YOU KNOW WHO I MEAN - YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO, AM I RIGHT?”
Gotta say that the seesaw from eulogy to infomercial was a bit unsettling.
So “funny”. When I saw a photo of her coming off the plane, I immediately saw her hair. Looked like Cousin It. Why do R woman have to have long hair?
ALL liberal TV hosts & pundits should cut their hair immediately....or shave it like Joy Reid. Especially the blondes. That long blonde loose curl "veil" is so over !
Damn. There IS some real meaning to be found in this Americanized blender of bad faith, bad takes, bad humans performing badly. TY, Jeff Sharlet.