Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  She made me mad talking like I wasn’t serious about my faith. “You should witness your faith and get Uncle Earle to go with you. He thinks the world of you, and he’d listen to you if you talked to him right.” “If I started talking to Earle about Sunday-morning church services and witnessing for our faith, he’d think I’d lost my mind.” Alma laughed and pinched my chin. “You go for us, girl. You witness. If the world really is gonna end tomorrow, I’d rather save you than any of those drunken uncles of yours. And don’t you even try to talk Jesus to Earle. The man is impossible to talk to about God and religion.” I took Aunt Alma’s warning as a challenge and started talking to Uncle Earle about faith and good works. I played him Mama’s most tearful gospel country music and repeated all the most dramatic soul-saving stories I’d found in the pamphlets the Christian Ladies’ Aid Society passed out. Earle loved the whole thing, my sincerity, the Bible verses, and the thinly veiled threats of perdition. But most of all he loved the argument. While I tried to prove to him that God was love and Jesus saved, he set out to prove to me that the world was irredeemably corrupt. “Never mind the ninety and nine, let’s talk about the poor lost sheep in this county,” Uncle Earle would start off. One shot glass of whiskey and a tall glass of beer and he was ready to address the issue of Jesus, only occasionally reminding me of his wife, Teresa. He blamed the loss of Teresa on Jesus, naturally—Jesus who made Catholics, Catholics who were so particular on the subject of fornication and made it so hard for a decent Baptist man to get a divorce. He was funny about Catholics, damning them for making his life so difficult and admiring them at the same time. “At least,” he told me, “Catholics are interesting, got all that up-and-down stuff, chanting, velvet carpet on the pews and real watered wine for communion. What the hell Baptists got? Grape-juice communions, silly rules against dancing and movies, self-righteousness by the barrelful, damn-fool preachers in shiny suits, and simpleminded parishioners! Baptists could learn something from the Catholics.” Sometimes in his arguments, Uncle Earle would get Teresa, the Catholic Church, and the county marshals a little confused. Given enough whiskey, he’d start talking about the way they had all united to blight his life.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  E 12 He Rids himself of his Foes with the Help of his hover VERY YEAR THE TREES ARE COVERED WITH blossom as in the years before; but man cannot keep the blossom of his youth. The beauty of boys will vanish when they become men, and when the lock of hair is cut from their foreheads, and they are clothed in short-sleeved robes. The love of boys is, therefore, but a passing dream. Jinnosuke Kasuda, the second son of a courtier of the Lord of the Province of Lzumo, was a beautiful boy. He was an excellent swordsman and had a profound knowledge of classical literature; many men were attracted by his beauty. When they assembled round the shrine of Ooyashiro they spoke of him, and were agreed that there was no more beautiful boy in all the Provinces of Japan. But Jinnosuke had already plighted his troth to one of the Lord's courtiers, and his lover's name was Gonkuro Moriwaki, an excellent samurai of some twenty-eight years of age. He had fallen in love with Jinnosuke when the latter was only thirteen years old. He had first made the acquaintance of Dengoro, Jinnosuke's servant, and, to prevent people talking, had put his love-letter into the mouth of a great fish, and sent it thus to Dengoro. Next morning, when Dengoro was doing his master's hair and Jinnosuke seemed to be in a good humour, Dengoro gave him the letter and told him how much Gonkuro suffered for love of him. Without opening the letter, Jinnosuke rapidly wrote an answer to Gonkuro and said to his servant: 'It is very hard to wait when one is in love; take this letter at once to Gonkuro.''You are indeed worthy to be adored, master, 'said the servant, and ran to Gonkuro's house, to give him the letter, telling him that his master wished him well. Gonkuro, with tears of joy, read the letter, which said: 'Your sincere love fills me with gratitude. My servant has told me this morning that you are suffering because of me. I also am amorous of you. Let us be lovers from this day forth, without caring what people think.'That is how the two samurai began to be in love with each other, in the summer of Jinnosuke's fourteenth year. They kept their love a secret, and no one suspected it, although it lasted until the autumn of Jinnosuke's sixteenth year. But at that time an official samurai of small nobility, named Ibei Hanzawa, fell in love with Jinnosuke and sent him several love-letters by his servant, Suizayemon; all of which Jinnosuke returned without reading them. This exasperated Ibei, and he wrote Jinnosuke a furious letter: 'You have scorned my love simply because I am a samurai of low position. I am sure that you have a lover. Tell me who he is. If you refuse to impart his name, I shall fight with you wherever I meet you, to avenge my honour as a samurai; for you have insulted it.'He could easily have died from pride and spleen. Jinnosuke told the whole Story to Gonkuro, although he had till then kept silent about it so as not to trouble his friend to little purpose. He wanted to warn his dear Gonkuro. Now the latter was older and more cautious than Jinnosuke, and advised him: 'You ought not to have despised his love, although he is a man of mean condition. We can only love each other because we are alive; let us not waste our life unprofitably. Be more amiable to Ibei, and write him a kind letter to appease him, Jinnosuke.'But this proposal made Jinnosuke furious, and he answered with bloodshot eyes: 'I would reject the love even of my Lord, for it is to you that I have pledged my passion.'He was so angry that he would have killed Gonkuro on the spot; but he calmed himself and resolved to kill Gonkuro after having got rid of Ibei. He said farewell to Gonkuro as usual, and returned home. Then he wrote to Ibei: 'To-night there is no moon. Come this evening to the pine-tree-field of the god Teujin, and fight a duel with me because of your

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I thought about the rifle behind the door, but I knew I'd never be able to hold it straight, and the .410, our sawed-off shotgun, which stayed loaded and was fired every New Year's night, was locked in the trunk and Uncle Willie had the key on his chain. Through the fly-specked screen-door, I could see that the arms of Momma's apron jiggled from the vibrations of her humming. But her knees seemed to have locked as if they would never bend again. She sang on. No louder than before, but no softer either. No slower or faster. The dirt of the girls' cotton dresses continued on their legs, feet, arms and faces to make them all of a piece. Their greasy uncolored hair hung down, uncombed, with a grim finality. I knelt to see them better, to remember them for all time. The tears that had slipped down my dress left unsurprising dark spots, and made the front yard blurry and even more unreal. The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve. The girls had tired of mocking Momma and turned to other means of agitation. One crossed her eyes, stuck her thumbs in both sides of her mouth and said, “Look here, Annie.” Grandmother hummed on and the apron strings trembled. I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper in their faces, to throw lye on them, to scream that they were dirty, scummy peckerwoods, but I knew I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles. One of the smaller girls did a kind of puppet dance while her fellow clowns laughed at her. But the tall one, who was almost a woman, said something very quietly, which I couldn't hear. They all moved backward from the porch, still watching Momma. For an awful second I thought they were going to throw a rock at Momma, who seemed (except for the apron strings) to have turned into stone herself. But the big girl turned her back, bent down and put her hands flat on the ground—she didn't pick up anything. She simply shifted her weight and did a hand stand. Her dirty bare feet and long legs went straight for the sky. Her dress fell down around her shoulders, and she had on no drawers. The slick pubic hair made a brown triangle where her legs came together. She hung in the vacuum of that lifeless morning for only a few seconds, then wavered and tumbled. The other girls clapped her on the back and slapped their hands. Momma changed her song to “Bread of Heaven, bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.” I found that I was praying too. How long could Momma hold out? What new indignity would they think of to subject her to? Would I be able to stay out of it? What would Momma really like me to do?

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  The subject of money and love predominates in most of the incomparable stories by Saikaku. However, the love he writes about is not always that which present-day society regards as "normal." In Comrade Loves of the Samurai the theme is the homosexual love of samurai for samurai or the love of samurai for page or court boy bent on becoming a samurai. The subject is potentially sordid, and in modem novels is almost invariably so, but to the old Japanese such love among samurai was quite permissible. The sons of samurai families were urged to form homosexual alliances while youth lasted, and often these loves matured into lifelong companionships. Modem samurai films and television shows often use the undying companionship of two men, but the homosexual origins of traditional relationships are overlooked by most viewers. The homosexual loves of the samurai ranged from those of high platonic ideal to sensual pederasty. The general attitude toward women was similar to that of classic Greece, namely that women were for breeding but boys were for pleasure. Women, in both cultures, were thought to make men cowardly, effeminate, and weak. Saikaku describes Japanese love scenes of all kinds with a frankness that has made him a favorite of the expurgators, but he touches the subject of both normal and abnormal love with tenderness. He avoids gross language and pornography, but his attitude to women is unsympathetic by modern standards. For example, in a jesting preface to Glorious Tales of Pederasty he says: "Our eyes are soiled by the soft haunches and scarlet petticoats of women. These female beauties are good for nothing save to give pleasure to old men in lands where there is not a single good-looking boy. If a man is interested in women, he can never know the joys of pederasty." Homosexual males have always existed in Japan, and they figure large today, as in American society. In the traditional setting they were highly regarded, as in Polynesia, where they attached themselves to groups of chiefly women who cultivated them for both gossip and humor. They are adroit at handling social situations and succeeding in certain professions. In the modern setting homosexualism among males is driven under the surface, but it re-emerges in various guises. Love of military uniforms, jackboots, Nazi symbols, body-contact sports, muscle building, and militaristic activities is often based on this suppressed impulse. This is not to suggest that the manly soldier with wife and children at home is a homosexual, although there are curious connections between a passion for militarism and homosexuality. For example, Yukio Mishima represents a strange admixture of the bushido spirit and the homosexual urge to love comrades in arms with intense devotion to a cause. Mishima's tragic last act of ritual suicide, in which a comrade struck off his head, is in keeping with traditional samurai practice. In fact this anachronistic act had an enormous impact on the contemporary Japanese, since it struck a responsive cord in their latent traditional behavior patterns.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The day came when the situation ignited. The agents of Antiochus had gone to a town called Modein and had erected an altar there to make the inhabitants sacrifice to the Greek gods. The emissaries of Antiochus tried to persuade a certain Mattathias to set an example by offering sacrifice, for he was a distinguished and influential man. He refused in anger. But another Jew, seeking to gain approval and to save his own life, came forward and was about to sacrifice. Mattathias, moved to uncontrollable wrath, seized a sword and killed his faithless countryman and the king’s commissioner with him. The signal for rebellion had been given. Mattathias and his sons and other like-minded people took to the hills; and once again the phrases used to describe their life there were in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews, and he has echoes of them over and over again. ‘Then he [Mattathias] and his sons fled to the hills and left all that they had in the town’ (1 Maccabees 2:28). ‘Judas Maccabaeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do’ (2 Maccabees 5:27). ‘Others, who had assembled in the caves nearby, in order to observe the seventh day secretly, were betrayed … were all burned together’ (2 Maccabees 6:11). ‘They had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals’ (2 Maccabees 10:6). In the end, under Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, the Jews regained their freedom, the Temple was cleansed and the faith flourished again. In this passage, the writer to the Hebrews has done the same as before. He does not actually mention these things. Far better that his readers should be moved by a phrase here and there to remember them for themselves. In the end, he says something. All these died before the final unfolding of God’s promise and the coming of his Messiah into the world. It was as if God had arranged things in such a way that the full blaze of his glory should not be revealed until we and they could enjoy it together. The writer to the Hebrews is saying: ‘See! the glory of God has come. But see what it cost to make it possible! That is the faith which gave you your religion. What can you do except be true to a heritage like that?’ THE RACE AND THE GOALHebrews 12:1–2

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  He told us of the wonderful changes we children in Stamps had in store. The Central School (naturally, the white school was Central) had already been granted improvements that would be in use in the fall. A well-known artist was coming from Little Rock to teach art to them. They were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment for their laboratory. Mr. Donleavy didn't leave us long in the dark over who made these improvements available to Central High. Nor were we to be ignored in the general betterment scheme he had in mind. He said that he had pointed out to people at a very high level that one of the first-line football tacklers at Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College had graduated from good old Lafayette County Training School. Here fewer Amen's were heard. Those few that did break through lay dully in the air with the heaviness of habit. He went on to praise us. He went on to say how he had bragged that “one of the best basketball players at Fisk sank his first ball right here at Lafayette County Training School.” The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren't even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises. Owens and the Brown Bomber were great heroes in our world, but what school official in the white-goddom of Little Rock had the right to decide that those two men must be our only heroes? Who decided that for Henry Reed to become a scientist he had to work like George Washington Carver, as a bootblack, to buy a lousy microscope? Bailey was obviously always going to be too small to be an athlete, so which concrete angel glued to what country seat had decided that if my brother wanted to become a lawyer he had to first pay penance for his skin by picking cotton and hoeing corn and studying correspondence books at night for twenty years? The man's dead words fell like bricks around the auditorium and too many settled in my belly. Constrained by hard-learned manners I couldn't look behind me, but to my left and right the proud graduating class of 1940 had dropped their heads. Every girl in my row had found something new to do with her handkerchief. Some folded the tiny squares into love knots, some into triangles, but most were wadding them, then pressing them flat on their yellow laps. On the dais, the ancient tragedy was being replayed. Professor Parsons sat, a sculptor's reject, rigid. His large, heavy body seemed devoid of will or willingness, and his eyes said he was no longer with us. The other teachers examined the flag (which was draped stage right) or their notes, or the windows which opened on our now-famous playing diamond.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “And”—her voice keened to a point—“she's a whore.” Maybe if I had been older, or had had my mother longer, or understood Dolores' frustration more deeply, my response would not have been so violent. I know that the awful accusation struck not so much at my filial love as at the foundation of my new existence. If there was a chance of truth in the charge, I would not be able to live, to continue to live with Mother, and I so wanted to. I walked to Dolores, enraged at the threat. “I'm going to slap you for that, you silly old bitch.” I warned her and I slapped her. She was out of the chair like a flea, and before I could jump back she had her arms around me. Her hair was under my chin and she wrapped her arms, it seemed two or three times, around my waist. I had to push her shoulders with all my strength to unlock the octopus hold. Neither of us made a sound until I finally shoved her back onto the sofa. Then she started screaming. Silly old fool. What did she expect if she called my mother a whore? I walked out of the house. On the steps I felt something wet on my arm and looked down to find blood. Her screams still sailed through the evening air like skipping stones, but I was bleeding. I looked carefully on my arm, but there was no cut. I put my arm back to my waist and it brought fresh blood as I pulled it away. I was cut. Before I could fully understand, or comprehend enough to respond, Dolores opened the door, screaming still, and upon seeing me, instead of slamming the door she ran like a mad woman down the stairs. I saw a hammer in her hand, and without wondering if I would be able to take it from her, I fled. Dad's car sat in a yard twice in one day offering magnificent refuge. I jumped in, rolled up the windows and locked the door. Dolores flitted around the car, screaming like a banshee, her face bedizened with fury. Daddy Bailey and the neighbors he was visiting responded to the screams and crowded around her. She shouted that I had jumped on her and tried to kill her and Bailey had better not bring me back in the house. I sat in the car, feeling the blood slip down to my buttocks as the people quieted and cooled her rage. My father motioned to me to open the window, and when I did he said he would take Dolores inside but I should stay in the car. He would be back to attend to me.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  That is how the NRSV text interprets the advice: “Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. ” Or should we go with the NRSV note: “Avail yourself of the opportunity of freedom ” and rather use it all the more for Christ? In the light of the above contradiction of real-Paul by pseudo-Paul, I read it to mean, take your freedom and use it all the more for Christ. Besides, could a Roman slave actually refuse an owner’s offer or command of emancipation? All this discussion is, unfortunately and tragically, millennia too late for millions of Christian slaves with Christian owners. “I Permit No Woman to Teach or to Have Authority over a Man”AS FOR SLAVERY, SO for patriarchy: real-Paul is flatly contradicted by post-Paul. We move once again across the trajectory from radical Paul to conservative and reactionary anti-Paul in almost exactly the same manner. Watch as the historical Paul of baptismal theory in Galatians 3 and baptismal practice in Romans 16 (from Chapter 13) is de-radicalized and re-Romanized, first into the conservative and finally into the reactionary Paul. I call post-Paul “conservative” about wives and husbands because, in Colossians and Ephesians, both parties are addressed directly and have reciprocal obligations—as we saw already with slavery (that might, once again, be much too liberal for a traditional Roman paterfamilias): “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly” (Col. 3:18–19). Notice that each party gets one verse apiece. Previously we saw that slaves and owners received, respectively, four verses and a single verse in both Colossians and Ephesians. But that balance shifts heavily here: Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Feminists’ past privileging of femaleness over femininity has also enabled misogynistic acts that target men who have feminine traits to remain unnoticed and unarticulated. For example, when a gay man ridicules another gay man for being too “flamboyant” or “effeminate,” he may be accused of harboring “internalized homophobia”—a nonsensical turn of phrase to describe someone who is openly gay and has no problems with masculine gay men. Isn’t this form of antifeminine discrimination better described as misogyny? Similarly, straight women who regularly pair up with macho guys who treat them poorly, yet won’t consider dating a “nice guy,” might be described as harboring “internalized misogyny.” Again, isn’t this better described as a form of externalized misogyny directed at men who display qualities that are considered feminine? Some feminists (particularly unilateral feminists) will no doubt have a negative knee-jerk reaction to my suggestion that we extend our understanding of misogyny to encompass effemimania—our societal obsession with critiquing and belittling feminine traits in males. However, as I have argued in past chapters, effemimania affects everybody, including women. Effemimania encourages those who are socialized male to mystify femininity and to dehumanize those who are considered feminine, and thus forms the foundation of virtually all male expressions of misogyny. Effemimania also ensures that any male’s manhood or masculinity can be brought into question at any moment for even the slightest perceived expression of, or association with, femininity. I would argue that today, the biggest bottleneck in the movement toward gender equity is not so much women’s lack of access to what has been traditionally considered the “masculine realm,” but rather men’s insistence on defining themselves in opposition to women (i.e., their unwillingness to venture into the “feminine realm”). Until now, the typical feminist response to men who fear being associated with the “feminine realm” can be paraphrased as “Get over it!” Such an attitude is ignorant, as it fails to take into account the fact that male femininity is perceived very differently from female femininity. If femininity in women is already seen as “artificial” and “contrived,” then oppositional sexism ensures that femininity in men appears exponentially “artificial” and “contrived.” While a handful of feminists have recognized this fact—that male feminine expression tends to evoke levels of contempt and disgust that far exceed that which is normally reserved for female masculinity or femininity—most have unfortunately chosen to ignore or dismiss misogyny when it targets those who are male-bodied.21 By doing so, these feminists have become enablers for one of the most prevalent and malignant forms of traditional sexism.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  The very next day she called me by the wrong name. Miss Glory and I were washing up the lunch dishes when Mrs. Cullinan came to the doorway. “Mary?” Miss Glory asked, “Who?” Mrs. Cullinan, sagging a little, knew and I knew. “I want Mary to go down to Mrs. Randall's and take her some soup. She's not been feeling well for a few days.” Miss Glory's face was a wonder to see. “You mean Margaret, ma'am. Her name's Margaret.” “That's too long. She's Mary from now on. Heat that soup from last night and put it in the china tureen and, Mary, I want you to carry it carefully.” Every person I knew had a hellish horror of being “called out of his name.” It was a dangerous practice to call a Negro anything that could be loosely construed as insulting because of the centuries of their having been called niggers, jigs, dinges, blackbirds, crows, boots and spooks. Miss Glory had a fleeting second of feeling sorry for me. Then as she handed me the hot tureen she said, “Don't mind, don't pay that no mind. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words … You know, I been working for her for twenty years.” She held the back door open for me. “Twenty years. I wasn't much older than you. My name used to be Hallelujah. That's what Ma named me, but my mistress give me ‘Glory’ and it stuck. I likes it better too.” I was in the little path that ran behind the houses when Miss Glory shouted, “It's shorter too.” For a few seconds it was a tossup over whether I would laugh (imagine being named Hallelujah) or cry (imagine letting some white woman rename you for her convenience). My anger saved me from either outburst. I had to quit the job, but the problem was going to be how to do it. Momma wouldn't allow me to quit for just any reason. “She's a peach. That woman is a real peach.” Mrs. Randall's maid was talking as she took the soup from me, and I wondered what her name used to be and what she answered to now. For a week I looked into Mrs. Cullinan's face as she called me Mary. She ignored my coming late and leaving early. Miss Glory was a little annoyed because I had begun to leave egg yolk on the dishes and wasn't putting much heart in polishing the silver. I hoped that she would complain to our boss, but she didn't.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The most productive way that we as individuals can overcome our gender entitlement is by coming to terms with our own blind spots, acknowledging that there are certain gender and sexual expressions and desires that we cannot know, that we will never experience firsthand. Thus, the path toward overcoming homophobia or biphobia is to become more in touch with our own sexual orientations, to recognize that other people’s sexual orientations have no bearing on our own. The transgender movement has taken a similar approach to confronting transphobia, by encouraging cisgender people to become comfortable with their own expressions of femininity and/or masculinity in order to be respectful of those expressions in others. This approach has most certainly benefited many transsexuals, as it has helped convince some of the public that we should be allowed to express our genders without being discriminated against. Unfortunately, confronting transphobia has done very little to ease cissexism, i.e., the belief that transsexual genders are less “real” or legitimate that cissexual genders. For me, this is most evident when I interact with people who accept my feminine behavior and female identity but adamantly draw the line when it comes to accepting my transsexual body. Because most people have not come to terms with their own subconscious sex and its relation to their physical sex, they tend to experience unwarranted distress regarding sex/gender-variant bodies. Many people who say they favor transgender rights tend to balk when it means that they have to share a locker room or public shower with a transsexual. And plenty of people are supportive of their transgender friends and colleagues, but, hypocritically, would be disturbed if the person they were dating, sleeping with, or partnered to were to come out to them as transsexual. It is high time for gender-anxious cissexuals to look deep within themselves and ask why they choose to view transsexual bodies as unsettling or disturbing. How can they consider a physical body to be attractive or innocuous when it is assumed to be cissexual, then suddenly find it to be horrific or threatening upon the discovery that it is transsexual? And if such dramatically different responses can be elicited by the same human being under different circumstances, doesn’t that indicate that the real difference resides in the cissexual mind and not in the transsexual body?

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  He went on to praise us. He went on to say how he had bragged that “one of the best basketball players at Fisk sank his first ball right here at Lafayette County Training School.” The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren't even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises. Owens and the Brown Bomber were great heroes in our world, but what school official in the white-goddom of Little Rock had the right to decide that those two men must be our only heroes? Who decided that for Henry Reed to become a scientist he had to work like George Washington Carver, as a bootblack, to buy a lousy microscope? Bailey was obviously always going to be too small to be an athlete, so which concrete angel glued to what country seat had decided that if my brother wanted to become a lawyer he had to first pay penance for his skin by picking cotton and hoeing corn and studying correspondence books at night for twenty years? The man's dead words fell like bricks around the auditorium and too many settled in my belly. Constrained by hard-learned manners I couldn't look behind me, but to my left and right the proud graduating class of 1940 had dropped their heads. Every girl in my row had found something new to do with her handkerchief. Some folded the tiny squares into love knots, some into triangles, but most were wadding them, then pressing them flat on their yellow laps. On the dais, the ancient tragedy was being replayed. Professor Parsons sat, a sculptor's reject, rigid. His large, heavy body seemed devoid of will or willingness, and his eyes said he was no longer with us. The other teachers examined the flag (which was draped stage right) or their notes, or the windows which opened on our now-famous playing diamond. Graduation, the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diplomas, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling decasyllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape of Lucrece—it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us. We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous. Then I wished that Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner had killed all whitefolks in their beds and that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and that Harriet Tubman had been killed by that blow on her head and Christopher Columbus had drowned in the Santa María.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  While sociological models of transsexuality and transgenderism have not had as direct an impact on the lives of trans people as sexological models have, both models foster the false impression that cissexual “experts” (whether academic or clinical) are capable of understanding transsexuality better than transsexuals themselves—an idea that is as problematic as suggesting that male “experts” can understand womanhood better than women, or that heterosexual “experts” can understand homosexuality better than gays and lesbians. Further, while sociological and gender studies accounts of transsexuality have not garnered the public attention that their sexological counterparts have, they have profoundly shaped the manner in which trans people are discussed and considered in academia and in feminism. In this section, I will debunk many of the most common academic misconceptions regarding transsexuality. While some of the arguments I critique may seem unfamiliar, even esoteric, to readers outside the fields of sociology and gender studies, it is vital to address these points here, as they are encountered repeatedly in queer and feminist politics. One of the most prevalent academic misconceptions regarding transsexuality is that the gatekeepers actively promote the use of sex reassignment and prey on gender-variant people, enticing them with the promise of assimilating them into “normal” women and men. One of the more influential research articles espousing this view was written by sociologists Dwight B. Billings and Thomas Urban in 1982, in which they claimed that “transsexualism is a socially constructed reality which only exists in and through medical practice.” (Emphasis theirs.)50 In Billings’s and Urban’s eyes, “transsexual therapy ... pushes patients toward an alluring world of artificial vaginas and penises rather than toward self-understanding and sexual politics.”51 Janice G. Raymond has a similar view. In her 1979 book The Transsexual Empire (discussed previously in chapter 2), she described sex reassignment as a “male interventionist technology” in which “[t]ranssexuals surrender themselves to ... therapists and technicians.”52 She goes on to suggest that trans people would be better off if they were counseled using the same “consciousness-raising” methods that she experienced in the feminist movement.53 So, in other words, both sets of authors believe that transsexuality would not exist if trans people simply became more educated and involved in feminism and sexual politics. So how do Raymond, Billings, and Urban explain why trans people are so easily “duped” into transitioning when transsexuality itself is considered taboo by society at large? Their rationale is that transsexuality has become socially acceptable, a rather outrageous claim considering they were writing during the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively.54 Of course, the idea that transsexuals are highly susceptible to suggestion and easily yield to medical authority would surely come as a surprise to many gatekeepers, who regularly complained about how transsexuals were “stubborn,” highly resistant to psychotherapy, and usually came to appointments having already made up their minds.55

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  For example, it appears, but for forgiveness rather than for vengeance, when Jesus tells Peter, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times” (Matt. 18:22). On the other hand, with regard to content, that escalation to “seventy and seven” presumes God’s marking of Cain to prevent his murder and also its potential sevenfold revenge just seen in 4:15. In other words, while those first two verses represent an ancient boast-poem from Lamech, the addition of that third one connects Lamech across five generations back to Cain, which is significant—backwards—for understanding Genesis 4:15 and, indeed, all of Genesis 4. Biblical “Sin” as Escalatory ViolenceGENESIS 4 IS NOT simply about an original fratricide. It is about escalatory violence almost as a seductive inevitability. But, of course, it is also about a God who asserted that it was not inevitable and proclaimed that it could be overcome: “You will rule over it.” In other words, the normalcy of human civilization is not the inevitability of human nature . (That, by the way, is my mantra for this book.) We humans are not natural-born killers (if we were, would we suffer posttraumatic stress after battle?). The mark of Cain is on human civilization, not on human nature. Escalatory violence is our nemesis, not our nature; our avoidable decision, not our unavoidable destiny. It is our “original sin” but could then—and can still—be overcome. The escalatory violence in Genesis 4 is depicted between desert tribes and not between nation-states—which did not yet exist at the time. Genesis 4 depicts the escalatory violence not of warfare, but of blood feud, of honor and shame relationships when small groups confront one another without overarching legal and juridical precedent or competent and adequate communal governance. (Are nation-states without a world government any different?) Genesis 4 is not just about the original instance of fratricidal violence but about the primordial origins of escalatory violence—as sin or, better, as Sin. Abel is murdered—that is one victim. If Cain is murdered, his family will exact a sevenfold vengeance. But five generations later, if Lamech is killed, his family will exact a seventy-seven-fold vengeance. It was, by the way, precisely to offset such escalation that Leviticus decreed, “fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered” (24:20). Vengeance was to be one for one and not seven for one, let alone seventy-seven for one. In other words, Genesis 4 is the biblical version of the Neolithic R/Evolution’s climax in the dawn of civilization across the Fertile Crescent but especially in Mesopotamia some six thousand years ago. It is also, and unfortunately, a more historically accurate version than that happy-ending Sumerian story about Shepherd Dumuzid and Farmer Enkimdu. The second and fuller biblical summary in Genesis 4 reads like this: Farmer Kills Shepherd, Builds First City, Violence Escalates Exponentially. Willed violence is, presumably, just like all our other human activities.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  While much of The Transsexual Empire is clearly over the top (the premise of the book is that “biological woman is in the process of being made obsolete by bio-medicine”), many of Raymond’s arguments are echoed in contemporary attempts to justify the exclusion of trans women from women’s organizations and spaces. In fact, the world’s largest annual women-only event, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (often referred to simply as “Michigan”), still enforces a “womyn-born-womyn”-only policy that is specifically designed to prevent trans women from attending.13 Many of the excuses used to rationalize trans women’s exclusion are not designed to protect the values of women-only space, but rather to reinforce the idea that trans women are “real” men and “fake” women. For example, one of the most cited reasons that trans women are not allowed in the festival is that we are born with, and many of us still have, penises (many trans women either cannot afford to or choose not to have sex reassignment surgery). It is argued that our penises are dangerous because they are a symbol of male oppression and have the potential to trigger women who have been sexually assaulted or abused by men. So penises are banned from the festival, right? Well, not quite: The festival does allow women to purchase and use dildos, strap-ons, and packing devices, many of which closely resemble penises. So phalluses in and of themselves are not so bad, just so long as they are not attached to a trans woman. Another reason frequently given for the exclusion of trans women from Michigan is that we supposedly would bring “male energy” into the festival. While this seems to imply that expressions of masculinity are not allowed, nothing could be further from the truth. Michigan allows drag king performers who dress and act male, and the festival stage has featured several female-bodied performers who identify as transgender and sometimes describe themselves with male pronouns.14 Presumably, Lisa Vogel (who is sole proprietor of the festival) allows this because she believes that no person who is born female is capable of exhibiting authentic masculinity or “male energy.” Not only is this an insult to trans men (as it suggests that they can never be fully masculine or male), but it implies that “male energy” can be measured in some way independent of whether the person expressing it appears female or male. This is clearly not the case. Even though I am a trans woman, I have never been accused of expressing “male energy,” because people perceive me as a woman. When I do act in a “masculine” way, people describe me as a “tomboy” or “butch,” and if I get aggressive or argumentative, people call me a “bitch.” My behaviors are still the same; it is only the context of my body (whether people see me as female or male) that has changed.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. Donleavy was running for election, and assured our parents that if he won we could count on having the only colored paved playing field in that part of Arkansas. Also—he never looked up to acknowledge the grunts of acceptance-also, we were bound to get some new equipment for the home economics building and the workshop. He finished, and since there was no need to give any more than the most perfunctory thank-you's, he nodded to the men on the stage, and the tall white man who was never introduced joined him at the door. They left with the attitude that now they were off to something really important. (The graduation ceremonies at Lafayette County Training School had been a mere preliminary.) The ugliness they left was palpable. An uninvited guest who wouldn't leave. The choir was summoned and sang a modern arrangement of “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” with new words pertaining to graduates seeking their place in the world. But it didn't work. Elouise, the daughter of the Baptist minister, recited “Invictus,” and I could have cried at the impertinence of “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” My name had lost its ring of familiarity and I had to be nudged to go and receive my diploma. All my preparations had fled. I neither marched up to the stage like a conquering Amazon, nor did I look in the audience for Bailey's nod of approval. Marguerite Johnson, I heard the name again, my honors were read, there were noises in the audience of appreciation, and I took my place on the stage as rehearsed. I thought about colors I hated: ecru, puce, lavender, beige and black.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  There will be, the text says, a great final battle between the Kingdom of God and the Empire of Rome, with the latter repeatedly identified by the code name “Babylon,” from Revelation 14:8 through 16:19 to 17:5 and climactically in 18:2, 10, and 21. Why Rome-as-Babylon? Because the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem’s Second Temple in 70 CE as the Babylonian Empire had destroyed its First Temple in 586 BCE . Among those just-cited places, Rome, as “Babylon the great,” is the “mother of whores and of earth’s abominations” (17:5) and is filled with “demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty” (16:14). But Rome will eventually be reduced to “a haunt of every foul spirit, / a haunt of every foul bird, / a haunt of every foul and hateful beast” (18:2). Here is how that great final battle is described: Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” (19:11–16) As we saw above (6:2), the rider on the white horse is Christ the conqueror with the sharp sword in his mouth (1:16; 2:12, 16). But, for me, the book of Revelation was and is profoundly wrong about the fate of Rome. Wrong, in fact, concerning both time and Christ. First, Rome’s destruction was to happen “soon,” that is, within the author’s or at least his generation’s lifetime. That word “soon” tolls like a death bell from start to finish of Revelation. It begins with “what must soon take place” in 1:1, continues through 2:16; 3:11; 11:14; and 22:6–7, and climaxes with Christ’s declaration that “I am coming soon” (22:20). But the Western Roman Empire continued until the late 400s and the Eastern until the mid-1400s. Second, the Roman Empire was not destroyed by Christ but was, for better or for worse, converted to Christ under and after Constantine in the 300s. There is not a glimpse of that actuality anywhere in the prophetic vision of Revelation. Destruction, yes; conversion, no.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  37:33) While the Rabshakeh speaks from the earthly court-council of Sennacherib, the prophet counterspeaks not from the earthly court-council of Hezekiah, but from the heavenly court-council of God. PROPHETIC CONTENT “Seek Justice, Rescue the Oppressed”I RETURN NOW TO that covenantal lawsuit in Isaiah 1:1–9 discussed above under divine complaint. But the specific referent here is a devastated Judah and an isolated Jerusalem left behind as Sennacherib’s army marched home to Nineveh, leaving Lachish destroyed but Jerusalem unconquered. “Come now, let us argue it out,” says God as judge to Israel as defendant. Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. And daughter Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a shelter in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. (Isa. 1:7–8) This describes the Sanction imposed for Israel’s breach of covenant, but what precisely was its specific default? What did Israel do wrong? The answer is composed of a negative followed by a positive element: Negative Element, on Worship: What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Positive Element, on Justice: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (1:11–17) I make two major points about that citation—deliberately taken as a paradigmatic case for prophetic content within the entire prophetic tradition. First, that negative/positive dyad against the presence of worship amid the absence of justice is not simply a problem unique to Isaiah’s time and place. Amos had that same dyad in 5:21–24, Hosea in 6:6, and Micah in 6:6–8. It almost cost Jeremiah his life in 7:7–5 and 26:1–24. You cannot, without acute hypocrisy, worship a God of justice in a state of injustice. Second, notice the parallelism in the climactic conclusion where “doing good” is equated with “justice” and “justice” is equated with rescuing those politically, socially, and economically weaker.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  WHEN I FIRST TOLD people that I was working on a book based on my experiences and perspectives as a transsexual woman, many of them immediately assumed that I was writing an autobiography (rather than a political or historical account, a work of fiction, or a collection of personal essays). Perhaps they imagined that I would write one of those confessional tell-alls that nontrans people seem to constantly want to hear from transsexual women, one that begins with my insistence that I have always been a “woman trapped inside a man’s body”; one that distorts my desire to be female into a quest for feminine pursuits; one that explains the ins and outs of sex reassignment surgery and hormones in gory detail; one that completely avoids discussions about what it is like to be treated as a woman and how that compares to how I was treated as a male; one that whitewashes away all of the prejudices I face for being transsexual; a book that ends not with me becoming an outspoken trans activist or feminist, but with the consummation of my womanhood in the form of my first sexual experience with a man. I am not surprised that many would assume that I was simply writing yet another variation of this archetype. Until very recently, this was the only sort of story that nontrans publishers and media producers would allow transsexual women to tell. And while I respect any trans woman who has been brave enough to share her story with the world, the media’s narrow focus on the most palatable or sensationalistic transsexual storylines has resulted in making invisible the vast diversity of perspectives and experiences that exist among trans women. Further, this has dumbed down the intricate and difficult relationships many of us have with our own genders and physical bodies. It has also erased the difficulty we face in dealing with the gender stereotypes that other people project onto us because we are women and because we are transsexuals.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  He made no comment, orally or facially. “She had this toothache purt' near four days now, and today I said, ‘Young Lady, you going to the dentist.’” “Annie?” “Yes, sir, Dentist Lincoln.” He was choosing words the way people hunt for shells. “Annie, you know I don't treat nigra, colored people.” “I know, Dentist Lincoln. But this here is just my little grandbaby and she ain't gone be no trouble to you …” “Annie, everybody has a policy. In this world you have to have a policy. Now, my policy is I don't treat colored people. ” The sun had baked the oil out of Momma's skin and melted the Vaseline in her hair. She shone greasily as she leaned out of the dentist's shadow. “Seem like to me, Dentist Lincoln, you might look after her, she ain't nothing but a little mite. And seems like maybe you owe me a favor or two.” He reddened slightly. “Favor or no favor. The money has all been repaid to you and that's the end of it. Sorry, Annie.” He had his hand on the doorknob. “Sorry.” His voice was a bit kinder on the second “Sorry,” as if he really was. Momma said, “I wouldn't press on you like this for myself but I can't take No. Not for my grandbaby. When you come to borrow my money you didn't have to beg. You asked me, and I lent it. Now, it wasn't my policy. I ain't no moneylender, but you stood to lose this building and I tried to help you out.” “It's been paid, and raising your voice won't make me change my mind. My policy …” He let go of the door and stepped nearer Momma. The three of us were crowded on the small landing. “Annie, my policy is I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's.” He had never once looked at me. He turned his back and went through the door into the cool beyond. Momma backed up inside herself for a few minutes. I forgot everything except her face which was almost a new one to me. She leaned over and took the doorknob, and in her everyday soft voice she said, “Sister, go on downstairs. Wait for me. I'll be there directly.” Under the most common of circumstances I knew it did no good to argue with Momma. So I walked down the steep stairs, afraid to look back and afraid not to do so. I turned as the door slammed, and she was gone . Momma walked in that room as if she owned it. She shoved that silly nurse aside with one hand and strode into the dentist's office. He was sitting in his chair, sharpening his mean instruments and putting extra sting into his medicines. Her eyes were blazing like live coals and her arms had doubled themselves in length.