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 History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The final blow given by Ferdinand and Isabella fell in 1492, the year of the discovery of the New World, in a part of which was to be put into practice religious toleration as it was never before practised on the earth. The edict expelled all unbaptized Jews from Spain. Religious motives were behind it, and religious agents executed it. The immediate occasion was the panic aroused by the alleged crucifixion of the child of La Guardia—el santo niño de la Guardia—one of the most notorious cases of alleged child murder by the Jews.936 Lope de Vega and other Spanish writers have made the case famous in Spanish literature. Ferdinand, according to Llorente, moved by the appeals of a Jewish embassy and Spanish grandees, was about to modify his sentence, when Torquemada, hastening into the presence of the king and his consort, presented the crucifix, exclaiming, "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver. Your majesties are about to sell him for three thousand ducats. Here he is, take him and sell him." The number of Jews who emigrated from Spain, in the summer of 1492, is estimated at 170,000 to 400, 000.937 They went to Italy, Morocco, and the East, and, invited by king Manuel, 100,000 passed into Portugal. But here their tarrying was destined to be short. In 1495 an edict offered them the old alternative of baptism or death, and children under fourteen were taken forcibly from their parents, and the sacred Christian rite was administered to them. Ten years later two thousand of the alleged ungenuine converts were massacred in cold blood.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  A formal trial was instituted, and "James of Cahors, who calls himself John XXII." was denounced as anti-christ and deposed from the papal throne and his effigy carried through the streets and burnt.121 John of Corbara, belonging to the Spiritual wing of the Franciscans, was elected to the throne just declared vacant, and took the name of Nicolas V. He was the first anti-pope since the days of Barbarossa. Lewis himself placed the crown upon the pontiff’s head, and the bishop of Venice performed the ceremony of unction. Nicolas surrounded himself with a college of seven cardinals, and was accused of having forthwith renounced the principles of poverty and abstemiousness in dress and at the table which the day before he had advocated. To these acts of violence John replied by pronouncing Lewis a heretic and appointing a crusade against him, with the promise of indulgence to all taking part in it. Fickle Rome soon grew weary of her lay-crowned emperor, who had been so unwise as to impose an extraordinary tribute of 10,000 florins each upon the people, the clergy, and the Jews of the city. He retired to the North, Nicolas following him with his retinue of cardinals. At Pisa, the emperor being present, the anti-pope excommunicated John and summoned a general council to Milan. John was again burnt in effigy, at the cathedral, and condemned to death for heresy. In 1330 Lewis withdrew from Italy altogether, while Nicolas, with a cord around his neck, submitted to John. He died in Avignon three years later. In 1334, John issued a bull which, according to Karl Müller, was the rudest act of violence done up to that time to the German emperor by a pope.122 This fulmination separated Italy from the crown and kingdom—imperium et regnum — of Germany and forbade their being reunited in one body. The reason given for this drastic measure was the territorial separation of the two provinces. Thus was accomplished by a distinct announcement what the diplomacy of Innocent III. was the first to make a part of the papal policy, and which figured so prominently in the struggle between Gregory IX. and Frederick II. With his constituency completely lost in Italy, and with only an uncertain support in Germany, Lewis now made overtures for peace. But the pope was not ready for anything less than a full renunciation of the imperial power. John died 1334, but the struggle was continued through the pontificate of his successor, Benedict XII. Philip VI. of France set himself against Benedict’s measures for reconciliation with Lewis, and in 1337 the emperor made an alliance with England against France. Princes of Germany, making the rights of the empire their own, adopted the famous constitution of Rense,—a locality near Mainz, which was confirmed at the Diet of Frankfurt, 1338. It repudiated the pope’s extravagant temporal claims, and declared that the election of an emperor by the electors was final, and did not require papal approval.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In vain did the king strive to hide the sordidness of his purpose under the thin mask of religious zeal. At Clement’s coronation, if not before, Philip brought charges against it. About the same time, in the insurrection called forth by his debasement of the coin, the king took refuge in the Templars’ building at Paris. In 1307 he renewed the charges before the pope. When Clement hesitated, he proceeded to violence, and on the night of Oct. 13, 1307, he had all the members of the order in France arrested and thrown into prison, including Jacques de Molay, the grand-master. Döllinger applies to this deed the strong language that, if he were asked to pick out from the whole history of the world the accursed day,—dies nefastus,—he would be able to name none other than Oct. 13, 1307. Three days later, Philip announced he had taken this action as the defender of the faith and called upon Christian princes to follow his example. Little as the business was to Clement’s taste, he was not man enough to set himself in opposition to the king, and he gradually became complaisant.99 The machinery of the Inquisition was called into use. The Dominicans, its chief agents, stood high in Philip’s favor, and one of their number was his confessor. In 1308 the authorities of the state assented to the king’s plans to bring the order to trial. The constitution of the court was provided for by Clement, the bishop of each diocese and two Franciscans and two Dominicans being associated together. A commission invested with general authority was to sit in Paris.100 In the summer of 1308 the pope ordered a prosecution of the knights wherever they might be found.101 The charges set forth were heresy, spitting upon the cross, worshipping an idol, Bafomet—the word for Mohammed in the Provençal dialect—and also the most abominable offences against moral decency such as sodomy and kissing the posterior parts and the navel of fellow knights. The members were also accused of having meetings with the devil who appeared in the form of a black cat and of having carnal intercourse with female demons. The charges which the lawyers and Inquisitors got together numbered 127 and these the pope sent through France and to other countries as the basis of the prosecution. Under the strain of prolonged torture, many of the unfortunate men gave assent to these charges, and more particularly to the denial of Christ and the spitting upon the cross. The Templars seem to have had no friends in high places bold enough to take their part. The king, the pope, the Dominican order, the University of Paris, the French episcopacy were against them. Many confessions once made by the victims were afterwards recalled at the stake. Many denied the charges altogether.102 In Paris 36 died under torture, 54 suffered there at one burning, May 10, 1310, and 8 days later 4 more. Hundreds of them perished in prison.

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

  To be told not to proceed with a campaign was a shattering blow to the pride of a king. So, Antiochus turned for home, almost mad with rage; and on the way he turned aside and attacked Jerusalem, capturing it almost without an effort. It was said that 80,000 Jews were killed and 10,000 sold into captivity. But there was worse to come. He plundered the Temple. The golden altars of the shewbread and of the incense, the golden lamp stand, the golden vessels, even the curtains and the veils were taken. The treasury was ransacked and robbed. Even worse was to come. On the altar of the burnt offering, he offered sacrifices of pig’s flesh to Zeus; and he turned the Temple chambers into brothels. No act of sacrilege was left out. Still worse was to come. He completely forbade circumcision and the possession of the Scriptures and of the law. He ordered the Jews to eat meats which were unclean and to sacrifice to the Greek gods. Inspectors went throughout the land to see that these orders were carried out. And if any were found to defy them, they ‘underwent great miseries and bitter torments; for they were whipped with rods and their bodies were torn to pieces; they were crucified while they were still alive and breathed; they also strangled those women and their sons whom they had circumcised, as the king had appointed, hanging their sons about their necks as if they were upon their crosses. And if there were any sacred book of the law found, it was destroyed; and those with whom they were found miserably perished also’ (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews , 12:5:4). Never in all history has there been such a sadistic and deliberate attempt to wipe out a people’s religion. It is easy to see how this passage can be read against the terrible happenings of these days. The book of 4 Maccabees has two famous stories which were undoubtedly in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews when he made his list of the things that the people of faith have had to suffer. The first is the story of Eleazar, the elderly priest (4 Maccabees 5–7). He was brought before Antiochus and ordered to eat pig’s flesh, being threatened with the direst penalties if he refused. He did refuse. ‘We, O Antiochus,’ he said, ‘who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law.’ He would not comply with the king’s order, ‘not even if you gouge out my eyes and burn my entrails’. They stripped him naked and flogged him with whips, while a herald stood by him, saying: ‘Obey the king’s commands.’

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

  Also because the play must end somewhere. I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer. On the streetcar, I put my fare into the box and the conductorette looked at me with the usual hard eyes of white contempt. “Move into the car, please move on in the car.” She patted her money changer. Her Southern nasal accent sliced my meditation and I looked deep into my thoughts. All lies, all comfortable lies. The receptionist was not innocent and neither was I. The whole charade we had played out in that crummy waiting room had directly to do with me, Black, and her, white. I wouldn't move into the streetcar but stood on the ledge over the conductor, glaring. My mind shouted so energetically that the announcement made my veins stand out, and my mouth tighten into a prune. I WOULD HAVE THE JOB. I WOULD BE A CONDUCTORETTE AND SLING A FULL MONEY CHANGER FROM MY BELT. I WOULD. The next three weeks were a honeycomb of determination with apertures for the days to go in and out. The Negro organizations to whom I appealed for support bounced me back and forth like a shuttlecock on a badminton court. Why did I insist on that particular job? Openings were going begging that paid nearly twice the money. The minor officials with whom I was able to win an audience thought me mad. Possibly I was. Downtown San Francisco became alien and cold, and the streets I had loved in a personal familiarity were unknown lanes that twisted with malicious intent. Old buildings, whose gray rococo façades housed my memories of the Forty-Niners, and Diamond Lil, Robert Service, Sutter and Jack London, were then imposing structures viciously joined to keep me out. My trips to the streetcar office were of the frequency of a person on salary. The struggle expanded. I was no longer in conflict only with the Market Street Railway but with the marble lobby of the building which housed its offices, and elevators and their operators. During this period of strain Mother and I began our first steps on the long path toward mutual adult admiration. She never asked for reports and I didn't offer any details. But every morning she made breakfast, gave me carfare and lunch money, as if I were going to work. She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy. That I was no glory seeker was obvious to her, and that I had to exhaust every possibility before giving in was also

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

  I make one emphatic point as a conclusion from my preceding chapters and as a preparation for the following ones. Imagine the upside-down triangle formed by the Anatolian plateau in the west, the Mesopotamian plain in the east, and the Egyptian valley in the south. Squeeze the sides of that triangle between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian desert, and there in the Levantine narrows is tiny Israel. It was the hinge of the three then-known continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It was the corridor, cockpit, and cauldron of imperial competition. With warring superpowers first to the north and south, then to the west and east, invasion for Israel was inescapable and defeat inevitable—despite Deuteronomy 28. If Israel had spent all of its life on its knees praying, the only change in its history would have been to have died—on its knees praying. It is a crime against both humanity and divinity to tell a people so located that a military defeat is a punishment from God. This holds also, but for different reasons, on disease and drought, famine and even earthquake. No wonder, therefore, that Israel’s Psalter is filled with cries for forgiveness and pleas for mercy. External invasions, internal famines, and any other disasters were not divine punishments for how the people of Israel lived its covenantal life with God, but human consequences of where the nation of Israel lived it. CHAPTER 8Wisdom and KingdomEmpire was accepted as the “maturity of the times” and the unity of the entire known civilization, but it was challenged in its totality by a completely different ethical and ontological axis. . . . From the abyss of the social world always arose the memory of what it tried to bury. MICHAEL HARDT AND ANTONIO NEGRI , Empire (2000) LUKE ’S GOSPEL SPEAKS OF “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (24:44). If you read that triad, you might think there is nothing else in the Bible, or at least nothing of any significance. But that is to ignore the Wisdom tradition, that latter-day Pentateuch of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth, the Book of Wisdom or Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Sirach. (Christians disagree, by the way, on whether those last three books are canonical, semicanonical, or noncanonical.) The matrix for this tradition is not those imperial covenants of Anatolia or Mesopotamia but the scribal schools of Egypt that graduated skilled bureaucrats and learned retainers for the administration of palace and temple. Think, for example, of Israel under direct Egyptian control throughout the 200s BCE . I will discuss two very basic aspects of that Wisdom tradition. (Each continues this book’s fundamental questions about the character of the biblical God.) “She Is a Breath of the Power of God”THE FIRST ASPECT IS by far the most important. This is the tradition’s focus on Wisdom as God’s divine medium for creation.

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

  Then the “sign of Jonah” becomes a double threat: The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! (Matt. 12:41–42 = Luke 11:31–32) Refusing a sign in Mark appears as giving a sign that becomes a condemnation in the Q Gospel. How can we explain such differences? I locate the Q Gospel’s tradition about Jesus in predominantly Jewish territory, around the lake in lower Galilee, that is, in the lands originally under Herod Antipas (note mention of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum). But I locate Mark’s tradition about Jesus in predominantly Gentile territory, to the far north and east of the lake, that is, in the lands originally under Herod Philip (note the mention of “the villages of Caesarea Philippi” in Mark 8:27). I think that the Kingdom movement and Jesus traditions received much more opposition in predominantly Jewish rather than predominantly Gentile territory. Hence, the Q Gospel rather than Mark’s Gospel attributes far more rhetorical counterviolence to Jesus. It is not that the Messianic Jews of the Q Gospel were nastier people than those of Mark’s Gospel; it is simply that the opposition to them was far greater, and unfortunately, “their” Jesus responded accordingly. This interpretation is confirmed by these next two examples from Matthew’s Gospel. Example 3: Weeping and gnashing of teeth . This phrase usually describes the response of those rejected or condemned. It is used, but only once, in the Q Gospel: “I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:11–12 = Luke 13:28). This is, as just discussed, a typical counterrejection placed on the lips of Jesus by the embattled Q Gospel’s Christian Jews. But Matthew uses it five more times, and precisely at the end of parables by Jesus: 1. Parable of wheat and weeds: “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (13:41–42). 2. Parable of good and bad fish: “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (13:49–50). 3.

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

  I have called this book Whipping Girl to highlight the ways in which people who are feminine, whether they be female, male, and/or transgender, are almost universally demeaned compared with their masculine counterparts. This scapegoating of those who express femininity can be seen not only in the male-centered mainstream, but in the queer community, where “effeminate” gay men have been accused of holding back the gay rights movement, and where femme dykes have been accused of being the Uncle Toms of the lesbian movement. Even many feminists buy into traditionally sexist notions about femininity—that it is artificial, contrived, and frivolous; that it is a ruse that only serves the purpose of attracting and appeasing the desires of men. What I hope to show in this book is that the real ruse being played is not by those of us who happen to be feminine, but rather by those who place inferior meanings onto femininity. The idea that femininity is subordinate to masculinity dismisses women as a whole and shapes virtually all popular myths and stereotypes about trans women. In this book, I break with past attempts in feminism and queer theory to dismiss femininity by characterizing it as “artificial” or “performance.” Instead, I argue that certain aspects of femininity (as well as masculinity) are natural and can both precede socialization and supersede biological sex. For these reasons, I believe that it is negligent for feminists to focus only on those who are female-bodied, or for transgender activists to only talk about binary gender norms. No form of gender equity can ever truly be achieved until we first work to empower femininity itself. Perhaps the most difficult issue that I have had to contend with in writing this book is the varied backgrounds of the audiences I am hoping to reach. Some readers may be transsexual themselves, or may be very active in the transgender community, but may not be tuned in to the many discourses about gender and transsexuality that exist in academia, clinical settings, feminism, or queer politics. Others may take an interest in this book from a women’s, queer, or gender studies perspective, being familiar with what nontrans academics have had to say about trans people, but without ever having been exposed to a transsexual woman’s take on these many dialogues and debates. Still others may be completely new to the subject, having picked up the book because they want to learn more about transsexuality, how to be a trans ally, or because they have a particular interest in the subjects of femininity and/or sexism. For me, it has certainly been a challenge to write a substantial book about such complex topics that can simultaneously be easily understood and enjoyed by audiences who so greatly differ in their prior knowledge and their presumptions.

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

  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. Then Bailey solved my dilemma. He had me describe the contents of the cupboard and the particular plates she liked best. Her favorite piece was a casserole shaped like a fish and the green glass coffee cups. I kept his instructions in mind, so on the next day when Miss Glory was hanging out clothes and I had again been told to serve the old biddies on the porch, I dropped the empty serving tray. When I heard Mrs. Cullinan scream, “Mary!” I picked up the casserole and two of the green glass cups in readiness. As she rounded the kitchen door I let them fall on the tiled floor. I could never absolutely describe to Bailey what happened next, because each time I got to the part where she fell on the floor and screwed up her ugly face to cry, we burst out laughing. She actually wobbled around on the floor and picked up shards of the cups and cried, “Oh, Momma. Oh, dear Gawd. It's Momma's china from Virginia. Oh, Momma, I sorry.” Miss Glory came running in from the yard and the women from the porch crowded around. Miss Glory was almost as broken up as her mistress. “You mean to say she broke our Virginia dishes? What we gone do?” Mrs. Cullinan cried louder, “That clumsy nigger. Clumsy little black nigger.” Old speckled-face leaned down and asked, “Who did it, Viola? Was it Mary? Who did it?” Everything was happening so fast I can't remember whether her action preceded her words, but I know that Mrs. Cullinan said, “Her name's Margaret, goddamn it, her name's Margaret!” And she threw a wedge of the broken plate at me. It could have been the hysteria which put her aim off, but the flying crockery caught Miss Glory right over her ear and she started screaming. I left the front door wide open so all the neighbors could hear. Mrs. Cullinan was right about one thing. My name wasn't Mary.

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

  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 . 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.

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

  Qué quiere?” Anyone else would have asked, “Where am I?” Obviously, this was a common Mexican experience. When I saw he was fairly lucid I went to the car, calmly pushed the people away, and said from the haughty level of one who has successfully brought to heel a marauding car and negotiated a sneaky mountain, “Dad, there's been an accident.” He recognized me by degrees and became my pre-Mexican-fiesta father. “An accident, huh? Er, who was at fault? You, Marguerite? Errer was it you?” It would have been futile to tell him of my mastering his car and driving it nearly fifty miles. I didn't expect or even need, now, his approbation. “Yes, Dad, I ran into a car.” He still hadn't sat up completely, so he couldn't know where we were. But from the floor where he rested, as if that was the logical place to be, he said, “In the glove compartment. The insurance papers. Get them and er give them to the police, and then come back.” The guard stuck his head in the other door before I could form a scathing but polite response. He asked Dad to get out of the car. Never at a loss, my father reached in the glove compartment, and took out the folded papers and the half bottle of liquor he had left there earlier. He gave the guard one of his pinch-backed laughs, and descended, by joints, from the car. Once on the ground he towered over the angry people. He took a quick reading of his location and the situation, and then put his arm around the other driver's shoulder. He kindly, not in the least condescendingly, bent to speak to the guard, and the three men walked into the hut. Within easy minutes, laughter burst from the shack and the crisis was over, but so was the enjoyment. Dad shook hands with all the men, patted the children and smiled winsomely at the women. Then, and without looking at the damaged cars, he eased himself behind the steering wheel. He called me to get in, and as if he had not been helplessly drunk a half hour earlier, he drove unerringly toward home. He said he didn't know I could drive, and how did I like his car? I was angry that he had recovered so quickly and felt let down that he didn't appreciate the greatness of my achievement. So I answered yes to both the statement and the question. Before we reached the border he rolled down the window, and the fresh air, which was welcome, was uncomfortably cold. He told me to get his jacket from the backseat and put it on. We drove into the city in a cold and private silence.

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

  Perhaps no sexual minority is more maligned or misunderstood than trans women. As a group, we have been systematically pathologized by the medical and psychological establishment, sensationalized and ridiculed by the media, marginalized by mainstream lesbian and gay organizations, dismissed by certain segments of the feminist community, and, in too many instances, been made the victims of violence at the hands of men who feel that we somehow threaten their masculinity and heterosexuality. Rather than being given the opportunity to speak for ourselves on the very issues that affect our own lives, trans women are instead treated more like research subjects: Others place us under their microscopes, dissect our lives, and assign motivations and desires to us that validate their own theories and agendas regarding gender and sexuality. Trans women are so ridiculed and despised because we are uniquely positioned at the intersection of multiple binary gender-based forms of prejudice: transphobia, cissexism, and misogyny. Transphobia is an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against people whose gendered identities, appearances, or behaviors deviate from societal norms. In much the same way that homophobic people are often driven by their own repressed homosexual tendencies, transphobia is first and foremost an expression of one’s own insecurity about having to live up to cultural gender ideals. The fact that transphobia is so rampant in our society reflects the reality that we place an extraordinary amount of pressure on individuals to conform to all of the expectations, restrictions, assumptions, and privileges associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. While all transgender people experience transphobia, transsexuals additionally experience a related (albeit distinct) form of prejudice: cissexism, which is the belief that transsexuals’ identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cissexuals (i.e., people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their subconscious and physical sexes as being aligned). The most common expression of cissexism occurs when people attempt to deny the transsexual the basic privileges that are associated with the trans person’s self-identified gender. Common examples include purposeful misuse of pronouns or insisting that the trans person use a different public restroom. The justification for this denial is generally founded on the assumption that the trans person’s gender is not authentic because it does not correlate with the sex they were assigned at birth. In making this assumption, cissexists attempt to create an artificial hierarchy. By insisting that the trans person’s gender is “fake,” they attempt to validate their own gender as “real” or “natural.” This sort of thinking is extraordinarily naive, as it denies a basic truth: We make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a “real” gender—there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be.

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

  My pity for Mrs. Cullinan preceded me the next morning like the Cheshire cat's smile. Those girls, who could have been her daughters, were beautiful. They didn't have to straighten their hair. Even when they were caught in the rain, their braids still hung down straight like tamed snakes. Their mouths were pouty little cupid's bows. Mrs. Cullinan didn't know what she missed. Or maybe she did. Poor Mrs. Cullinan. For weeks after, I arrived early, left late and tried very hard to make up for her barrenness. If she had had her own children, she wouldn't have had to ask me to run a thousand errands from her back door to the back door of her friends. Poor old Mrs. Cullinan. Then one evening Miss Glory told me to serve the ladies on the porch. After I set the tray down and turned toward the kitchen, one of the women asked, “What's your name, girl?” It was the speckled-faced one. Mrs. Cullinan said, “She doesn't talk much. Her name's Margaret.” “Is she dumb?” “No. As I understand it, she can talk when she wants to but she's usually quiet as a little mouse. Aren't you, Margaret?” I smiled at her. Poor thing. No organs and couldn't even pronounce my name correctly. “She's a sweet little thing, though.” “Well, that may be, but the name's too long. I'd never bother myself. I'd call her Mary if I was you.” I fumed into the kitchen. That horrible woman would never have the chance to call me Mary because if I was starving I'd never work for her. I decided I wouldn't pee on her if her heart was on fire. Giggles drifted in off the porch and into Miss Glory's pots. I wondered what they could be laughing about. Whitefolks were so strange. Could they be talking about me? Everybody knew that they stuck together better than the Negroes did. It was possible that Mrs. Cullinan had friends in St. Louis who heard about a girl from Stamps being in court and wrote to tell her. Maybe she knew about Mr. Freeman. My lunch was in my mouth a second time and I went outside and relieved myself on the bed of four-o'clocks. Miss Glory thought I might be coming down with something and told me to go on home, that Momma would give me some herb tea, and she'd explain to her mistress. I realized how foolish I was being before I reached the pond. Of course Mrs. Cullinan didn't know. Otherwise she wouldn't have given me the two nice dresses that Momma cut down, and she certainly wouldn't have called me a “sweet little thing.” My stomach felt fine, and I didn't mention anything to Momma. That evening I decided to write a poem on being white, fat, old and without children. It was going to be a tragic ballad. I would have to watch her carefully to capture the essence of her loneliness and pain.

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

  Childhood's logic never asks to be proved (all conclusions are absolute). I didn't question why Mrs. Flowers had singled me out for attention, nor did it occur to me that Momma might have asked her to give me a little talking to. All I cared about was that she had made tea cookies for me and read to me from her favorite book. It was enough to prove that she liked me . Momma and Bailey were waiting inside the Store. He said, “My, what did she give you?” He had seen the books, but I held the paper sack with his cookies in my arms shielded by the poems. Momma said, “Sister, I know you acted like a little lady. That do my heart good to see settled people take to you all. I'm trying my best, the Lord knows, but these days …” Her voice trailed off. “Go on in and change your dress.” In the bedroom it was going to be a joy to see Bailey receive his cookies. I said, “By the way, Bailey, Mrs. Flowers sent you some tea cookies—” Momma shouted, “What did you say, Sister? You, Sister, what did you say?” Hot anger was crackling in her voice. Bailey said, “She said Mrs. Flowers sent me some—” “I ain't talking to you, Ju.” I heard the heavy feet walk across the floor toward our bedroom. “Sister, you heard me. What's that you said?” She swelled to fill the doorway. Bailey said, “Momma.” His pacifying voice—“Momma, she—” “You shut up, Ju. I'm talking to your sister.” I didn't know what sacred cow I had bumped, but it was better to find out than to hang like a thread over an open fire. I repeated, “I said, ‘Bailey by the way, Mrs. Flowers sent you—’” “That's what I thought you said. Go on and take off your dress. I'm going to get a switch.” At first I thought she was playing. Maybe some heavy joke that would end with “You sure she didn't send me something?” but in a minute she was back in the room with a long, ropy, peach-tree switch, the juice smelling bitter at having been torn loose. She said, “Get down on your knees. Bailey, Junior, you come on, too.” The three of us knelt as she began, “Our Father, you know the tribulations of your humble servant. I have with your help raised two grown boys. Many's the day I thought I wouldn't be able to go on, but you gave me the strength to see my way clear. Now, Lord, look down on this heavy heart today. I'm trying to raise my son's children in the way they should go, but, oh, Lord, the Devil try to hinder me on every hand. I never thought I'd live to hear cursing under this roof, what I try to keep dedicated to the glorification of God. And cursing out of the mouths of babes.

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

  Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven. (Col. 3:22–4:1) Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality. (Eph. 6:5–9) There are some important aspects worth noting in these twin texts. First, post-Paul speaks separately to both slaves and masters with direct address to each, but with slaves getting, not unexpectedly, more attention. Second, he also invokes mutual and reciprocal obligations of each to each. A Roman paterfamilias might growl: How dare you tell my slaves about my obligations to them, and by the way, do not dare to address my slaves directly rather than through me. You can see how all of this changes when we turn to the reactionary pseudo-Paul in the letter to Titus. Here is the text in question: Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior. (2:9–10) Apart from the concluding “God our Savior,” any Roman paterfamilias would nod approval to this injunction. Obligations are from slaves to masters, with nothing said about any reciprocal ones from master to slave. Furthermore, slaves are not addressed directly but only through owners: “Tell slaves . . . ” Finally, that clash between real-Paul and pseudo-Paul on slavery clarifies how we should read an ambiguous comment in one of Paul’s authentic letters. Here he is speaking to Christian slaves of non-Christian owners and wishes to reassure them that they are not thereby second-class Christians: “Were you a slave when called [by Christ]? Do not be concerned about it. But if also you gain freedom, rather use it ” (1 Cor. 7:21, translation and italics mine). The italicized phrase is as ambiguous in the Greek original (mallon chrēsai ) as in my literal English translation. What is the “it” to be used? Does it mean, stay as a slave and use your slavery for Christ?

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

  Some might feel that all of these trans-and genderrelated terms I’ve introduced are overwhelming or confusing. And others, particularly those in the fields of gender and queer studies, might dismiss much of this language as contributing to a “reverse discourse”—that is, by describing myself as a transsexual and creating trans-specific terms to describe my experiences, I am simply reinforcing the same distinction between transsexuals and cissexuals that has marginalized me in the first place. My response to both of these arguments is the same: I do not believe that transsexuals and cissexuals are inherently different from one another. But the vastly different ways in which we are perceived and treated by others, and the way those differences impact our unique physical and social experiences, lead many transsexuals to see and understand gender very differently than our cissexual counterparts. And while transsexuals are extremely familiar with cissexual perspectives of gender (as they dominate in our culture), most cissexuals remain largely unfamiliar with trans perspectives. Using only words that cissexuals are familiar with in order to describe my gendered experiences would be similar to a musician only choosing words that nonmusicians understand when describing music. It can be done, but something crucial would surely be lost in the translation. Just as musicians cannot fully explain their reaction to a particular song without bringing up concepts such as “minor key” or “time signature,” there are certain trans-specific words and ideas that will appear throughout this book that are crucial for me to use in order to precisely convey my thoughts and experiences regarding gender. To have an illuminating and nuanced discussion about my experiences and perspectives as a trans woman, we must begin to think in terms of words and ideas that accurately describe that experience. 2 Skirt Chasers: Why the Media Depicts the Trans Revolution in Lipstick and Heels AS A TRANSSEXUAL WOMAN, I am often confronted by people who insist that I am not, nor can I ever be, a “real woman.” One of the more common lines of reasoning goes something like this: There’s more to being a woman than simply putting on a dress. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why it’s so frustrating that people often seem confused because, although I have transitioned to female and live as a woman, I rarely wear makeup or dress in an overly feminine manner. Despite the reality that there are as many types of trans women as there are women in general, most people believe that all trans women are on a quest to make ourselves as pretty, pink, and passive as possible. While there are certainly some trans women who buy into mainstream dogma about beauty and femininity, others are outspoken feminists and activists fighting against all gender stereotypes. But you’d never know it by looking at the popular media, which tends to assume that all transsexuals are male-to-female, and that all trans women want to achieve stereotypical femininity.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  In 1920, the Democratic politician William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) launched a crusade against the teaching of evolution in the public schools. In his view, although the two were linked, it was not the Higher Criticism but Darwinism that had been responsible for the atrocities of the Great War.49 Bryan’s research had convinced him that the Darwinian conviction that only the strong should survive had ‘laid the foundation for the bloodiest war in history’. It was no accident that ‘the same science that manufactured poisoned gases to suffocate soldiers is preaching that man has a brutal ancestry and eliminating the miraculous and supernatural from the Bible’.50 For Bryan, evolution was surrounded by a nimbus of evil, which symbolized the ruthless potential of modernity. Bryan’s conclusions were naive and incorrect but people were ready to listen to him. The war had ended the honeymoon period with science and they wanted it kept within due bounds. Those who espoused plain-speaking Baconian religion found it in Bryan, who singlehandedly pushed the topic of evolution to the top of the fundamentalist agenda, where it has remained. But it might never have replaced the Higher Criticism had it not been for a dramatic development in Tennessee. The southern states had hitherto taken little part in the fundamentalist movement but they were worried about the teaching of evolution. Bills were introduced into the state legislatures of Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas to ban the teaching of Darwinian theory. The anti-evolutionary laws in Tennessee were particularly strict and John Scopes, a young teacher in the small town of Dayton, decided to strike a blow for freedom of speech and confessed that he had broken the law when he had taken a biology class in place of his principal. In July 1925 he was brought to trial. The new American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a team of lawyers to defend him, headed by the rationalist campaigner Clarence Darrow. Bryan agreed to support the law. Immediately the trial became a contest between the Bible and science. Bryan was a disaster on the stand and Darrow emerged from the trial as the champion of rational thought. The press gleefully denounced the fundamentalists as hopeless anachronisms, who could take no part in the modern world. This had an effect that is instructive to us today. When fundamentalist movements are attacked they usually become more extreme. Before Dayton, the conservatives were wary of evolution, but very few had espoused ‘creation science’, which maintained that the first chapter of Genesis was factually true in every detail. After Scopes, however, they became more vehemently literal in their interpretation of scripture, and creation science became the flagship of their movement. Before Scopes, fundamentalists had been willing to work for social reform with people on the left; after Scopes, they swung to the far right of the political spectrum, where they have remained.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] It had been Fay, Nevil’s wife, who had driven Daddy Glen to the hospital after getting him up off the lawn and on his feet again. “He an’t gonna die,” she had said. “But a doctor should look at him. That cut over his eye might need a stitch or two.” Aunt Carr and Benny went with them. “You should always give a man a chance,” she said before she got in the car. Earlier, she’d been the one who tried to stop the beating and gotten slapped for her trouble. “My wife’s getting ready to drive, an’t she, and in my car.” Nevil’s voice was laconic and soft. “She wouldn’t be if I wasn’t giving that son of a bitch a chance.” He was drinking black coffee out of a soup bowl, his knuckles all bloody and swollen, like Earle’s and Beau’s. Beau had managed to get kicked in the mouth and had lost a tooth. He was collapsed in a chair threatening to knock all Glen’s teeth out as soon as he could stand to punch him again. Through it all, Daddy Glen said nothing. His face was blood-streaked and bruised, and he could barely stand, but he didn’t make a sound when Benny helped him into the car. He just put one hand over his eyes and lay back against the seat. Aunt Carr brought his coat. “You should be ashamed,” she hissed at Earle as she went through Aunt Ruth’s living room. “Well, I’m not.” Earle had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and was passing it over to Beau between sips. “I’m not ashamed of beating that asshole. I’m not ashamed of sitting here drinking. I’m not ashamed of a damn thing.” He sat at the table with Beau and Nevil, all of them sweaty and bruised, drunk and indignant. None of them looked at me when I came through with Mama and Raylene, though Earle stumbled up and put his arms around first Mama then me. He smelled like blood, a copper-and-iron tang on top of the whiskey. I pushed at him, trying to get free, but he seemed not to notice, letting me go only when Mama pulled me out of his embrace. “We’re going,” she told him. Raylene and Nevil followed us out to the Pontiac, Raylene repeating, “You should come to my place,” and Mama never stopping to acknowledge the suggestion. It was dark and cold, and Reese was shivering. Aunt Alma brought out a couple of blankets. “We should talk,” she said. “You’re gonna need some help, Anney, and you shouldn’t go back to that house alone.” Nevil nodded. Raylene said, “Anney, just listen to us.” But Mama wrapped one blanket around Reese and handed the other to me. She kept putting one hand up, palm out, when either of her sisters got too close. “No,” she said once. “Don’t stop me. I know what I’ve got to do.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Shit morning-glory blossoms? Sit on their porches every Sunday morning and look down on the world with contempt? “I hate them,” I told Aunt Raylene when she came up behind me, waving at the bus as it passed. “Looking at us like we’re something nasty.” Aunt Raylene was picking blackberry seeds out of her teeth, looking off into the distance, and she surprised me when she reached over and slapped my shoulder. “They look at you the way you look at them,” she told me bluntly. “You don’t know who those children are. Maybe they’re nasty and silly and hateful. Maybe not. You don’t know what happens to them when they go home. You don’t know their daddies or mamas, who their people are, why they do things, or what they’re scared of. You think because they wear different clothes than you and go by so fast, they’re rich and cruel and thinking terrible things about you. Could be they’re looking at you sitting up here eating blackberries and looking at them like they’re spit on a stove—could be they’re jealous of you, hungry for what you got, afraid of what you would do if they ever stepped in the yard.” She reached down and pulled her string bag from her pocket and began to roll a cigarette. “You’re making up stories about those people. Make up a story where you have to live in their house, be one of their family, and pass by this road. Look at it from the other side for a while. Maybe you won’t be glaring at people so much.” I looked up at her sourly. “People say you ran off to the carnival with a man, but you never say nothing about him. How come he didn’t marry you?” The paper in Aunt Raylene’s hands shook. “People say? People will say anything. I ran off to the carnival, yeah, but not for no man. For myself. And I an’t never wanted to marry nobody. I like my life the way it is, little girl. I made my life, the same way it looks like you’re gonna make yours—out of pride and stubbornness and too much anger. You better think hard, Ruth Anne, about what you want and who you’re mad at. You better think hard.” She licked the cigarette paper and smoothed it closed. She lit it and tucked the dead match back in her pocket. She smoked carefully, watching me as if she expected me to talk back to her, but I held still. When she finally spoke again, her voice shook a little. “It’s not so cold tonight, not so cold. Smell of spring in the air.” I turned my face away and said nothing. After a minute Raylene shrugged and went back inside. I squatted down and hugged myself until I was as small as I could get, watching the cars pass and listening to Reese fuss as Aunt Raylene took her off to bed.

• 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.