Pride

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 Querelle (1953)

  But when he was by himself, at night or during the day, opening or buttoning his fly, his fingers felt they were capturing, with the greatest care, the treasure-the very soul-of this giant prick; he imagined that his own virility emanated from the stone phallus, while feeling quietly humble in the presence of the unruffled and incomparable power of that unimaginably huge male. And now Querelle knew he would be able to deliver his burden of opium to that strange ogre with the two magnifi· cent bodies . .. Just need to get another guy to help. Can't do it without him." Querelle understood, though hazily, that the entire success of the venture depended on this one sailor, and (even more vaguely, in the peace of mind afforded by this very remote and sweet idea, yet as insubstantial as the dawn ) , in fact, on Vic- 41 I QUERELLE whom he would enroll for the job, and it would be through him that he would be able to reach Mario and Norbert. Now the boss seemed straight; the other one was too handsome to be a mere cop. Those rings were too nice for that. "And what about me? And my jewels? If only that sonofabitch could see theml" Querelle was referring to the treasure hidden away in the despatch-boat, but also to his balls, full and heavy, which he stroked every night, and kept safely tucked away between his hands while he slept. He thought of the stolen watch. He smiled : that was the old Querelle, blooming, lighting up, showing the delicate underside of his petals.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Minutes before it was to be presented on the floor, a spokeswoman from each of the women-of-color caucuses gathered in an empty coatroom to give the final okay to the text, then rushed out on the floor to surround a mike in the huge Coliseum. First, Maxine Waters read the preamble on the discriminatory impact of sex and race combined. It was an honor that this young California assemblywoman had earned by her organizing skill in bringing all three hundred diverse members of the Black Caucus together. Then Billie Nave Masters, a Cherokee educator and activist, spoke on behalf of the Native American and Alaskan Native Caucus, citing their unique issues of sovereignty, and calling on “Earth Mother and the Great Spirit.” Those words didn’t seem to belong in a political plan of action, but I had asked the other caucuses if I could leave them in. An older woman in the Black Caucus had agreed. “Those are the only words my grandmother would give a damn about,” she said. “Issues are the head; those words are the heart.” When Billie read them, I saw delegates standing on their chairs to see who was speaking poetry. Next came Mariko Tse, a young Japanese American actor, who cited the struggles of Asian and Pacific Americans against language barriers, cultural bias, the realities of sweatshops, and the stereotypes of being “a model minority,” one supposedly without rebellion or problems. For the Hispanic Caucus, three delegates—Mexican American leader Sandy Serrano-Sewell; Ana Maria Perera, a Cuban American; and Celeste Benitez from the Puerto Rican senate—came to the mike together. This was the first time that different Spanish-speaking groups had unified in public across national boundaries as Hispanics, something they were encouraging male counterparts to consider. They took turns reading, and stood together on everything from immigrant rights and a minimum wage for migrant workers to reminding the media that Spanish-language reporters were not foreign press. Last came Coretta Scott King, standing with her bodyguard, a reminder of past tragedies and present danger. She cited the unemployment rate for young black women that was even higher than that for young black men, as well as housing bias against black families, black children in need of adoption, and more. Then she spoke for all the caucuses when she called for “the enthusiastic adoption of this substitute resolution on behalf of all the minority women in this country!” There were cheers, but her voice rode over them: “Let this message go forth from Houston and spread all over this land. There is a new force, a new understanding, a new sisterhood against all injustice that has been born here. We will not be divided and defeated again!”14 With chants, applause, and tears, the two thousand delegates accepted the new so-called Minority Plank by acclamation. It was the high point of the conference. I was as proud of my facilitating role as anything I had ever done in my life.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She said a few words to him, even smiled serenely at his joke about the elections, which he called “our parliament.” (She had to smile to show she saw the joke.) But she turned away immediately to Princess Marya Borissovna, and did not once glance at him till he got up to go; then she looked at him, but evidently only because it would be uncivil not to look at a man when he is saying good-bye. She was grateful to her father for saying nothing to her about their meeting Vronsky, but she saw by his special warmth to her after the visit during their usual walk that he was pleased with her. She was pleased with herself. She had not expected she would have had the power, while keeping somewhere in the bottom of her heart all the memories of her old feeling for Vronsky, not only to seem but to be perfectly indifferent and composed with him. Levin flushed a great deal more than she when she told him she had met Vronsky at Princess Marya Borissovna’s. It was very hard for her to tell him this, but still harder to go on speaking of the details of the meeting, as he did not question her, but simply gazed at her with a frown. “I am very sorry you weren’t there,” she said. “Not that you weren’t in the room ... I couldn’t have been so natural in your presence ... I am blushing now much more, much, much more,” she said, blushing till the tears came into her eyes. “But that you couldn’t see through a crack.” The truthful eyes told Levin that she was satisfied with herself, and in spite of her blushing he was quickly reassured and began questioning her, which was all she wanted. When he had heard everything, even to the detail that for the first second she could not help flushing, but that afterwards she was just as direct and as much at her ease as with any chance acquaintance, Levin was quite happy again and said he was glad of it, and would not now behave as stupidly as he had done at the election, but would try the first time he met Vronsky to be as friendly as possible. “It’s so wretched to feel that there’s a man almost an enemy whom it’s painful to meet,” said Levin. “I’m very, very glad.” Chapter 2 “Go, please, go then and call on the Bols,” Kitty said to her husband, when he came in to see her at eleven o’clock before going out. “I know you are dining at the club; papa put down your name. But what are you going to do in the morning?” “I am only going to Katavasov,” answered Levin. “Why so early?” “He promised to introduce me to Metrov. I wanted to talk to him about my work. He’s a distinguished scientific man from Petersburg,” said Levin.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Because so many reporters loved Bobby, they overcompensated—but by being critical. Later I would wonder if journalists’ guilt about their personal feelings meant that readers couldn’t know who Bobby Kennedy was until after he was dead, or who Richard Nixon was until after he was in the White House. —AS A VOLUNTEER, campaigning has meant many different things for me. I’ve stuffed envelopes and leafleted and picketed and phone-banked and fund-raised. I’ve lobbied and researched and written speeches and, once, served on a platform committee, though only because Bella Abzug couldn’t. I’ve shortened my life by trying to accomplish anything at political conventions, then shortened it even more by staying up all night to draft group statements and press releases for movement protests against exclusions at those conventions. I’ve campaigned for more candidates than I can remember. In 1996 alone, I look back at a schedule that lists twenty-nine candidates, not counting a president. I’ve spoken in backyards to a dozen neighbors, at huge concerts of rock and grunge bands, at teas in quiet living rooms, on flatbed trucks with bullhorns, and on foot while door-to-door canvassing. Once the women’s movement was really under way, we sometimes found ourselves speaking at marches in Washington of more than a million people. I recommend all these tasks, high and low. It’s one of the great things about campaigns that experience trumps everything, and people just try to do what needs to be done. A domestic worker lobbying to be included in the minimum wage may be a major speaker, and a Ph.D. may be making get-out-the-vote phone calls. When I look back, I see three stages, though I didn’t know they were stages at the time. First, I was volunteering inside campaigns and doing whatever I was asked to do—for instance, phone-banking until I thought the receiver would have to be surgically removed from my ear. I called big-city contributors from on-the-road places so I could say, “You don’t know what it’s like out here.” Sometimes I also did such unusual tasks as urging George McGovern to wear longer, TV-appropriate socks when he was a presidential candidate, going out to get Chinese food for Kennedy volunteers, or helping to run a discothèque as a fund-raiser for Lyndon Johnson’s campaign against Goldwater. My proudest moment was writing a televised speech for Shirley Chisholm in her 1972 run for the U.S. presidency. She was on the ballot in only fourteen states, but she was the first major-party black presidential candidate and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Single-handedly, she took the “white males only” sign off the White House door. Because she was “whited out”—as Flo Kennedy put it—of a televised debate before the New York primary, Chisholm and her campaign manager, Ludwig Gelobter, brought a legal action for equal time. She was given a half-hour at the last minute. Ludwig asked me to write overnight a speech that knit together Shirley’s farsighted positions.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  On arriving in Petersburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed at one of the best hotels; Vronsky apart in a lower story, Anna above with her child, its nurse, and her maid, in a large suite of four rooms. On the day of his arrival Vronsky went to his brother’s. There he found his mother, who had come from Moscow on business. His mother and sister-in-law greeted him as usual: they asked him about his stay abroad, and talked of their common acquaintances, but did not let drop a single word in allusion to his connection with Anna. His brother came the next morning to see Vronsky, and of his own accord asked him about her, and Alexey Vronsky told him directly that he looked upon his connection with Madame Karenina as marriage; that he hoped to arrange a divorce, and then to marry her, and until then he considered her as much a wife as any other wife, and he begged him to tell their mother and his wife so. “If the world disapproves, I don’t care,” said Vronsky; “but if my relations want to be on terms of relationship with me, they will have to be on the same terms with my wife.” The elder brother, who had always a respect for his younger brother’s judgment, could not well tell whether he was right or not till the world had decided the question; for his part he had nothing against it, and with Alexey he went up to see Anna. Before his brother, as before everyone, Vronsky addressed Anna with a certain formality, treating her as he might a very intimate friend, but it was understood that his brother knew their real relations, and they talked about Anna’s going to Vronsky’s estate.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Staying up to do it, then watching her deliver it on television, was a high I won’t forget. Second, I helped to found—and then campaigned with—women’s movement groups, for instance, the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), which supported pro-equality women for elected and appointed office, and then Voters for Choice, a political action committee that helped male and female candidates from either party who supported reproductive freedom. Ms. magazine rated presidential candidates on everything from pay equity and child care to the Machismo Factor—by which we meant support for the military and the death penalty. This did nothing to keep Richard Nixon out of the White House, but some Australian women who visited the Ms. office told us they used our rating system to help bring in the Labor Party. Also, the NWPC compiled the names of diverse women qualified for appointment to high office. More than forty years later, Mitt Romney would claim personal credit for having “binders full of women” as governor of Massachusetts, advancing it as one of his credentials for the presidency. In fact, those binders had been prepared and pressed on him by the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, as the group had done for decades. Only in my sixties did I arrive at my third and favorite form of campaigning, independent of any organization. With a few friends who were also activists and organizers, I rode cross-country in a van, found places to stay in swing states where local activists told us we were needed, and held meetings at school gyms, libraries, shopping centers, bowling alleys, rock concerts, backyard barbecues, campus rallies, subway stops, union halls, immigration lines, movie theaters, and bagel shops—all the places where voters are but candidates rarely go. Because I wasn’t a surrogate for any candidate, I didn’t have to say only what the candidate would say, or risk getting him or her into trouble by saying more. Because we all were free agents who paid our own way by raising small sums from friends, we could be trusted messengers, people who benefited in no way except as citizens and could say why we were supporting a candidate. By the time of Obama’s election campaign for the White House in 2008, we had extended these independent road trips to distant places. In the swing state of Colorado, which was crucial to Obama’s victory and also had some threatening ballot initiatives, we rented a house in Denver and, using it as a hub, traveled each day to different living rooms and community centers full of Independent or Republican women, the groups most likely to be neglected by the Democratic Party. They felt abandoned by the Republican War Against Women, yet were turned off by accusatory Democratic women saying, “How can you be a Republican?” Instead, we talked about the reasons to support political leaders who support us, never mind party labels. It was the kind of campaigning only a movement could do.

• From Querelle (1953)

  270 I JEAN GENET accounting for it to himself in any precise manner, Querelle was already arranging the elements of his future. It was on the second day of his liaison with Madame Lysiane that the inci dent occurred which we have seen mentioned in the Lieu tenant's diary. It was Querelle's custom, when walking down the street, to have his own kind of fun with any girls he met. Pretending to grab them, in order to kiss them, he pushed them away if they acquiesced. Sometimes he did kiss them, but the general idea was to mock them, making faces or wisecracks. His vanity yearned for that kind of recognition of his powers as a seducer. He rarely spent more than seconds with any girl he had managed to catch, but kept on rolling along, with his slow and bouncy gait. But that evening things were different. Happy to have escaped, thanks to Madame Lysiane, from the aridity of his affairs with Nono and then Mario, feeling like a winner, proud of having deceived his brother and of having made love to a woman, he was walking down the Rue de Siam. He felt elated, a little drunk. The liquor warmed his chest, lit up his vision. He was smiling. "Hey, baby!" He had his arm round the girl's shoulders. She half turned and let herself be carried along by the powerful strides of this big brute. Querelle didn't even wait until they got out of the well-lit part of the street. In a patch of shadow between two shop fronts he pushed her up against the wall. Excited, hardly worried about being seen, the girl put her arms round his neck and held on to him. Querelle breathed into her hair, kissed her face, murmured obscenities into her ear wh ich made her laugh, nervously. He wound his legs around hers. From time to time, he withdrew his face for a moment and glanced up and down the street. When he saw how busy it was, he grew even prouder. His triumph was a public one. That was the moment at which he saw, between two officers from another ship, Lieu ten ant Seblon come walking down the street. Querelle went on smiling at the girl. When the officers passed the shadowy area ,

• From Querelle (1953)

  He particularly liked that last expression. It fit in perfectly with his present state of mind. He felt proud of not fearing anything, of standing there, so safe from reprisals, in his goldbraided uniform. Such cowardice is a great force. But only a slight twist is needed for it to turn around to find another adversary, then finding it in the coward himself. The way he punished or maltreated Quere11e without reason was no doubt cowardly, but even while he was committing such acts, he was aware of the presence of a will, or strength-his strength : and it was this force (discovered, then cultivated, in the center of his cowardice ) that enabled him ·to insult the police officer. F�ally, carried away on his own generous breath and sustained by the luminous presence of the actual criminal, he ended up by accusing himself for the theft of the money in question. When he heard the Commissioner give the detective the order to arrest him, Seblon hoped they would recognize his prestige as an officer, but as soon as he found himself in the lockup, feeling certain that there would be an incredible scandal, he was happy. Ever since he slew the Armenian, Querelle had always cleaned out the corpses. It is rare not to find the idea of robbery following the idea and the act of murder (and of those two, the act often is the less despicable one ) . When a young tough hits a homosexual who has accosted him, he as often as not gets his ZlZ I JEAN GENET wallet as well. It's P'lt that he hits him in order to get his wallet, but he gets his wallet because he has hit him. "Too damn bad you didn't get his dough, I 1nean that mason. You could have used it now." Querelle stopped, hesitated. The last words had been said with slight apprehension, noticeable only to himself. · "But how could I? The bistro was packed. I didn't even think of it." "Well, yeah, that's true. But what about the other one, that sailorboy. You had enough time there." "But I swear, Jo, that wasn't me. I swear." "Listen, Gil, I don't give a shit. I didn't con1e here to give you a bad time. You've got your reasons for keeping things to yourself. That only proves that you're a real tough kid. And when you say so, I believe you. All I was saying was that it don't really make sense to snuff out guys without having some benefit from it. So what you want to do, you want to become a real tough sonofabitch, that way too. I'm telling you, kiddo." "D'you think I could really make it out there?" "We'll see."

• From Querelle (1953)

  preserved a redoubtable elegance. Without really appearing to be working, he took care of the Lieutenant's business; Seblon no longer dared to look him in the face, after that unequivocally ironical answer given with the perfect assurance of Querelle's power over one who was in love with him. Querelle dominated his shipmates by his strength, his toughness and his reputation, which increased when they found out that he went to La Feria every evening. However, he only frequented its public parlor, where some of the sailors had seen him shaking hands with the owner and with Madame Lysiane. The reputation of La Feria's owner spanned the seven seas. Sailors spoke of him among themselves (as we have said ) as they did of ducks in China, as they did of Crillolla, Bousbir and Bidonville. They were impatient to get to know the joint, but when they first saw, in a dark, dank street, that small dilapidated house, surrounded by a stench of urine, its shutters closed, they were both surprised and uneasy. Many did not find the courage to go through the studded door. Becoming a regular visitor added to Querelle's stature. It was inadmissible to suppose that -he had gambled with the boss. Querelle was powerful enough for his reputation to remain unsullied and even to be further enhanced by his association with the place. And if he was never seen with a whore round his neck, that was just further proof that he did not go there as a client, but as a friend or pimp. To have a girlfriend in a brothel made a man of him, no longer just a sailor: he had as much authority as the guys with the stripes. Querelle knew himself surrounded by immense respect, and bathing in that glory sometimes made him forget himself. He became arrogant toward the Lieutenant, whose suppressed desire he well knew. Maliciously Querelle tried to exacerbate it; with remarkable natural talent he found . the most suggestive poses; he would lean against the doorjamb, one arm raised to show off his armpit; he would sit on the table, flexing his thighs and letting his trouser leg ride up to exhibit his muscular, hairy calves; he would throw in a little "bump" for good measure, or - 133 I QUERELLE

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Then all the standers by looked on, to see what would come to passe: but I (as soone as I beheld the cup) staied not long, but gathering my lips together, supped up all the wine at one draught. The master being right joyfull hereat caused the Baker and Cooke which had bought me, to come before him, to whom he delivered foure times as much for me, as they paid, which done he committed me to one of his rich Libertines, and charged him to looke well to me, and that I should lacke nothing, who obeied his masters commandement in every point: and to the end he would creepe further into his favour, he taught me a thousand qualities. First he instructed me to sit at the table upon my taile, and how I should leape and dance, holding up my former feete: moreover hee taught me how I should answer when any body spake unto me, with nodding my head, which was a strange and marvailous thing, and if I did lacke drinke, I should looke still upon the pot. All which things I did willingly bring to passe, and obeyed his doctrine: howbeit, I could have done all these things without his teaching, but I feared greatly lest in shewing my selfe cunning without a master, I should pretend some great and strange wonder, and thereby be throwne out to wild beasts. But my fame was spred about in every place, and the qualities which I could doe, insomuch that my master was renowned throughout all the Country by reason of mee. For every man would say: Behold the Gentleman that hath an Asse, that will eate and drinke with him, that will dance, and understand what is said to him, will shew his fantasie by signes. But first I will tell you (which I should have done before) who my master was, and of what country. His name was Thiasus, hee was borne at Corinth, which is a principall towne of Achaia, and he had passed many offices of honor, till hee had taken upon him the degree Quinquenuall, according as his birth and dignity required, who to shew his worthinesse, and to purchase the benevolence of every person, appointed publike joyes and triumphs, to endure the space of three dayes, and to bring his endeavour to passe, he came into Thessaly to buy excellent Beasts, and valiant fighters for the purpose.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Chief among their sins was passing on the knowledge of herbs and abortifacients that allowed women to decide whether and when to give birth. After a period of shock and conferring, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious issues a statement. It condemns “unsubstantiated accusations,” offers to go to the Vatican for a dialogue, and observes that just by following the teachings of Jesus, many in the church might also be called “radical feminists.” Also some of the nuns get their rebellious act together and take it on the road. They begin touring the country to highlight poverty and injustice and become known as the Nuns on the Bus. I start to see men and women of all descriptions wearing T-shirts that say, WE ARE ALL NUNS NOW ! If Harvey were alive, he would be wearing one, too. —A FEW YEARS LATER, I’m waiting for a friend on a snowbound street in Minneapolis. A skinny boy of twelve or thirteen, with a backpack almost as big as he is, is standing nearby. I realize he’s trying to get up the courage to say something, so I say hello. All in a rush, he says he knows I was at St. Joan of Arc Church, it’s where his family goes, he’s part of a group there called Awakening the Dreamer, and it’s trying to help indigenous tribes save the rain forest. He wants to go to Latin America one day, just like Father Egan did. I look at this boy who wasn’t born yet when I spoke there—maybe his parents weren’t born yet either—and ask how he knows me or Father Egan. He says he read all about us on the big St. Joan of Arc website. I realize it’s a new day. It turns out that his family are Hmong refugees from Laos, people who were first displaced by the Vietnam War. Though Minneapolis has been mostly blond and Scandinavian in its immigrant past, it now has become the American city with the largest Hmong population. Indeed, I’ve read that a Hmong woman has just been elected to the city council. I ask him why he cares about such a long-ago event. He says he’s shy, his parents have a hard time with English, he is trying to help them and also to speak up in school. He read on the church website that I was the most protested speaker Joan of Arc ever had, and he wants to speak up for his family. I tell him that he just took that power. Now no one can ever take it away. I also tell him that the rain forest is beautiful, like where his family came from, that Father Egan would be proud of him, and that I am proud of him, too. The first step toward speaking for others is speaking for ourselves. As I watch him trudge off in the snow, I think for the millionth time: You never know.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  An elephant and gay pride. Yes'm, but how? Well, you see, you see, how can you take those fairies seriously? Then, absorbing the good atmosphere, tingling with fine vibrations—we were even being friendly to those we had no sexual interest in, we waved, smiled, said hello—I thought, So what if there is tackiness in the parade? Look at the Legion parades. Carefully, I explored my feelings, sensing a lurking demon; I found him, pushing me into that pitfall of all minorities, that we must not allow ourselves the freedom to be awful—and the implicit freedom to call whatever is awful “awful.” Here it comes! The gay parade! Even the most reactionary part of me needn't have feared. There was plenty of dignity, and, embarrassing to admit—man—I felt the itchy sentiment that signals real pride. Here you are, and here they are, and here we are. I remember Ma Joad's proud speech of the Okies' eventual triumph in “defeat.” We keep coming, she said, because we're the people. (I didn't even let interfere with my mood the bitter knowledge that many of those very same Okies had unleashed mean red-neck children and even cops to pillage our sexhunting grounds.) Waving banners evoking some of our best moments, the gay contingents march in happy disarray, no regimen* talized ranks for us, thanks. A group proclaims perhaps our finest day—the day of the Stonewall Inn riot. Students, young and happily defiant, chant, sing, hold hands, kiss. Even a contingent of straight supporters appears, predictably tiny but nevermind. Again the awareness occurs of what a radical happening this is within the context of only ten years ago. All those homosexuals, butch and femme, marching openly proclaiming: Two, four, six eight, Homosexuals are great! Three, five, seven, nine, Lesbians are really fine! Not smashing poetry, no, but sweet to the ear this gorgeous summer afternoon. Of course marchers cruised those on the sidewalks, and vice versa. Occasionally a group in the street would catch sight of someone particularly attractive on the sidelines, the word would pass, eyes would flank as if to a military eyes-right/left order, but happily. And wasn't that what it was all about? Freedom, freedom to be, do? Oh, there was tackiness all right—and why not? I asked the pursuing demon. Tackiness may be an element-wayward but there, and harmless—of the gay sensibility.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Querelle felt ve·ry strong. If he despised the Lieutenant, he felt no impulse to laugh ·at him, as on other days. It seemed unnecessary to him to exert his charms, as he had an inkling that his hue power was of another kind. It rose from the depths of hell, yet from a certain region in hell where the bodies and the faces are beautiful. Querelle felt the coal dust on his body, as women feel, on their anns and hips, the folds of a material that transforms them into queens. It was a make-up that did not interfere with his nakedness, that turned him into a god. But for the moment he was content to merely tum on his smile again. He was sure, now, that the Lieutenant would never ever raise the matter of the watch. "So what are you going to do now?" 89 I QUERELLE ··non't know, sir. I'm at your service. But, well, the buddies are a hand short, down below.'' The officer engaged in some quick thinking. To send Querelle to the shower would be to destroy the most beautiful object his eyes had ever been given to caress. As the seaman would be back again the next day, to be close beside him, it would be better to leave him covered with that black stuff. And sometime during the day he might find an occasion for going below to the bunkers, and there he might surprise this giant morsel of darkness at its flagrant amorous activities. "All right, then. Get going." "Very good, Lieutenant. I'll be back tomorrow." Querelle saluted and turned on his heel. With the anguish of a shipwrecked man watching island shores recede, and yet delighted with the casual tenor of complicity in Querelle's parting words-tender as the first use of a nickname-the officer saw those ravishingly neat buttocks, that chest, those shoulders and that neck draw away from him, irrevocably, yet not so far that he wouldn't be able to recall them with innumerable and invisible outstretched hands, enfolding those treasures and guarding them with the tenderest solicitude. Querelle went back to his coaling, as was his habit now, after murders. If on the first occasion he had thought that he would thus escape recognition by possible witnesses, at subsequent times he simply remembered the feeling of astounding power and security that that black powder, covering him from head to toe, had given him, and thus he sought it out again. His strength lay in his beauty and in his daring to still add to that beauty the appearance of cruelty inherent in masks; he was strong-and so invisible and calm, crouching in the shadow of his power, in the remotest corner of himself-strong, because he was menacing, yet knew himself to be so gentle; he was strong, a black savage, born into a tribe in which murder ennobled a man . "And besides, hell, I've got all that jewelry!" Qucrellc knew that the possession of certain wealth-gold, 90

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Suddenly a brawny band … lit into them.… The teenagers fled into the night, only to return ten minutes later, begging for their car. ‘Look, man, we don't want no trouble.’ “The group they most assuredly did not want trouble with was the Lavender Panthers, a stiff-wristed team of gay vigilantes who have taken to the streets … to protect their confreres against just such attacks.… The basic band numbers 21 homosexuals.… Besides their goal of halting the attacks, the Lavender Panthers want to gainsay the popular notion that all homosexuals are ‘sissies, cowards, and pansies’ who will do nothing when attacked.” — Time , October 8, 1973 “In re issue of hiring homosexuals as police officers.… Homosexuals have a corrosive influence … they attempt to entice normal individuals to engage in perverted practices.… they prefer individual pursuit of professions and hobbies, whereas the heterosexual is team-oriented in both work and play.… “In a recent court case … the court states, ‘Members of the police force must be above suspicion of violating the laws that they must uphold.’” —Excerpt of memorandum from a deputy chief of police of the L.A. Police Department to a police captain, December 12, 1974 L.A. POLICEMAN CITED IN ASSAULT COMPLAINT BY D.A. “A Los Angeles policeman was named Thursday in an assault-with-a-deadly weapon complaint… in the shooting of a private investigator.” — Los Angeles Times , May 14, 1976 OFFICER CHARGED ANEW IN BEATING OF CYCLIST, 28 “Charges that a Los Angeles policeman beat a suspect so badly he lost his left eye were refiled Tuesday after the case against him had been dismissed when a fellow officer regarded as a key prosecution witness failed to appear in court.” — Los Angeles Times , March 31, 1976 MURDERS RAISE QUESTION ABOUT OFFICERS' CONDUCT I LLEGAL A RMS , I NTRIGUE M ARK S LAYING C ASE “A double murder trial in San Bernardino [California] County has raised serious questions about the conduct of federal, state, and local law enforcement officers.” — Los Angeles Times , May 31, 1976 LONG BEACH TO CHARGE SOME POLICE IN SPREE “Misdemeanor charges will be filed against some of the Long Beach police officers involved in a drunken spree during which civilians were attacked.…” — Los Angeles Times , April 23, 1976 LONG BEACH ORDERS INQUIRY ON SUSPENDED THEFT PROBE C OUNCIL T ELLS 2 O FFICIALS TO L OOK I NTO C HARGES T HAT P OLICE H ALTED THE E FFORT W HEN I T L ED TO C ITY H ALL — Los Angeles Times , June 30, 1976 SAN DIEGO POLICE OFFICER CONVICTED “A veteran police officer was convicted Friday of receiving stolen property and of conspiracy.” — Los Angeles Times , March 27, 1976 LAPD CMTICIZED FOR GIVING TOO MANY OFFICERS HIGH EVALUATIONS “The Los Angeles Police Department has been criticized by the City Personnel Department for grading too many of its top officers ‘excellent’ and ‘outstanding’ and far too few as ‘satisfactory.’” — Los Angeles Times , June 14, 1976 POLICE DISHONESTY CALLED ‘EXTENSIVE’ — Los Angeles Times , December 29, 1972 LA. CRIME THREE TIMES HIGHER THAN REPORTED, U.S.

• From Querelle (1953)

  209 I QUERELLE 0 0 0 Insolence is simply an expression of our confidence in our wit, our speech . Lieutenant Seblon's innate cowardice was merely due to his physical recoil from any strong male, and to his certainty that he would be defeated: thus he had to com pensate for it by an insolent attitude. At the time of the decisive scene (which, according to the habitual rules of narra tive logic, we ought to have put at the end of this book), his encounter with Gil at Police Headquarters, he approached the Police Commissioner in a manner that was high and mighty at first and then switched to the openly insulting. It was only too evident that he had recognized Gil as his attacker. He denied this only out of his adherence to a kind of "freethinking" that had taken hold of him ever since he had gotten to know Querelle. It had developed in him, slowly at first, but then picking up speed, quite vertiginously and devastatingly. The Li eutenant was more of a freethinker than all the Querelles in the Navy, he was the purest of the pure. He was able to sustain his newfound convictions to such a rigorous degree exactly because they did not involve his body, only his mind. When he saw Gil sitting on the bench, leaning against a radiator, Seblon immediately realized what they wanted him to do: incriminate and thus stamp out th is boy. But within himself, a very light breeze began to blow, down among the grasses ("a breeze, hardly a zephyr," it said in the diary) : it grew stronger, it inflated hin1, and finally emerged in generous gusts through his vibrant mouth-or voice-in a torrent of words. "Well, do you recognize this man?" "N . I d t" o, su, o no . "By your leave, Lieutenant-! do understand the reasons you probably have for saying that, but this is a matter of criminal justice. Besides, I won't be too hard on him, in my report." The fact that the cop had recognized his generosity spurred the Lieutenant on to further sacrifices. It elated him.

• From Querelle (1953)

  He had his arm round the girl's shoulders. She half turned and let herself be carried along by the powerful strides of this big brute. Querelle didn't even wait until they got out of the well-lit part of the street. In a patch of shadow between two shop fronts he pushed her up against the wall. Excited, hardly worried about being seen, the girl put her arms round his neck and held on to him. Querelle breathed into her hair, kissed her face, murmured obscenities into her ear which made her laugh, nervously. He wound his legs around hers. From time to time, he withdrew his face for a moment and glanced up and down the street. When he saw how busy it was, he grew even prouder. His triumph was a public one. That was the moment at which he saw, between two officers from another ship, Lieutenant Seblon come walking down the street. Querelle went on smiling at the girl. When the officers passed the shadowy area, 211 I QUERELLE Querelle hugged her harder and kissed her on the mouth, pushing his tongue into it: but first of all, and retaining an interior smile, he imbued his back, his shoulders, his buttocks, with the entire significance of the moment-his entire powers of seduction directed themselves to that side of his body, and it became his true face, his sailor face. He tried to make it smile, to excite. Querelle wished for this so fervently that an imperceptible shudder ran the length of his spine, from neck to tailbone. He dedicated his most precious parts to the officer. He was sure he had been recognized. The Lieutenant's first impulse was to challenge Querelle in order to punish him for making such an indecent exhibition of himself in public. His respect for discipline was closely connected with his taste for pomp and circumstance-and with his conviction that he owed his actuality to the rigors of an order without which neither his rank nor his authority was able to function-: thus, to betray this order, even just a little, meant self-destruction. Yet he didn't budge. He would not have acted even without the presence of his fellow officers; while he knew the inner need to enforce discipline, to infringe it, or to tolerate an infraction, could make him feel the pleasure of freedom and even complicity with the culprit. In fact, it seemed quite elegant and "really rich'' (those were the words in his mind ) to show a smiling indulgence toward such a ravishing couple of young lovers. Querelle let the girl go, but as he did not dare to walk on in the direction of the port, where the officers were heading, he slowly retraced his steps. He felt both happy and discontented. Soon after he had turned around, a young girl detached herself from a group of friends and came running toward him, a big smile on her face.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Some modern Cherokees still feared this ridicule, or thought a woman couldn’t represent the Nation in Washington, or both. Her election campaign had all the complexities of any statewide campaign, plus the necessity of reaching enrolled Cherokee voters in states outside Oklahoma and in foreign countries. I found myself in the familiar role of helping with fund-raisers and even a television commercial. But in the end, Wilma won because of her record of helping people to help themselves, as she had in Bell, and also because Cherokee traditionalists, who had rarely voted before, saw her leadership as a return to the balance and reciprocity of the past. After that, I watched as she quietly, person by person, one rural community at a time, one Washington lobbying battle at a time, helped people build their own water systems, youth programs, and a health care delivery system that was a model for other rural areas. Gradually she brought the Cherokee Nation from being mostly dependent on government allotments to being mostly independent through communally run businesses. In order to honor other Native women leaders, she interviewed many for her book, Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women. 18 In 1991 she was reelected with an unprecedented 82 percent of the vote. In 1994 President Bill Clinton invited leaders from all the Native nations to meet in Washington, a first in history. This almost totally male group elected Wilma as one of its two spokespeople. Six years after that, I went to the White House with Wilma and watched as President Clinton and Hillary Clinton presented her with a Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. As she stood there, strong, kind, and not at all intimidated by another chief of state, I was not the only one in the audience who thought, She could be president. I also thought, In a just country, she would be. — IN WILMA’S LAST YEAR on the board, she overlapped with Rebecca Adamson, a shy, slender, magnetic woman who was a self-educated expert on grassroots economics. Younger and more diffident than Rayna and Wilma, she seemed to defeat her shyness by sheer force of will. Her gift for understanding everything from the most humble detail to the most challenging economic theory reminded me of that 1930s ideal, the working-class intellectual. Unlike Rayna and Wilma, Rebecca had grown up totally outside Indian Country.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Nevertheless, he felt sad, and mean. He was not wearing that habitual smile. The fog dampened his nostrils, refreshed his eyelids and his chin. He was walking straight ahead, punching his weighty body through the softness of the fog. The greater the distance he put between himself and La Feria, the more he fortified himself with all the might of the police force, believing himself to be under their friendly protection now, and endowing the idea of "police" with the muscular strength of Nona, and with Mario's good looks. This had been his first encounter with a police officer. So he had met a cop, at last. He had walked up to him. He had shaken hands with him. He had just signed an agreement that would protect both of them against treachery. He had not found his brother there, but instead of him those two monsters of certainty, those two big shots. Nevertheless, while gaining strength from the might of the Police as he drew away from La Feria, he did not for one moment cease to be a sailor. Quere11e, in some obscure way, knew that he was coming close to his own point of perfection: clad in his blue garb, cloaked in its prestige, he was no longer a simple murderer, but a seducer as well. He proceeded down the Rue de Siam with giant strides. The fog was chilling. Increasingly the forms of Mario and Nono merged and insti11ed in him a feeling of submission, and of pride-for deep down the sailor in him strongly opposed the policeman: and so he fortified himself with the full might of the Fighting Navy, as well. Appearing to be running after his own form, ever about to overtake it, yet in pursuit, he walked on fast, sure of himself, with a firm stride. His body armed itself with cannon, with a hull of steel, with torpedoes, with a crew who were agile and strong, bellicose and precise. Querelle became "Le Querelle," a giant destroyer, warlord of the seas, an �ntelligent and invincible mass of metal. "Watch your step, you assholel" His voice cut through the fog like a siren in the Baltic. "But it was you who . . " . 33 I QUERELLE Suddenly the young man, polite, buffeted, thrown aside by the wake of Querelle's impassive shoulder, realized that he was being insulted. He said : "At least you could be civil about itl Or open your eyesl" If he meant "Keep your eyes open," for Querelle the message was "Light up the course, use your running light." He spun around : "What about my lights?""

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  This tension was symbolized by the distance between the posh oceanfront hotel where many Democratic officials, media people, and Friedan were staying, and the tacky motel where NWPC headquarters were located and where most of us slept. As Nora Ephron would report, “Every day, Friedan would call N.W.P.C. headquarters at the dingy Betsy Ross Hotel downtown and threaten to call a press conference to expose the caucus; every day…movement leaders would watch with a kind of horrified fascination to see what Betty Friedan would do next.” But women’s new presence and activism in and around that convention created enough good news to make up for all the worry. More than a third of the delegates were women—up from 13 percent four years earlier—surpassing even Eleanor Roosevelt’s record of 15 percent in 1936; not her (or our) goal of 50/50, but a record. There was a strong women’s plank in the platform, where four years ago there had been none. Our only serious failure was our inability to get a plank supporting reproductive freedom included—because Senator George McGovern, the probable nominee, feared running on it. Still, it was the first time this human right had been raised as an issue and voted on by a major party. We also saw our NWPC co-founder Shirley Chisholm receive a roll call vote of 151 delegates for her symbolic run for political equality and against the Vietnam War, which she had opposed in her first speech in Congress.6 Shirley’s mere presence in the race brought the NWPC goals to national attention, and although her total campaign budget was probably what other presidential campaigns spent on take-out food, she had just kept going. Indeed, she might have received more delegate votes if McGovern hadn’t passed the victory point before the roll call was completed. Even Theodore White, a chronicler of presidential campaigns who was rarely interested in the nonpowerful, reported that the NWPC had put women on the political map. About our impoverished headquarters at what he called the “derelict” Betsy Ross Hotel, he wrote: “One might be amused by the high-octave span of women’s voices gathered together, or the rooms with the unmade beds, half-unpacked suitcases, yogurt cartons, chests covered with blue jeans and bras—but only briefly. The Betsy Ross Hotel was a power center. Mimeograph and Xerox machines spewed out leaflets…the switchboard jammed; fuses blew; and each night, after dark, couriers boarded buses to travel north on Collins Avenue and persuade night clerks of the forty or more major hotels to stuff mailboxes or let them slip leaflets under delegates’ doors….When the convention broke up, women power 1972 was real.” That was the beginning of campaigning from inside a movement rather than on a candidate’s turf. Up until then I had supported campaigns by writing about them or volunteering in them.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Z19 I QUERELLE regard it as a mere occasion of physical satisfaction. In his games with Querelle, Nono saw signs of a violent and some what flashy lewdness that he recognized in himself. This sailor sprawling on th e carpet who presented him his muscular and hairy buttocks, right there in the midst of all the velvet upholstery, performed an act with him that would not have looked out of place in one of those orgiastic convents where the nuns let themselves be fucked by billygoats. It was fun and games, but it sure made a man feel like a man. Looking at the black anus surrounded by brushy hair, so frankly offered up between the long, slightly tanned, heavy thighs emerging from the tangle of pulled-down pants, Norbert opened up his own trousers, raised the bottom of his shirt a little, to really look the devil of a fellow, and stood there for a few seconds and contem plat ed himself in this posture, comparable, in his mind, to that of a triumphant hunter or warrior. He knew he was not taking any risks, as no trace of sentiment ality marred the purity of his game. No passion, no sir. "Smells rich," he would say, or "Let's slip it to you," or "What a pretty one." It was just a game, no problems. Two strapping fellows with smiles on their faces, and one of them-without any drama, no fuss-offered his asshole to the other one. "Having a good time." Then there was the added pleasure of cheating_ th e girls. "If they knew what the buddies are doing, spunking around; boy would they start bitching. This sailorboy here, he'll never make a fuss about it. Getting· screwed in the ass is what he likes. Nothing wrong with that." There was also an element of compassion in Norbert's mak ing love to Querelle. It seemed to him, not th at the sailor had fallen in love with him, but that he needed th�se sessions in order to go on living. Norbert had a certain respect for him first of all because he had shown him s elf to be a shrewd dealer