Word Count: Approx. 2,280 words
Estimated Reading Time: 9–10 minutes
By H.T. Smith
On September 10th, 1991, at 1:49 am in St. Lawrence Hospital, the concerns of Lansing became my problem. I’m not an idealist who believes that all of Lansing can be as peaceful as whatever time imagined, whitewashed, or simply romanticized by people to cope with the growing dissolution with life in a post-modern world that both feels mundane, but also on the cusp of world changing flashpoint, as though the shoe is about to drop in some way that affects the world at large. But I’m also not a nihilist, though I believe in god as structured from my upbringing attending Union Missionary Baptist Church, the oldest African-American church in the city, I still apply the skeptics’ creed “Credulity is not a virtue”, or simply the idea that simply agreeing with something because it is widely believed doesn’t necessarily make you a morally better person than someone with doubts and questions.
And this is how we arrive at the present point of American culture, where the president is on camera graphically joking about sexual assault, paying hush money to his adult-film star mistress while trying to avoid paying the amount owed to a woman who won a lawsuit against him for assaulting her. To any Canadians reading this, just know that said trade war is mainly because of his shady business ventures in your country. According to John Norris’ article on the Center for American Progress’ website titled “ Trump’s Conflicts of Interest In Canada”, In 2012, he opened the Trump International Hotel and Tower Toronto with Alexander Shnaider, the head of Talon International Development Inc, but by 2017, it would be sold from receivership “For a fraction of its original cost” This is nothing to say of the fact that said deal was financed by Vnesheconombank (or VEB for short) a bank on the US sanctions list due to being used as a cover for Russian spies. Or that he signed a licensing agreement in 2013 to build a Trump-Branded hotel with the Holborn Group, a company owned by TA Global Berhad, which is run by a stock broker who was convicted for giving false information to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange in 2002.
And not to mention the years of accusations against Tesla Motors for labor violations, charges of workplace racism & sexism, and a flight attendant that sued Musk for alleging that he drunkenly came on to her and promised her he’d by her a pony if she’d let him get her pregnant, I think the CEO having such power now is quite relevant. Elon Musk, an oligarch from an apartheid state so racist that it led to Musician Dave Matthews (Who was born in Johanesburg, which is south of Musk’s Birthplace of Pretoria) left South Africa in 1986 to avoid being conscripted into the military due to knowing he’d be ordered to commit ethnic cleansing essentially. But it’s not shocking that we as a country would view such a man as masculine as the American masculine ideal still retains the desire to be a boorish, bloviating idiot. But why?
Well, maybe it has partly to do with the fact that the aforementioned president is being hailed as the avatar of masculinity, spent years before he became president claiming a previous one was secretly born outside of America, and boosting claims that he was secretly gay and that his wife was born a man? For all the clear as day signs Trump is awful, the most obvious one to me as a child was the fact that when he made a cameo on “The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air”, he had married Marla Maples the year before his appearance. The year before I was born, he had divorced Ivana Trump, the mother of his 3 oldest children. But the clear as day sign his name would forever be mud as far as I was concerned came when I came to find out that in 1989, after the Central Park 5 false arrests, he wrote an ad in Newsday and many other popular magazines of the day that sounded so passionately fascist that if it were translated to italian, it would sound like Bennito Mussolinis’ shower thoughts before a speech. This is only made worse when I realized that 3 years prior, A man named Robert Chambers Jr. had killed a woman in Central Park & was convicted, but had not been met with the same level of rancor by Trump.
There are men among us, some being our closest confidants, who are not willing to grow, not make amends, nor apologize or admit to any wrongdoing. And there are a select few men in history whose names live on in infamy due to what they have done that crossed into the territory of pure evil. Sure, most men aren’t the kind to do unspeakable acts to a woman they just met. but for a woman, there’s always that very real fear of becoming a statistic, even if only a marginal one. There’s always the fear that the man might be the next Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, or even Ariel Castro, whose crimes were committed in a city that’s only a 3-hour drive from Lansing.
As a man who has been in spaces where men speak freely (and in some cases in very vulgar terms), I can tell you that I’ve had to change friend circles more than a few times to find out that some of the men among my company were men who were downright degenerates. Whether it’s having no respect for the concepts of personal boundaries, consent, or just being a groomer, it’s made me sad to see how many men I enjoyed hanging out with that I had to turn my back on, but knew it was necessary. Have I been the bastion of morality myself? No, I’ve done a lot of shameful things in my life, especially regarding women. But I can at least admit I was wrong, apologize, make amends as much as I can, and continue to grow as a person.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
One of the more egregious examples of the normalized toxicity Im working against in recent memory is the story of a local woman who worked for a local convenience chain who alleged she was fired after reporting a male coworker for sexual harassment, a clear as day labor law violation. I’ve heard many women (including a woman I playfully call “one of my old work wives”) allege that local social hubs like certain bars on Michigan Ave. outright refuse to ban known predators among their patrons, even when some even allege that they were sexually assaulted in said establishments. Next to nothing is done by said businesses to investigate such issues, more than likely out of fear it will impact their profits negatively, but I think its safe to say its far more detrimental to the bottom line if 50% (if not more) of their patrons refuse to even step foot in their establishment because they’re not sure you’ll even protect them from being roofied. Allegedly. Of course.
I mention all this to get to the greater local point that in the last few years in this town, I’ve started to understand a bit more why so many women say “this is why we picked the bear” with the very real things I see around me, or rather hear from women regarding where & when they don’t feel protected by the men around them. I still remember the rather tragic story of Mary “Unique” Spears, a woman who in 2014, was shot & killed by Mark Dorch over being rejected by her at a wake for one of her relatives. I still feel a bit of sadness that Marissa Alexander gets to live free, but as a convicted felon for daring to defend her & her children’s lives because no one else would. And of course, this reminds me of the tragic hero of Ingham County named Francine Hughes. 48 years ago, she was left with no choice but to kill her abusive ex-husband when her family, his family, and the police failed to protect her from him, and was forced to set him on fire while in bed after abusing her and falling asleep.
This is by no means a call out as I cannot legally prove such allegations, but the women that I have heard them from can, especially the one who was terminated by said chain. I will simply say to the woman (Let’s call her “Perking”) who is raising the issue of being illegally fired: I believe you, Ms. “Alanine”, and frankly I don’t believe your mistreatment should be discarded so lightly. If you choose to raise a case or not, I will support your choice, but I believe your story should have awareness brought to it. The youngest age an employee at your former employer is 16, should any of us keep quiet about a local business showing signs they could realistically endanger the lives of children?
Mentalities like Trump’s and Musk’s mentalities towards women are the evolving symptoms of the social disease that is misogyny. I say a disease because, like a virus, it spreads, it mutates, it adapts, it has variants (like misognoir), but above all, it endangers lives, these accusations being but the most recent example of it. If a business cannot ensure that a large number of its guests will be safe when they patronize it, it has to ask why, to ensure that it won’t become a larger problem, particularly to the bottom line. But in a world that seems to punish such behaviors and seems to almost reward it more, what would motivate any man to change? For all that I could say about either of them, the relevant point is this: If there is ever going to be a truly effective cultural pushback against how normalized their mistreatment of women has become, it must have tangible, material results and it must start locally.
For the mentality they normalize, the only true way to fight back is to not allow it to go unchecked when within reach. Just like with those who were willing to stand up to Tesla, we should not allow the aforementioned businesses to go unchecked. Though for obvious reasons, I cannot name said businesses, I am more than willing to hear said stories similar to the ones mentioned above, and get you, women of Lansing, in contact with legal counsel for a case of some sort to get some sense of justice & accountability for what was done to you. Send all inquiries and stories to unclejamwantsyou1991@gmail.com
If we are truly going to fight back against the mindsets of the types of people that praise Trump & Musk as being the avatars of masculinity, we must undercut the norms that support it. The bosses with roaming hands must be removed from power, the predators must be ensnared, and Boys cannot just be boys anymore. Change must come, even if relying on a judge to make it a ruling. Yes, protest to no end. This very country was founded on the ideas of speaking truth to power and making it very uncomfortable if need be to make it hear you. Will the revolution be televised? It depends if the judge will let the cameras in the courtroom. But justice can and will always come. Ironically, it’s the words of another controversial American president that will be used to give you all hope:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan.” – Thomas Jefferson
