Laughter, facts, and welcome
"In a world of possibility for us all, our personal visions help lay the groundwork for political action." - Audre Lorde
1.
I have spent a long time thinking about Audre Lorde.1 I will admit I have struggled with the maxim she coined, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. This phrase comes from an essay and book that both bear the phrase as their title. More than my reading and re-reading of Lorde, however, the phrase has been deployed with near-ubiquity in the various progressive circles I have visited (both academic and practical) over the decades. Try as I might, the full impact of Lorde’s words has escaped me.
May I elaborate? Reading Lorde’s essay, I am struck by the context: a 1978 conference on feminism held at the New York University Institute on the Humanities to which Lorde was invited. From her characterization in the essay, it seems her invitation was by turns marked by inattention, afterthought, and tokenism. She describes being one of only two African American women invited to attend, and her resentment for being cast in the role of bearing the weight of expectation to speak for not only an African American but also a lesbian experience. As she writes,
If white american feminist theory need not deal with the differences between us, and the resulting differences in our oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of color? What is the theory behind racist feminism?2
I am grateful for the specificity here, but when I encounter the phrase in the wild, it seems to become detached from this material specificity, and suddenly it applies to everything. Thus, in certain uses, it suddenly seems that all manner of progressive organizing, including tactics of collective action, resistance, and mutual aid, can be dismissed as “the master’s tools.”
I apologize if it is my own biases and overly-concrete brain processes that have slowed my understanding of these matters (a definite possibility). What I especially want to say is that I am aware that just because something has not made sense to me, that doesn’t mean I presume it to be without sense or without use. That has what has kept me coming back to both Lorde’s essay and Lorde’s phrasing, as I attempt to understand both of them in their context, yes, but also out in the wild.
Over the past week, however, something has at last become clear for me. I think I finally have a way to think about the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house as a praxis. This is exciting for me (again, even as I realize I may be arriving late at an understanding that others have long-since grasped), and I wanted to see if I could put my new understanding into words.
2.
First, a bit of background that will frame how I got here. I live in Chicago, and I work as a professor at a pretty amazing place that trains students in a variety of pastoral skills to equip them for ministry in the Christian faith generally, and the Catholic faith specifically. Now, at the same time that we are doing this work here in Chicago, the Chicago Archdiocese also has a diocesan seminary on the north side of town.
Like every Catholic diocesan seminary, this school to our north welcomes certain male students with certain types of male bodies and forms them into priests. Not all male students and not all types of male bodies qualify for this formation, and that’s fine. The seminary has the prerogative to define the kind of students it will accept. Following the preferences of the Catholic Church, this seminary gets to pick its students and, but extension, its priests.
However, because the local seminary has made this prerogative choice about the type of male students it wants and will accept, that helps a school like mine to understand our own educational mission. In other words, the seminary to the north of the city has made a kind of “first move” here, to the effect of saying “we want these male bodies, and not these other bodies.” The opens a space, then, for my school to respond, basically saying, “Okay then - we’ll welcome these other bodies, that you have said you don’t want.”
Now please note, this is my characterization, and not in any way the official position of my school. I am simply giving you my analysis of the current situation, and no one else if responsible for this analysis or has signed off on it as correct. So when I talk about the educational mission of the place I teach, I think our job is to welcome the students who have discerned a call to ministry but who might have the sorts of bodies that the seminary to our north has made clear it is not interested in welcoming or forming towards ministerial vocations.
So right now, that means that, at the place I teach, we welcome an extraordinary variety of female bodies, LGBTQIA+ bodies, and differently-abled and disabled bodies, in addition to a variety of students with male bodies that would be welcomed at the seminary, but for their own reasons chose not to go there. Again, this is my description of what we are doing, and I offer it to help frame what I am about to say next.
3.
I am writing this as the news has come out that Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show has been put on indefinite hiatus by ABC, which commentators are treating as a de facto cancellation of the show. This, after similar news was announced a few weeks back regarding The Late Show, hosted by Stephen Colbert, on CBS.
No one is laboring under the illusion that these shows were not targeted by our current president. In the wake of the cancellation of Colbert’s show, President Trump had a number of comments on social media to the effect that Kimmel was next, along with a number of other late night hosts. we also have recent social media posts by Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Communications Commission.
The pressure put by the FCC on both networks to influence the cancellations was transparent, probably illegal, and unquestionably a violation of the First Amendment. Not that illegality matters much these days. Even if the decisions might eventually be reversed (a course that seems increasingly unlikely in the present climate), the damage is already done.
Of course, the Trump administration has also been non-stop in its attack on all manner of immigrant populations, and increasingly also against LGBTQIA+ populations. Led by the efforts of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, we’ve seen all manner of illegal captures that are tantamount to broad-daylight kidnappings of legal residents and even citizens. Many of these captures have led to renditions to El Salvador and other locations outside the United States, where the kidnapped face indefinite detention and torture. Again, it may well be that the majority of these actions will be determined to have been illegal, but as in the case of Kimmel and Colbert, it really matters very little. The damage is already done.
The last few weeks we’ve seen national historic sites and the Smithsonian museums stripped of stories and images that communicate the experiences of those who were enslaved or who struggled under and against Jim Crow and other institutional racism. The administration has made clear that it views these narratives as a type of threat.
So as I look at this broad sweep of repressions, it occurred to me that there were three main categories, in particular, that were under attack right now: laughter, facts, and welcome.
4.
My dissonance with Lorde’s maxim, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house, is summed up well by this observation from Brendon Marotta:
The metaphor of the master’s tools is often misinterpreted to mean that activists cannot use the tools themselves, rather than that they should own their own tools. In this misapplication, activists look at what the most dominant systems do and just do the opposite. This results in absurd conclusions, like “they have lots of money, so we should do all our activism without money” or “voting is a part of the system, so we can never create change through legislation.” Some tools are universal. Just because the master owns a tool doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your own. It means that you should make sure the tool you use really is yours.3
I find Marotta’s explanation here very helpful, but — in this instance — I am going to take things in a different direction than the one he suggests. In fact, I am going to “look at what the most dominant systems do and just do the opposite” in this case.
A few months back, I watched a video by the amazing essayist Zoe Bee in which she introduces the idea of the fascist unimaginary. As she says in the essay, she was originally going to make the claim that “fascists don’t have an imagination,” but as she thought more about it, she realized that this was not the correct claim. Instead, as she says:
It's not that fascists don't have an imagination. Clearly they do. It's the fascist imagination that allows people to imagine children as killers. Imagine entire ethnic groups as vermin and imagine themselves as the rightful rulers. Fascists have an imagination. It's just that their imagination sucks.
Their imagination is a cruel, rigid, and static. And this cruel, rigid, static imagination is what I'm calling the Fascist Unimaginary. And it lies at the heart of bigotry. The fascist imagination puts people in boxes based on arbitrary traits and then refuses to imagine that they could ever leave that box.
White supremacy cannot imagine Black philosophers. Patriarchy cannot imagine women leaders. Cis-heteronormativity cannot imagine trans people existing. The Fascist Unimaginary shows up in our art too. We've been imaginative enough to invent dwarves and mermaids, but we couldn't possibly imagine Black dwarves or mermaids. We can imagine magic wielding TTRPG characters, but not ones in wheelchairs. We can imagine post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi super soldiers, but not ones who are trans.
So if we do have an imagination, we've imagined so many things, all these systems and concepts and fictions, we just can't imagine any further, and that kind of doesn't make sense, right? How can we be imaginative enough to live in this world of concepts but not imaginative enough to create new ones? What is it about the Fascist Unimaginary that has gotten us so stuck?
At the moment, the fascist unimaginary is working overtime. It is trying to re-make everything in the world to fit into its flattened and truncated plane. To quote another video essayist, Dan Olson (who publishes under the name Folding Ideas), the goal of the fascist imaginary is “not to explain the world, but to un-explain it. They are trying to build a flat earth.”
If the current administration is on the warpath against laughter, facts, and welcome, then it follows that the flat-earthed world that is being offered by the fascist unimaginary right now is a world centered on anger, lies, and exclusion.
And when I got to that point in my thinking, I suddenly realized that, today, in our current moment, these are the master’s tools.
5.
Again, I think Brendon Marotta’s suggestion (that we don’t just look at the dominant culture and do the opposite) is basically right. However, in this case, I think that drawing out these polarities being put forward by the fascist unimaginary in the public sphere do not just offer us good analysis, but good practice.
If our government is currently organizing itself against laughter (and it is), then the most radical action you might take in those circumstances is to laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of our current political class (on the right and the left) who cannot seem to say anything without running it by their donors or a focus group. Laugh at the absurdity of those howling for free speech as they dismantle our media, our universities, and our libraries. Dictators don’t have a sense of humor. They want your anger. Be angry, sure, but don’t give them the satisfaction of them feeling they can define you by your anger. Your laughter is a life-giving, revolutionary act.
If our government is currently organizing itself against facts (and it is), then the most radical action you might take in those circumstances is to speak the truth. Cite sources. Make spreadsheets. Document the actions going on around you with video on your phone or an audio recorder you carry in your pocket. Amplify these simple anchors of time and place, and share them on social media, on blogs, and in conversations. Fascists hate critical thinking. They want your indifference to the truth, because they hope it will be the key to them holding control. Don’t let the state define the scope of your knowledge. Find sources you value and trust, and connect with them and support them however you can. The emperor has no clothes. Speaking the facts (especially when combined with laughter) is a life-giving, revolutionary act.
If our government is currently organizing itself against welcome (and it is), then the most radical action you might take in those circumstances is to offer hospitality. Invite your neighbors over for tea, and take a little time to find out what they need. Explore the groups in your community that are engaging in mutual aid. Get to know the unhoused folks in your neighborhood, and maybe talk with your family about setting aside part of your monthly budget to help support them as you are able. Start a bail fund, or donate to one. If you don’t know Spanish yet, start learning. Use your agency to act locally. Don’t be afraid to start small, right where you are. Gathering with your neighbors, and welcoming folks who used to be strangers (especially when combined with truth-telling and laughter) is a life-giving, revolutionary act.
These are the tools that dismantle the master’s house. They are exactly the tools that the masters have told us that they do not want. The masters want us angry, ignorant, and suspicious of each other. These are the tools they want to use to build their house. Choose the tools the masters have told you they don’t want and won’t use. Choose the tools of laughter, truth, and hospitality. Use them every day, even in small ways, to dismantle the house of anger, barbed wire, and lies.
6.
Back in 2012, Yale University professor of Political Science, James C. Scott, wrote a book called Two Cheers for Anarchism. In the book, Scott suggested a tactic that he referred to as “anarchist calisthenics.” As Scott put it,
One day you will be called on to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it. You have to be ready. How are you going to prepare for that day when it really matters? You have to stay ‘in shape’ so that when the big day comes you will be ready. What you need is anarchist calisthenics. Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you’ll keep trim—and when the big day comes, you’ll be ready.
When the big day comes. Well, little buckaroo, the big day seems to be here, and much sooner than we had hoped. We may not have been preparing the way that Scott suggested. We might fear our souls are too out of shape for the moment that faces us. I understand. Feel that fear, and count to five.
The good news is that, even if we have not been actively engaged in anarchist calisthenics up to this point, everyone knows what it is like to laugh. Everyone knows what it is like to speak a word of truth. And everyone knows what it is like to help pick up someone who has fallen, dust them off, and make sure they are okay.
Those simple, everyday kindnesses and joys are the tools we need for this moment.
Do not discount the power of your joy. Do not discount the power of speaking a simple truth. Do not discount the power of opening your heart with welcome to your neighbor.
I am slowly beginning to understand what Audre Lorde meant when she told us the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. I thought it would be a complex and difficult matter, understanding what she meant. It turns out, it’s just a matter of living joyfully in community with each other. That’s the thing the dictators and the purveyors of the fascist unimaginary cannot stand. That is the set of tools that dismantles the house around us — this demonic house, this slaughterhouse.
Be not afraid, Jesus once said. It’s worth giving that a try.
Gather with your neighbors, sooner rather than later. Speak the truth to one another, about your hopes and fears, and about what you see going on around you. Speak of your needs, and figure out ways to meet them, together.
And, above all, laugh. Laugh and keep laughing, together.
The tools the masters have rejected are within our reach.
The subtitle of this essay comes from Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, New York: Penguin Classics, p. 19.
Lorde p. 19.