The Omerta Presidency

The news that a 2005 photograph of Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan was buried at the behest of a senior member of the CBC until now, has, predictably, not hit the mainstream media like a bombshell, giving further credence to notions that “objective” journalism not only has its collective thumb on the scales but might be directly responsible for perpetuating the “darkness” in which it fears democracy is doomed to die.

Never mind that certain other more blatantly partisan publications only consider the good Reverend to be “controversial” at worst.  

Or that photographer Askia Muhammad must have remembered how his NOI colleagues promised to “make an example” out of Milton Coleman for reporting Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” remarks in 1984.  

Or that Obama’s 2008 statements regarding Farrakhan—“I did not solicit his support; I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy”—sound vaguely like Trump’s statements about David Duke, only more disingenuous because Trump never met with supremacists, and Obama did.

On one hand, anyone who made any use of the “birther” conspiracy—whether or not they actually bought into it, or just cynically used it as political ploy—should be kicking themselves, because this photograph might have been the ultimate nip-in-the-bud career ender even in a pre-YouTube age.  It would have been much easier to sully Obama’s image and reputation with Farrakhan, a national bigot, that it proved to be with a not yet nationally known figure like Jeremiah Wright, therefore leaving Obama enough wiggle room during the 2008 campaign.

The shame of it is that more reasonable conservative publications still seem to be going out of their way to opine that Obama certainly doesn’t personally hold by Farrakhan’s views.  With all due respect to their staying classy about this, they could be a little more forceful in legitimately sullying both the reputation and historical legacy of the very premises of the Obama Presidency.  At the very least they could point out that Farrakhan’s repudiations of Obama (unlike Rev. Wright, who was more circumspect about Obama “abandoning” him), was a rebuffed attempt at political prostitution of the worst sort,  like Bill piping out Hillary to Putin and the Russians through uranium deals on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, only to have Putin run off with Trump.  (At least Bill walked away with half a million.)

The irony of it is that now Hillary might be kicking herself very hard for not pushing her contacts in the DNC and CBC for finding what would have been the Holy Grail of oppo research: it would have killed what ended up being her first non-coronation; apparently the Clintons weren’t liked that much even back then.   And now she can’t say anything, because the last thing she can afford to do as an already tenuously tolerated member of the “resistance” is cast aspersions at the first Black President of the United States.  She can’t tarnish his legacy without destroying hers.

#MeToo Isn’t Going Anywhere

Two things might be inferred from the fallout surrounding what Caitlin Flanagan called “The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari.”

First: Ansari’s “apology” and subsequent self-identification with #MeToo fell somewhere in between Al Franken’s apology tour and Kevin Spacey’s fiercely rebuffed attempt to out himself.  Also, as Ansari has made his career criticizing the kind of behavior he allegedly engaged in, it makes him now somewhat of a Hollywood Jimmy Swaggart.   Ansari isn’t Harvey Weinstein, but he set himself up for this, irrespective of the legalities.

Second: like all “revolutions” [pace Flangan’s description], #MeToo might eat itself; not for nothing did Flanagan  “assume[] that on the basis of intersectionality and all that, they’d stay laser focused on college-educated white men for another few months”.   One can ask whether she meant that the movement risked caricaturing itself by falling into intersectionality, or whether she believes it should fall under that rubric; either way, not only has this revolution not “jumped the shark”, but it might even become the shark.

These are not necessarily unwelcome developments.

Female sexuality has been penalized long enough.  Aggressive male sexuality shouldn’t be criminalized, but it should no longer be either whitewashed or encouraged.  Certainly Flanagan shouldn’t be complaining that “destroy[ing] careers [] is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct”; there is misconduct that isn’t criminal but isn’t just “disappointing” which  certainly should be enough to end anyone’s career, even neglecting the aforementioned reasons why Ansari’s exile would be especially appropriate.

Additionally, why are #MeToo’ers pulling punches about men being afraid to hire women if this keeps up?  Since when are jobs about assuaging sexual tension, especially in men?  Is every office supposed to look like Cage & Fish?  Is every male boss going to turn into Mike Pence?  In fact, there is a twofold case of low-expectation soft-bigotry here.  The first, the fallback assumption and near acceptance of “boys will be boys” makes all men out to be predators with the office as an inevitable love nest.  [Maybe we can blame Helen Gurley Brown for that.] The second harks back to Flanagan’s intersectional dilemma: the fact that Ansari actually is college-educated and a probably rich celebrity [even if he isn’t white] notwithstanding, is Flanagan suggesting that anyone other than “college-educated white men” should get a pass?  

Talk about “disappointing”.

There is also no reason to fear a “sex panic”.  In the past some radical feminists were decried as the “New Victorians”: occasional declarations from eminences such as Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin equating all heterosex with rape made that notion salient.  This movement just wants to make men behave.  Is that too much to ask?