{"id":73883,"date":"2014-02-01T14:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T19:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=73883"},"modified":"2014-02-03T13:06:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T18:06:16","slug":"with-frienemies-like-these","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/with-frienemies-like-these\/","title":{"rendered":"With Frienemies Like These\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

No good deed goes unpunished, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no great artist has ever won a Grammy. These are some of the truisms we live with, and they\u2019re true often enough. Like the other night, when recording artist Macklemore managed to piss off a whole lot of people at the Grammys, first by winning four of them with music partner Ryan Lewis, and next by being part of staging a mass wedding.<\/p>\n

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Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Summing it up nicely and with some humor is Scott Kernan of Boston.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There was a mass wedding at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night when, during a performance of “Same Love,” the pro-gay marriage rap anthem that became an unlikely hit last year, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert, Madonna and Queen Latifah presided over the mass nuptials of 33 diverse couples — gay and straight men and women of various ages and races. There was also a noisy cell phone: The social media reaction. Most people, like the tear-dabbing newlyweds and celeb attendees on TV, seemed moved by the sentiment of the gesture. And there was the expected right-wing backlash about a televised attack on “traditional families.” <\/p>\n

But more surprising (though not really) was the small but loud online response from some gay rights supporters, including those within the LGBT community, that the ceremony was horrible — worst thing ever, if you think about it, really. You see, there was a certain amount of hand-wringing about a straight white guy endorsing gay marriage while accompanied by other straight people. It reeked, said certain critics, of head-patting patronizing by privileged folks appropriating the struggles of minorities. (Erm, hey: LGBT nonprofits? Shut down those ally-building initiatives you’ve launched. We don’t really want them.)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The “too long; didn’t read” version is from Jezebel, describing the Grammys: Straight White People Give Each Other Awards for Doing Black Music About Gay Rights Better Than You Convention. <\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t heard \u201cSame Love,\u201d you should give it a Google; you\u2019ll probably like it on a listen, because that\u2019s what popular means — most people find it listenable, inoffensive and appealing. I kind of dare you not to like Macklemore, who is cute, clever, principled, talented and has been toughing it out independently in music for years, as well as supporting all kinds of causes he believes in, when it would have been easy to just leave that political, ethical part of being an artist aside. A lot of what he\u2019s doing is awkward, earnest, humblebraggy and often annoying, but find me an activist who doesn\u2019t tread those waters occasionally.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to get into the racial aspects of this one, except to share what I heard on a black radio station the other night: Macklemore sent a text to Kendrick Lamar, the artist he was up against for the award and the artist most felt should have won, that expressed the sentiment that Alexander \u201cwas robbed.\u201d The radio DJ said, \u201cwell, what\u2019s new, that\u2019s what white people do: rob black people.\u201d That\u2019s pretty much my take on it — the same people are still at the top of the music industry, still hold the control, and are still pulling in the big money, and those guys aren\u2019t Lamar or Macklemore. <\/p>\n

I won\u2019t get into the music aspects of it, either, except to say that duh, Lamar\u2019s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” deserves the award; it\u2019s pantheon level work, complex, innovative and extraordinary. When I did a mix for Burning Man International Radio, I put a piece from it right after an excerpt from Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cFirebird,\u201d and it fucking fit right in there. BTW, this is Lamar\u2019s response to it all, as reported in XXL<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s well deserved; he did what he did, man. He went out there and hustled and grinded. Everything happens for a reason; the universe comes back around, that\u2019s how it go.\u201d Graceful, spiritual, broad perspective, is how I hear that.<\/p>\n

But I do get the backlash about the gay wedding. People feel co-opted, as if he\u2019s ridden to success on their backs (making it the same kind of issues as the race one). I feel that one, and I also know I can\u2019t afford not to change that kind of thinking in myself. First of all, Macklemore and other longtime LGBT rights supporters are hardly the typical type who uses others as stepping stones. You can find that kind in business and Congress; they\u2019re usually Teabagger types harrumphing about pulling their bootstraps, never for a minute acknowledging that hundreds of years of other people\u2019s unpaid labor made the boot and the strap and other people\u2019s unrewarded energy today goes into doing the pulling for them. Could we fight these real enemies first?<\/p>\n

I recognize that wearying feeling that comes from having my life co-opted, from suspecting that you\u2019re being turned into a marketing tool. You\u2019ve worked for so long to have your voice heard, and now there\u2019s a guy holding a microphone, drowning you out, and defining you, not listening to you, giving the appearance that he\u2019s setting himself up as spokesman, and in this world, appearances turn into realities. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s saying things that aren\u2019t really true for all of us, besides. When I see things like this, sometimes my throat fills up with \u201cyeah, buts\u201d and \u201cthat\u2019s not what I mean,\u201d but what I\u2019m really getting angry about, what\u2019s choking my words now, is that the whole point of what I was doing was to define and speak for myself, and the very person who says he\u2019s supporting me has not grasped the fundamental importance of allowing me the space to do just that.<\/p>\n

I can understand how those who\u2019ve been struggling for years are reporting they feel. The way you were the one who stuck your neck out first — and looking back on those years and seeing how now, someone is rewarded, respected and revered for the same things that got you spit on — that hurts. The worst of it is that sometimes, those struggling for rights, equality and change are still treated badly, both through legal channels and through attitudes, and even by the same people. You know the type: \u201cOh, that Macklemore, funny guy, and wasn\u2019t that Big Gay Wedding beautiful! But Jose at work, he\u2019s just a little too obvious. Why does he have to keep putting his \u2018lifestyle\u2019 in our faces? Why does everything have to be about who he is, his sexuality, his culture, his ethnicity? Why can\u2019t he just learn to get along? Why can\u2019t he just act normal?\u201d<\/p>\n

But expecting every ally to express themselves and act in a way that you\u2019ve decided is the only appropriate one through which to show support can be a losing position — and, as hard as it can be, if I\u2019m taking that position, I need to check myself to be sure I\u2019m not being as intolerant as those I\u2019m pushing against for change. It\u2019s a case of the ‘perfect’ being the ‘frienemy’ of the ‘good’. <\/p>\n

Speaking for myself, I have nothing but love for voices of support from monogamous people. There have seen plenty of comments right here in Planet Waves from people saying, in effect, \u201cI\u2019m monogamous and don\u2019t see myself changing, but I\u2019m outraged at intolerance and political targeting of polyamorous people.\u201d To me, it feels not only warm personally, but it gives me a sense of faith and hope that I\u2019m in a world where people can actually simply live. People who can accept and support difference are usually speaking from a place of health and security, not fear, and that\u2019s always a heartening thing for someone like me, who struggles against fear and insecurity, to hear. <\/p>\n

I believe in incremental change and in taking heart in even the smallest actions — because I know for myself how hard making even the smallest change can be. As long as we\u2019re throwing around the clich\u00e9s, how about this one: Nobody\u2019s perfect. And you know, nobody seems to like anyone who is.<\/p>\n

Have you tried the Planet Waves premium membership? Sign up for a six-month membership<\/a> and receive weekly and monthly horoscopes, plus more.<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila No good deed goes unpunished, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no great artist has ever won a Grammy. These are some of the truisms we live with, and they\u2019re true often enough. Like the other night, when recording artist Macklemore managed to piss off a whole … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}