0067 | April 15, 2019
Michael Jackson: How Much Does Innocence Cost?
In this episode the hosts discuss our preoccupation with innocence, and when moral responsibility takes shape. Defenses of Michael Jackson often involve his complicated childhood. How convincing is that defense?
| C.T. WEBB: 00:18 | [music] Good afternoon, good morning, or good evening, and welcome to The American Age podcast. My name is C. Travis Webb, editor of The American Age, and I’m speaking to you from Southern California. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 00:27 | Hi. And I’m Steven G. Fullwood, co-founder of the Nomadic Archivist Project, and I am coming to you from Harlem. |
| S. RODNEY: 00:34 | Cool. And I’m Seph Rodney. I’m coming to you from the South Bronx, and I am an associate editor at the arts blog Hyperallergic. |
| C.T. WEBB: 00:46 | And this is to remind our listeners that we like to practice a form of what we call intellectual intimacy, which is giving each other the space and time to figure out things out loud and together. We are continuing our conversation about Michael Jackson. Last episode, we got into some more specifics about the most recent documentary, Dan Reed’s documentary Leaving Neverland. And Seph actually, I think, was going to lead us off with an anecdote in this episode. And we were going to maybe sort of steer the conversation towards discussions of innocence and sexuality around childhood. |
| S. RODNEY: 01:22 | Right. So I had mentioned, when we first started this portion of the podcast talking about Michael Jackson, how I had been molested when I was a child. I think that took place around the time I was five, so my recollections of it are very, very hazy. But when I was 16 – and here I have to try to abbreviate the circumstances that led me to the rest of the anecdote – basically, I didn’t have anything to do with myself for the summer. I had graduated high school back in May, wasn’t sure what I was going to do in the fall. My parents were insisting that I go on to college. I didn’t think I was ready. But actually, I think at that point I had already been accepted to Penn State, so was sort of hanging around not really knowing what to do with myself in the Bronx, a 16-year-old who really just did not know himself yet and did not know what he wanted. I ended up going back to an old school, I think, the school I first attended when I came to New York from Jamaica, Regent School, which I think may still exist in the Bronx, not too far from the house where I grew up. And I asked them for a job because I figured– well, I think probably I was spurred on by my parents, probably my father, to earn some money while I was waiting to get to school in the fall. |
| S. RODNEY: 03:03 | They gave me a job, basically, taking care of the kids, sort of. I mean, I wasn’t an official sort of counselor – I think they had a summer camp going – but I was someone who was like a gofer. I’d clean up stuff. I’d be an extra chaperone when they needed one, that sort of thing, light office work. I don’t really remember actually what I did. I just kind of remember showing up at 10:00 in the morning and then leaving around 3:00 or 4:00 and [laughter]– yeah. A lot of those days went by quickly. Anyway, at one point, the principal – I forget his name; I cannot remember his name to save my life – offered to give me a ride home. And I was like, “Okay. Sure. Right. Yeah.” I mean, literally, it was walking distance. It was like 20 minutes. But I was like, “Sure. Why not?” So he gave me a ride home, and I remember he pulled in not exactly in front of my house – which is a sort of two-story building with aluminum siding and a small yard in front and at one point, at least, a picket fence – but a little ways away. And we were talking about stuff, and he was telling me about his life before, that he’d worked at Neiman Marcus and blah, blah, blah, and knew sales and clothing and all that, and I was kind of impressed. And basically, he moved the conversation in the direction of– and I don’t remember how he got here, but at some point he says, “So would it be okay? I would like to suck your dick.” And I was like, “No. That’s really not okay. No thanks.” |
| S. RODNEY: 04:45 | And I remember getting out of the car and thinking, “Whew, I dodged a bullet on that.” But what freaked me out was that, later, I was having a conversation with my parents, and I don’t remember what it is– I don’t have any idea what it is that triggered them or caused them to think that that was the right time to have a conversation with me about this. But they had a conversation with me about how adults would find me attractive or something or want to do things with me, and they weren’t specific. They were very sort of mealy-mouthed and vague, but they gave me a sense of other adults posed a danger to me and that I had to be careful about– maybe it was that they knew that– maybe they’d asked me, and I told them that he’d given me a ride home. And they were like, “Oh, wait a minute. Why when you can walk– and you walk there?” Maybe that’s what triggered them. But I remember sitting there in the living room and listening to them tell me about the dangers of adults and being very, very scared, more scared than I was when I was actually in the car with a guy propositioning me. And I do think that at some point– I mean, I didn’t stop working there, and I went there again. I don’t think I got another ride home from him. But I remember him saying to me again at some point, offering that to me, and saying, “Oh, it’s fine. I’d just do it. You wouldn’t have to–” and I remember thinking, “No. But that does not sound like something I wanted.” |
| S. RODNEY: 06:15 | And I suppose the anecdote came to my mind because in talking about Safechuck in the documentary Leaving Neverland, and Travis bringing up the difference between– so there’s the controversy. One of the controversies around the movie concerns Safechuck not getting the dates of the alleged abuse correct, at least, according to the public records that we have of the construction of a particular train station– and Travis bringing up the fact that the difference between abuse happening to you at 14 and 16 are pretty significant dates in terms of one’s development as a young human being. And I feel like at 16, yeah, I remember being at least together enough to understand that that was not something that I desired. He certainly desired me, but that was not mutual, and that was not going to happen. There’s something there about– right now, I’m not sure what I was doing in saying this, but there’s something there about agency, something there about realizing something at that age that might be the end of a kind of innocence. And I know that, Travis, you want to talk about innocence. You likely want to talk about innocence as this sort of construct that sort of has only passing relevance to what children are really capable of and how clearly or forcefully they own their own autonomy. But I do feel, at that moment, that I passed some kind of important threshold. |
| C.T. WEBB: 08:10 | Yeah. I mean, you’re exactly right, of course, in innocence being a construction to a point. To me, I would like an– although I think it’s analogous to what I think essentially what it means to become an adult. And I understand adult capaciously kind of cross-culturally, which is the circumscription of your own desire, right, you getting to decide the terms on which you get to satisfy your desires or satisfy other people’s desires. And this is kind of– this is what manumission was. This was what enfranchisement was for women, right, women getting a say in what they want, slaves getting a say in– or no longer being slaves and actually being able to decide for themselves. So it’s not as if children don’t experience sexual pleasure, right? I mean, now, I know there’s a certain segment of the– certainly child psychologists and certainly amongst– you receive a type of education that allows you to pretty easily acknowledge that, right, like, “Of course, children experience sexual pleasure. Of course, that’s part of the guilt.” I understand that we get that– I get that a certain segment of population gets that, intellectually. There is a segment of the population that doesn’t get that at all, but that’s kind of low-hanging– for me and the kind of conversations we have, that’s sort of low-hanging fruit. |
| S. RODNEY: 09:43 | Right. Agreed. |
| C.T. WEBB: 09:45 | What isn’t low-hanging fruit is actually coming to emotional terms with the fact that children want things that are sexual and full of pleasure, and that they themselves might be motivated to seek these things out and attempt, as all children do, to manipulate circumstances to receive them, but that they are not at all capable of understanding the ramifications– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 10:19 | Absolutely. |
| C.T. WEBB: 10:20 | –of that desire. |
| S. RODNEY: 10:21 | Precisely. |
| C.T. WEBB: 10:22 | That is what differ– I mean, there are many things, right, I mean, cognitive development. I mean, I’m not saying that’s the only marker or only milestone, but it is a potent one. And I think, Seph, your analogy is fantastic. I mean, at 16, you are participating in the satisfaction of your desire in a way that I don’t think most, maybe not all, but most 14-year-olds are probably not capable of. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 10:48 | Right. Right. That’s a really powerful thing to think about. I think largely what you’re saying, Travis, is that it’s hard to– I think largely because children do experience pleasure and possibly seek it out, that argument or that reality is pushed to the side because we have to keep children innocent, because having any nuanced thoughts about it brings up other things, brings up other sort of– tentacles are out here in the world around ideas and our culpability in putting children in ads, advertising to children in the 80s, where before it was off the table. Now it’s advertise, advertise, advertise. And also, really sort of fleshing out a child as a sexual being is a terrifying thing for the US populace because, like I said, then we’d have to be more culpable, more understanding about the culture that we create that sexualizes kids [and adults?]. |
| S. RODNEY: 11:53 | Yeah. I think of those child– oh, I don’t know what they call them, but the proms that they have for these children who are around 10 and 12. They get made up, and they wear these frilly dresses and the whole nine– I find that terrifying. I just do not understand doing that. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 12:15 | But I watch people love it, like you’ll sit and you watch them. I remember I was watching some television show where the parents were all sitting around these young girls shaking it, and they were just clapping and egging them on. And I’m like, “Well, you’re sending mixed messages. I’m sure you’re telling her that she’s a slut if she goes out and does it on her own. But within the confines of that culture, that moment, then it’s okay to do it.” And that’s odd to me. It’s always been odd. |
| C.T. WEBB: 12:38 | Yeah. I think where it starts to get kind of muddy is– I think a pretty natural extension of coming to grips with that are some hallmarks of what are traditionally considered conservative culture, which is more tightly circumscribing what is acceptable behavior and appearance and comportment and language from children. Because I think, intuitively, there is a basic understanding of – and it doesn’t have to be [overly sexually?] – the varieties of desire that you have as a small body that you are totally ill-equipped and trained to deal with, which is the whole thing that you’re doing as a parent, right, is sort of teaching– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 13:28 | Regulating that. |
| C.T. WEBB: 13:29 | Yeah. [Repress?]. You’re sort of teaching people how to manage the capaciousness of your desires, which are pretty bottomless. So– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 13:39 | Yeah. No, absolutely. Completely agree. |
| S. RODNEY: 13:42 | So I think I have a pretty good story about that. Farid Matuk, again, mutual friend of Travis and I– Travis and me, who once taught grammar school, I think, in Southern California. I think he moved on to teach at a boy’s academy when he moved to Texas. Anyway, at the time, I think he was a public school teacher. That’s right. He was. That’s right. And he told me this story about being in class, and he was, I think, teaching homeroom or something like that. I don’t exactly remember. I probably got that wrong. But he had the children, who were ages, I think, 7 to 10, arrayed around him in a circle, and I think he was maybe reading something to them. And he said that one girl was clearly just lost in herself. She had two fingers inserted in herself under her skirt, and she was just in her own world while sitting in this circle. And I said, “Well, how did you handle that?” And he said, “Well, I waited till the story was done. And I took her aside, and I had this very sort of bite-sized conversation about time and place for certain kinds of pleasure.” He didn’t want to make her feel like she had done something sinful or wrong, just that story time was not the place or time to do that. And I think, if I remember correctly, he said he also tried to explain the notions of privacy and being able to do that with yourself while not necessarily having a bunch of people around you. Did he speak with her parents, do you know? I don’t remember. I mean, he told me this story, it must have been– [inaudible]. –back in 2004 or something. He may have. I am not sure. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 15:52 | I’m already running down the street with the choices that he made. If he didn’t speak with them, then he gave her a certain kind of autonomy. Do you know what I mean? The parents may have gone in a totally different direction with the judgment and all of that, so I was curious. |
| S. RODNEY: 16:10 | Yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 16:11 | I mean, he should have told the parents. |
| S. RODNEY: 16:13 | Really? |
| C.T. WEBB: 16:15 | Yes. I mean, I would definitely want to know if my 7-year-old son was playing with himself on the carpet at school. I would definitely, again– well, I don’t need to segue in that way. Yes. I would want to know [laughter] because I would want to address that. Now, I mean, in this small circle, right, I mean, there’s probably some comfort level with how I would address that because I’m not going to shame him about the pleasures that his body has for him. But as a society, I am on board with it being organized in such a way that you kind of have to hand that over to the parent for them to handle in whatever way they’re going to handle it, short of something abusive, and something that clearly I probably wouldn’t approve of. But yes, I definitely [crosstalk]. |
| S. RODNEY: 17:05 | But isn’t shaming a child about his or her body and putting their desire or their acted-out desire for pleasure in the terms of it being sinful, which a lot of parents do, isn’t that a kind of abuse? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 17:23 | Oh, it’s an abuse. Yeah [laughter]. That’s all I have to say about that. Yeah. It’s an abuse. |
| C.T. WEBB: 17:28 | That’s such a hard question for me because I feel like if you are going to call that abuse, which I hear that argument and I’m sympathetic to it, but I feel like it becomes very difficult to demarcate any boundary around socialization because shame is a powerful motivator for a prosocial primate, right? I mean, shame is how we shape our social behavior, and I think shame’s okay. I think there’s– okay to be ashamed of certain things because we live in communities and because we are not actually fully autonomous. But at the same time, I would go to figurative war against the people that would shame their children for pleasuring themselves. Do you understand what I’m saying? |
| S. RODNEY: 18:33 | Yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 18:34 | I’m willing to make that a battleground because I believe that we should not shame our bodies in that way, and I think a number of harmful things emerge from it. But I stop short of wanting to say that’s abuse because, for me, that’s sort of a category of a legal boundary. There needs to be some kind of cultural circumscription of that. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 18:56 | I agree with you. Shaming can be useful, but I think it’s one of those things that’s used so much and so frequently that how does one parse it? One who’s religious, someone who isn’t religious, all those kinds of things kind of come into play [inaudible]. |
| C.T. WEBB: 19:13 | So let me ask you guys a question. So where do you stand on– so clearly, the abuse, I think we all basically agree that we think it probably did happen to these two men– to these two boys– or these two men when they were boys. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 19:30 | Safechuck and Robson. Yes. |
| C.T. WEBB: 19:32 | Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think basically we have broad agreement around that. At what point does autonomy enter the picture for the two of them? They were adults when they denied that anything had happened. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 19:55 | Teenagers. They were teenagers, and then [crosstalk]. |
| C.T. WEBB: 19:58 | No. But the denial went on, I think, into adulthood, right? I mean, it definitely– Oh, I thought you meant when they started to [crosstalk]. Sorry. No, no. Yeah. Not when they were interviewed, right? That happened when they were kids. But they became adults and still persisted with the denials, maybe not in an affirmative way. I don’t know if they were still being interviewed about it. But these are things that only have come out somewhat recently. And, I mean, they were kids in the ’80s and ’90s. So, I mean, they’re adults. They’re our age, basically, maybe slightly younger. No, probably our age, I think. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 20:30 | They’re your age, yeah. I’m a little older, so. |
| C.T. WEBB: 20:32 | Yeah. Okay. But I mean same, roughly, age category. We’re marketed in similar categories, right [laughter]? So– Yeah. |
| S. RODNEY: 20:40 | We’re of the same generation. |
| C.T. WEBB: 20:42 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where does some agency come into the picture on that? Should they be blamed? Where is their responsibility for continuing this–? There’s no way they didn’t know by the time they were in their early 20s that what was done to them was wrong and that they were protecting a predator. To be fair, I’m not sure of the timeline about when he died versus when they sort of came of age. But what did he die, 2006? 2009. 2009. 2009. Okay. |
| S. RODNEY: 21:15 | So I want to say that we can ask the same question– and this does not invalidate your question at all, Travis. No. I don’t want to say it that way. I want to say it this way. The same thing happens with victims of some kind of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, in cases that we’ve heard about recently, same thing with R. Kelly. How long did it take those women to come forward and to–? And after some initial dissembling, say, “Yes. Actually, he did lock people in a basement. And yes, actually, he did engage in a kind of programmatic control over women in his retinue, in his social circle.” I mean, some of the same things, I think, happened around the Harvey Weinstein case. And people, who had initially denied he did anything wrong, years later said, “Well, actually, yes. It turns he is a kind of a serial abuser.” I think that it takes– I think social opprobrium is something that we have a very hard time – and I think you just said this a couple of minutes ago, Travis – that we have a really hard time negotiating [as?] social primates. Having people around us approve of who we are is super important to us. And forcing ourselves outside of that and saying, “Well, actually, here’s this bully, this awful person over here who you all like and worship and you want something from. And I’m going to basically say, ‘Well, I think he is an awful person.'” How is everybody else in his – I can’t find the right word – in his orbit, that’s it– |
| C.T. WEBB: 23:13 | Social circle, whatever, yeah. |
| S. RODNEY: 23:14 | –right, going to treat me now that I’ve done that? I think that people have a very, very difficult time facing up to that kind of ostracism. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 23:25 | I completely agree with that, absolutely. I think the conflict– so what I was thinking about, Travis, about your question was, for some, there would need to be– they would like to establish an arbitrary date or time when you can tell the truth. And humans don’t act that way. That goes against human nature, I think. And I agree with what you’re saying, Seph, around the affirmation you get from people shaped the way you are in the world or can shape the way you are in the world. What does it mean to tell the truth in a culture that really doesn’t seem to want to know the truth about a particular person or a particular idea– that they’ve seen people who have come out– or they don’t even know in some ways? Who knows what’s in their brain about, “This was bad behavior? People are saying it was bad. Well, it felt good to me. Well, I felt odd. I felt all these things”? Without therapy, without support in some way, I don’t think there can be a date where someone– and I know that’s not what you’re saying. But I was thinking about when they come [to?] consciousness about the [inaudible] answer, then I think that’s when they can tell their story. But even then, I’m thinking, “How? What are the avenues? Because who owes who what?” If you’re making these accusations about Michael Jackson and then now his estate – “This guy did this” – they’re going to kind of come at you with that same argument. “You should have said this before. You’ve lied twice. You’re a liar. We don’t trust you. We don’t believe you.” And I believe the accusers. I do. And I think that they’re being victimized, revictimized. People use that term a lot, revictimized– or even having the nerve to say it out loud, that this is what happened. And so this is why I think the documentary is interesting because there’s always been two sides to this, “He did. He didn’t,” rather than, “Maybe he did, and here are the people he did it to. And he didn’t do it to you, Macaulay Culkin. He didn’t do it to you, such-and-such.” So I like the counterarguments. I like the arguments. I like all of it because it helps me think it through. But that agency business is so hard in a culture that does not respect the truth. It says it, but it really doesn’t. |
| S. RODNEY: 25:39 | I mean, just look at Michael Cohen. Just look, he basically had to out himself as a fixer for– For Trump. –Trump. And it was only because he was– I think because he was already exiled. He was already exiled from Trump– Of course, he did. Of course, yeah. –and he was already in legal exile, essentially. He said, “Fuck it. I have nothing else to lose. They’re already ostracizing me, so I might as well tell the truth.” Where was his autonomy 10 years ago when he was threatening people on behalf of Trump, saying, “What I’m going to do to you is fucking disgusting.” What? |
| C.T. WEBB: 26:16 | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, I– Steven, you had said something that I– an example from the movie jumped out at me when you were saying that people don’t want to know the truth. When the accusations had come out against him in that first trial, and some pretty damning accusations with corroborating– |
| S. RODNEY: 26:38 | Against Michael, you’re saying. |
| C.T. WEBB: 26:39 | Michael Jackson. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And with corroborating evidence from staff at Neverland Ranch. And I guess he was getting an NAACP award or something like that. And they showed the footage of that, him coming out and the raucous standing ovation he received, almost as a performance of a rejection of the accusations. I mean, these were people– |
| S. RODNEY: 27:06 | Almost? Yes, it was. Okay. Yes. |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:08 | I mean, so [crosstalk]– |
| S. RODNEY: 27:09 | Say it. |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:11 | Yes. I mean, this was absolutely a willful, willful denial by a bunch of powerful adults– |
| S. RODNEY: 27:20 | Powerful. |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:21 | –to deal with the seriousness of the accusations as a group. And so I do think, culturally, we have started to venture into dangerous territory around how we talk about victimhood on our political side of the aisle. I think the right has done it all the time. I mean, they have no problem claiming victimhood. They always put the label on us, but they regularly claim victimhood, unapologetically. And again, we could take that apart, but it’s a little too easy, right? Right. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 27:59 | I agree. |
| C.T. WEBB: 28:01 | But, I mean, for us, I do feel like we have started to play with agency and victimhood in a precarious and dangerous way. And I’ll put my flag in the ground here. I think that both Robson and Safechuck, as adults, share responsibility with the mystification around Michael Jackson and his story. Not as children. They were victims as children. What was done to them was wrong. How they have been shaped as adults, that has to be taken into account. But at some point, I’m willing to say, “No. If you are possessed of all of your faculties, as an adult, and you can move through the world and vote and do all this other kind of stuff, it is your responsibility to own what you have claimed as an adult and what you have abetted as an adult.” And I did not see any of that in the documentary. They were very consistently in their own narratives and in how they were represented still as victims of what happened to them as children. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 29:16 | What would you have needed to hear from both James and Wade? |
| S. RODNEY: 29:22 | Good question. |
| C.T. WEBB: 29:22 | “I am sorry that I ever– even as a child, I’m sorry that I ever participated in the lie that allowed Michael Jackson to continue to abuse other children.” |
| S. FULLWOOD: 29:33 | Some culpability? |
| C.T. WEBB: 29:34 | Yes. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 29:35 | And awareness of it? |
| C.T. WEBB: 29:36 | Yeah. You need to claim– I mean, again, 14, 15, 16 years old. At 7, I mean, okay, come on, we got to have– I mean, for me, that starts to venture into– that just doesn’t even make sense. The difference from a 7-year-old to an adult is enough that you’re nearly a stranger to yourself at that point. But in your mid-teens? I don’t know. I want there to be– I would want some more culpability and responsibility for that piece of it. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 30:08 | I also think that that culpability and responsibility is precisely what we look for from people who have perpetrated these crimes, right? I mean, this is precisely what we want to bring them back into the– we need to hear from them in order to bring them back into the human fold. And I really think that this is also an integral part of what– and I think we’ve talked about this months ago, about what constitutes a real apology. I think a real apology is made up of recognition that one did harm to someone else and an accepting of the blame– accepting of the responsibility for causing that harm and perhaps also articulating some sense of regret around that. |
| C.T. WEBB: 30:59 | That’s reasonable. That’s reasonable. |
| S. RODNEY: 31:01 | Yeah. I think that’s what we want. And I think essentially what we’re saying is we need to know that you see yourself [crosstalk]. That you have caused harm. |
| C.T. WEBB: 31:09 | Yes. Well said, well said, see yourself. I think that’s– see yourself. Yeah. That’s well said. I agree with that characterization. |
| S. RODNEY: 31:16 | But that’s precisely what’s missing in Michael, right, that he never really saw himself. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 31:24 | One thing I want to say beforehand, and something that Travis said about the dangerous territory we’re in because of how we talk about victims and agency, I think it’s a great time. I think it’s a great time to break it open and really, really get at it and go at it because I think this is how we can progress as a society, how we can grow as a people if we’re taking on these really, really hard things rather than there’s an incident. Something happens. There’s some talking heads. There’s some folks on podcasts. And then we just let it go rest. No. These are very important things for us to consider and to see where we have agency to look at [inaudible]. |
| C.T. WEBB: 32:02 | Yeah. Yeah. It’s certainly an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. |
| S. RODNEY: 32:05 | I agree. I mean, I like what you said. You said it a couple of times now, Steven, that this is the work, and we just need to do the work. And you had asked this question, by the way, a couple podcasts ago, Travis. And I flubbed the answer, and I kind of want to give it a stab again. You had asked what it was that existed in the [inaudible] women, the art scene, what kind of myths exist that proliferate sort of in ways that are unspoken? And the core that I was trying to get at was that people of color or members of the LGBT community and women artists, if they make work, in my neck of the woods, if they make work, if they make an exhibition, a show– and this is the tacit, unspoken rule, that we should in some ways always celebrate that, just the making– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 33:10 | Oh, that’s a terrible idea. |
| S. RODNEY: 33:11 | –just [crosstalk]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 33:12 | Terrible idea. Right. |
| S. RODNEY: 33:14 | But they deserve some sort of [opprobrium?]. They deserve some sort of notice. They deserve some sort of praise simply for making that work coming from that subject position. And I want to say this is part of the pushback, right, against this– part of the critique of this film comes from the same place, that because Michael Jackson is a man of color, because he triumphed in a world where many of the social forces were arrayed against him making it, that he deserves to be this sort mental-social preserve, right, where his memory has become this monument that just should never be defaced. And I always want to say, “No. I don’t care. I don’t care what he overcame. And he overcame a lot, but I don’t care. We need to tear the monument down.” |
| S. FULLWOOD: 34:19 | No. Absolutely. I think the issue is that because there’s homophobia and because there’s still racism, because there are all these things, that these issues get muddled and entangled, right? And so fair treatment for everyone or not fair treatment for everyone. So that’s how I think the issue with [inaudible] or at least one of the issues [inaudible] that make those issues [inaudible] because I’m like, “No. It’s a terrible novel. I don’t care if you’re black. I don’t care if you’re gay. I don’t care if you’re a woman [laughter]. I don’t care if you’re a white man. It’s a terrible novel.” Right. And we should be able to say that. |
| C.T. WEBB: 34:49 | Okay. All right. And on that uplifting note [laughter], we’ll close this conversation out, we’ll pick it back up next time with– well, I mean, there’s obviously plenty of directions to go with Michael, so I think we can continue that conversation next week. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 35:05 | [music] Okay. That sounds good. |
| C.T. WEBB: 35:06 | Okay. I’ll talk to you guys soon. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 35:07 | All right. |
| C.T. WEBB: 35:08 | Take care |
| S. FULLWOOD: 35:08 | Take care. [music] |
References
**No references for Podcast 0067**