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prodigious reader, chronic forgetter
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Transgender residents of Kansas have received letters informing them that a new state law requires them to forfeit their driver’s licenses if they include a gender marking that doesn’t match the sex identity they were assigned at birth. Kansas House Substitute Bill 244 changes the state definition of “gender” to mean a person’s “biological sex at birth,” a definition that is rejected by many…
After I made some fun of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for putting his two twentysomething sons in charge of financial behemoth Cantor Fitzgerald, Andrew Gelman and Mark Palko reminded me that they have been waging a lonely fight against the whole theoretical concept of “meritocracy” for many years now.
Back in 2007, Gelman noted that James Flynn — the discoverer of the Flynn effect in re IQ scores — had pointed out why the concept is itself practically incoherent:
[Flynn] summarizes some data showing that America has not been getting more meritocratic over time. He then presents the killer theoretical argument:
[quoting Flynn]: The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abolition of materialist-elitist values is a prerequisite for the abolition of inequality and privilege; (b) the persistence of materialist-elitist values is a prerequisite for class stratification based on wealth and status; (c) therefore, a class-stratified meritocracy is impossible.
Gelman translates this into straightforward practical/political terms:
Basically, “meritocracy” means that individuals with more merit get the goodies. From the American Heritage dictionary: “A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.” As Flynn points out, this leads to a contradiction: to the extent that people with merit get higher status, one would expect they would use that status to help their friends, children, etc, giving them a leg up beyond what would be expected based on their merit alone.
In other words, a class-based society in which merit is the defining characteristic of class status is ultimately an oxymoron, practically speaking. Individuals may have to a greater or lesser extent themselves “earned” their power and privilege via their own “merit,” but they inevitably use their power and privilege to favor their families in particular, and their friends and fellow network members more generally, because that’s the whole point of having power and privilege in a hierarchically stratified, aka class-based, society.
Twelve years ago Palko pointed to what I’m going to call “soft” nepotism, which is probably much more prevalent than the crude nepotism of for example Donald Trump’s imbecile sons being rich and famous people:
The New Republic has a very good profile by Julia Iofee of Michael Needham of the Heritage Foundation. The whole thing is worth reading, but there’s one paragraph I’d like to single out both because of its content and its placement deep in the article.
[Quoting TNR] After [Michael] Needham graduated from Williams in 2004, Bill Simon Jr., a former California Republican gubernatorial candidate and fellow Williams alum, helped Needham secure the introductions that got him a job at the foundation. Ambitious and hard-working, he was promoted, in six months, to be Feulner’s chief of staff. According to a former veteran Heritage staffer, Needham is intelligent but “very aggressive”: “He is the bull in the china closet, and he feels very comfortable doing that.” (“I consider him a friend,” says the college classmate, “but he’s a huge asshole.”) In 2007, Needham, whose father has given generous donations to both Rudy Giuliani and the Heritage Foundation, went to work for Giuliani’s presidential campaign. When the campaign folded, Needham followed his father’s footsteps to Stanford Business School and then came back, at Feulner’s bequest, to run Heritage Action.
The soft nepotism here is that there’s no reason to doubt that that this prodigy of successful networking is talented and hard-working, aka Full of Merit:
You’ll notice Iofee goes out of her way to suggest that Needham got his first rapid promotion by being “ambitious and hard-working,” and there is, no doubt, some truth in that, but pretty much everybody who goes to work for a big-time D.C. think tank is ambitious and hard-working. These are not traits that would have set Needham apart while being the socially well-connected son of a major donor very well might have.
Soft nepotism is absolutely endemic to the American version of meritocracy. Basically it works like this: almost everybody who goes to HYPS these days or similar (Williams, Swarthmore etc.) is very smart and very hard working. You do still get occasional instances of crude nepotism, like Charles Kushner straight up bribing the Harvard Corporation to allow Little Jared to attend its college, but for the most part entrance into these places is quite meritocratic, in the sense that the relevant filters are for ability rather than familial status. But the problem is that those filters themselves are reflections of the ability of people from the Right Families to manipulate the system, so that Connor and Maddie can get in, via their individual “merit,” that has been excruciatingly cultivated from birth by their parents. Lauren Rivera’s great bookPedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs is a fascinating ethnography of exactly how this kind of “merit” works, and work it does.
This is all related to what Peter Turchin calls “elite overproduction.” The idea that talented and hardworking people are scarce is just facially preposterous if you say it out loud, which is why people generally don’t. An exception that I find particularly amusing is The Atlantic magazine’s EIC, Jeffrey Goldberg, who had this to say a few years ago when he was trying to explain/rationalize why so few Atlantic cover articles were written by women:
It’s really, really hard to write a 10,000-word cover story. There are not a lot of journalists in America who can do it. The journalists in America who do it are almost exclusively white males. What I have to do — and I haven’t done this enough yet — is again about experience versus potential. You can look at people and be like, well, your experience is writing 1,200-word pieces for the web and you’re great at it, so good going!
Goldberg’s job, as he sees or at least saw it, is to nurture the extraordinarily rare woman journalist who can be transformed into someone who has The Necessities (h/t Al Campanis) to do something like create a unified field theory of physics write an Atlantic cover story. As I commented at the time:
The merit myth exists to justify the maintenance of extremely hierarchical anti-egalitarian social structures. If there are 10 or 100 or 1000 times as many people who have the ability and desire to, say, write cover stories for prestigious magazines, or to attend hyper-elite colleges, or to be captains or at least lieutenants of industry, or to be good Supreme Court justices, or to star in a Hollywood movie, or to write the Great American novel, as there are social slots available for people to fill these roles (and there are), then you’ve got to create sorting mechanisms that give the impression that these slots aren’t being handed out arbitrarily, or worse yet on the basis of pre-existing social privilege.
That’s where Jeffrey Goldberg and his search for ultra-rare gynecological journalistic muscles comes in.
Goldberg’s mission, as he understands it, is to perform the extraordinarily difficult job of finding people who can write good Atlantic cover stories. He thinks this job is hard because there are so few such people. It is a hard job — but for exactly the opposite reason. There are enormous numbers of extremely gifted hard-working creative etc. American journalists out there, many of them working for nothing or close to it, for reasons that are too obvious to belabor.
All this applies equally to actors, writers, aspiring disrupters of the market for whatever, potential HYPS undergraduates, and so forth.
It’s a big country. So what to do? The answer is you come up with a bunch of largely phony metrics for sorting out sheep of supposedly unicorn-like rarity from the vast multitudes of goats.
These include things like whether somebody has a degree or preferably degrees from super-elite educational institutions; whether somebody is related to somebody already in the business; whether somebody seems “polished” enough to make clients comfortable, etc.
The merit myth is critical to the maintenance of our phony meritocracy. Gelman’s and Palko’s related points is that meritocracies must inevitably be phony, at least on their own ideologically self-justifying terms, given the way that social power and privilege actually work.
And the underlying historical irony here is that, before it became a term of approbation, “meritocracy” was coined by academics who were using it derisively for pretty much these very reasons.
The post The varieties of nepotistic experience appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.
Published on February 23, 2026
Credit: Sabrina Lantos / HBO
Credit: Sabrina Lantos / HBO
“I’m coming to the cottage”
Five words that broke the internet when spoken by Connor Storrie’s Ilya Rosanov at the end of Heated Rivalry’s immaculate fifth episode. Spoilers for the first season follow: After years of fighting the deeper feelings underneath his sexual relationship with hockey arch-rival Shane Hollander, Ilya’s decision to accept Shane’s invitation to his cottage is a definitive moment of hope for what might be possible between them in the future.
Suffice it to say that since Canadian showrunner Jacob Tierney brought the characters from Rachel Reid’s Game Changers romance series to screen, the concept of the “the cottage” has sustained its fan base through the tumultuous weeks at the start of 2026. I can definitely confirm my mental health is hanging by the thin thread of a group chat named “Stupid Canadian Wolf Birds.” I will also confess I’ve taken no shortage of delight from scandalizing students at the college where I am chaplain when they hear that the priest is obsessed with the “gay hockey show.” Far from being a guilty pleasure, however, I honestly believe Heated Rivalry is a piece of media we desperately need right now, and one which resonates deeply with my own faith.
As an avid romance reader, one of the things I have appreciated about Tierney’s approach to the source material of Heated Rivalry is the respect shown to romance as a genre. Tierney understands romance as, essentially, a kind of fantasy. It is a credit to Tierney’s writing that he does not dismiss the female fans of romance (including of M/M romance, which is a larger and nuanced conversation). At its core, the idea of “the cottage” serves as a metaphor for that escapist fantasy. Such escapism has a place, certainly, within genre fiction. We might ask though, if such fantastical escapism is all the cottage has to offer us? What if we view “the cottage” not just as representing idealized escape from the world, but as defiant hope for what the world might become?
It is worth noting that the promise of escape and a fantasy where he and Shane can be hidden from the world is not initially enough to get Ilya to accept the temptation of “the cottage.” Shane in his delightfully drug-induced state (as we have no doubt seen enacted by stuffed animals and household objects thanks to the wonders of TikTok) tries to lure Ilya not to return to Russia for the summer but come to his secluded cottage: “We’ll have so much fun. It’s so private. No one will know … We could have a week or even two. Completely alone. Together!” While Storrie portrays Ilya’s hesitation quite clearly, the book is able to go deeper into Ilya’s fear of accepting Shane’s invitation. Up until this point, Ilya and Shane have stolen only moments together. Ilya has at long last accepted the depth of his feelings (even confessing them to Shane, albeit in his native Russian). Despite this, Ilya does not believe any real future with Shane is possible. He hesitates to accept the prospect of this extended time together because he does not know how to return to the scarcity of what they can have moving forward. Ilya is actually prepared to end his relationship with Shane altogether because the pain of a clean break feels more endurable to him than the pain of longing for an impossible future.
So what gets Ilya to the cottage? The original “Game Changer,” Scott Hunter. Without a doubt one of the best scenes in the show happens after Scott wins the 2017 Stanley Cup for the New York Admirals. At this point, Scott has been in a secret relationship with his boyfriend Kip for years (in the show’s timeline). After hoisting the long-desired cup over his head, Scott watches—alone—as his teammates’ wives and children pour onto the ice in celebration from the stands. Meanwhile, the love of Scott’s life sits far removed among the crowds. Scott realizes that hiding his love from the world is no longer enough for him. He calls Kip down onto the ice, where they share a kiss that can only be described as triumphant defiance. As Scott and Kip embrace, the camera circles them, cutting away to show Ilya and Shane each watching from their homes in wonder and confusion. Caught up in this moment, Ilya calls Shane with his declaration of coming to the cottage.
The background musical sections throughout Heated Rivalry are worth a whole separate series of reflections. Setting Wolf Parade’s “I’ll Believe in Anything” to underscore this moment, however, was a particularly inspired move by Teirney. Choosing to believe the world can be different than what it is in itself is often a leap of faith. Acting on that hope—and indeed believing we deserve that better world—is where change happens. Ilya’s decision to accept Shane’s invitation to the cottage is not about realizing he loves Shane or he is willing to risk two weeks of privacy. Accepting that invitation—declaring “I’m coming to the cottage”—means that Ilya is willing to risk that the world might be different than he has let himself believe.
The defiant hope that ends Heated Rivalry’s episode 5 is inarguably inspiring. Hope is not an abstract ideal, though. Living into hope does much more than giving us as individuals the courage to seize opportunities for ourselves we had not thought possible. Living into hope is transformational in a way that we might call contagious. Scott declares his love for Kip and kisses him in front of thousands of people because he has decided for himself that he is tired of living in the shadows and that he does, in fact, deserve sunshine. That choice, however, catches on. Unknown to himself, Scott inspires Ilya to hope for more in his own relationship and seize the opportunity before him. Book readers of the Game Changers series will know that Ilya goes on to become something of a Nick Fury for other queer players in the NHL. He makes appearances throughout the other books, encouraging others to pursue relationships and, eventually, recruiting other players to coach at the charity hockey camp he and Shane run in the summers. While Unrivaled, the final book of Rachel Reid’s series, is not yet out, the synopsis certainly suggests we will see this community come together to withstand the bigotry and homophobia of the hockey world. The series is called “Game Changers” for a reason.
It is important to note that Jacob Tierney is a gay man who has adapted a work written about gay male characters originally written by a woman. Without doubt, his identity impacts the hopeful vision of what the world might look like in his TV adaptation. Speaking of triumphant and emotionally cathartic kiss between Scott and Kip, Tierney noted in a recent interview: “I mean, this was—you know—this was the point. This was to give people this moment that you don’t get when you’re a kid. You don’t get this.” Indeed, we might argue that far from simply being “smutty” the explicit content in Heated Rivalry serves as an unapologetic, defiant embrace of sexuality and intimacy on behalf of the queer community.
One of the most impactful added scenes in the series takes place between Shane and his mother after Shane’s parents discover his romantic relationship with Ilya. While Shane is racked with guilt over years of hiding and lies about his secret relationship, it is Shane’s mother who tearfully apologizes: “I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel like you could tell me.” Tierney’s vision of how a parent should react to discovering an adult child’s closeted sexuality may be idealized compared to how such a situation all too often plays out. At the same time, isn’t that idealized conversation what we want the world to be? Isn’t that how a parent should respond?
Similarly, we might look at how Tierney strengthens several of the side characters from the source material (notably the women). While Rose’s role in both the book and the series is largely responsible for Shane finally embracing and coming to terms with his sexuality, Tierney gives significantly more agency to Svetlana, who goes from being a semi-regular friend with benefits situationship with Ilya in Boston to a childhood friend from Russia. Svetlana perceptively notes Ilya’s long-term texting relationship with “Jane”, and she clearly indicates she is aware of “Jane’s” true gender. Svetlana pushes Ilya to take steps forward in emotional intimacy with “Jane”/Shane, first in the ill-fated tuna melt encounter, and later in nudging Ilya to acknowledge the depth of his feelings. In another critical moment, Scott Hunter finds himself challenged by Kip’s friend Elena who confronts him about hiding Kip away as a “dirty little secret.” There is a fair criticism to be made of Elena’s challenge to Scott on Kip’s behalf – no one should be pressured to come out before they are ready. No doubt, though, Teirney intended the words he wrote (which differ slightly from the book) to carry the very true, hopeful message that Kip “deserves sunshine … and so do you.”
Tierney is quite intentional in linking the sunshine we all deserve to the themes of hope and possibility of the cottage itself. Numerous commentators have rightly pointed out the contrast in lighting between the first episodes of the series and the finale at the cottage. Shane and Ilya share their first hook-up in a darkened hotel room. When they finally reunite in Shane’s cottage, Ilya makes a point of opening the blinds to Shane’s bedroom, allowing themselves to experience sexual intimacy in open daylight. The fact that Tierney so blocks both scenes almost identically allows the contrast in lighting to be even more apparent. While the cottage constitutes removal from the distractions and barriers to their relationship, the cottage is also where Shane and Ilya are able to embrace concrete possibilities for their future. Shane wakes Ilya up in the middle of the night with his ten-year plan for how they might one day be in a relationship. Ilya takes the risk of confessing his love for Shane—in English this time! Once Shane and Ilya have acknowledged their feelings, Tierney offers us the beautiful scene of the two of them by the lake as the sun rises in front of them. The light of the cottage is the light of one day no longer hiding but living in the sunshine.
Media like Heated Rivalry may be escapist fantasy at its core, but at its best it is a fantasy of the world that so many of us wish we were living in. Rather than lamenting the current state of the world, it’s worth asking: what is the world that we want to see? What is our role in bringing that world about—either by claiming defiant hope for ourselves or fighting for a better world for one another? We end season one of Heated Rivalry riding off into the future with Shane and Ilya, after they face the revelation of their relationship to Shane’s parents. The cottage has not magically solved their problems. They are still closeted publicly and their future will hold oncoming challenges. Nevertheless, the cottage has given them the courage of their love for one another—not to mention acceptance from Shane’s parents. The cottage has given them hope beyond the (perceived) security of secrecy.
As we move further into 2026 and away from the original air date of Heated Rivalry, a running joke among the fandom is how long we will stay in the collective Heated Rivalry psychosis. How long do we keep “re-heating” (a great term for just continuing to watch the series on repeat). When will it be time to leave the cottage and return to reality? Perhaps the answer is that we shouldn’t leave the cottage. Perhaps our job is actually to expand the cottage and work to make the world a place where the escape to the cottage is no longer necessary.[end-mark]
The post Take the Fire Out From the Wire: Imagining a Future in <em>Heated Rivalry</em> appeared first on Reactor.
This is what happens when fried rice and tahdig stop arguing over who gets the last word and, for once, agree to share the stage.
On one side, you have the familiar seduction of fried rice: savory sauce, seared vegetables, heat, umami, steak, mushrooms with that lacquered sheen. On the other, the discipline of Persian rice cookery — patient, precise, and rewarded by that coveted bottom layer: golden, crisp, almost ceremonial in its crackle when turned out.
What emerges is more than a mash-up. It’s a composed dish. Comforting, yes, but with a sense of occasion. The kind of meal that begins as a practical idea — something clever to do with what’s in the fridge — and ends up feeling strangely grand, as though it had always intended to be served as an event.
The key here is restraint: don’t overcook the rice early, don’t overcook the vegetables, and protect the tahdig layer from anything wet. Let the second cook do the heavy lifting.
2 cups jasmine rice
Water for rice cooking (use 1.25 cups water as written)
Salt, to taste
3 carrots, rough chopped
2 bushels broccoli, rough chopped
Crimini mushrooms, chopped/sliced
Oyster mushrooms (reserve for topping)
2 garleeks (use as aromatic greens/allium; rough chopped)
1 bushel kale, chopped
1-inch ginger, grated or minced
1 jalapeño, chopped
1 serrano, chopped
1 bulb garlic, grated/minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp chili sauce
Olive oil, as needed
Sesame oil, to finish
Butter (for tahdig pot/rice cooker)
2 x 6 oz wagyu steaks
Salt + pepper, to taste
Teriyaki sauce, for glaze
Oyster mushrooms (cooked and used as topping)
1 egg yolk per serving (optional but recommended for the “fried rice” vibe)
Sesame seeds
Green onion, sliced
This recipe is a two-cook rice process:
First cook = partially cook jasmine rice
Sauce absorption + veggie mix
Final cook = steam + crisp into tahdig
Do not fully steam the rice on the first cook (it finishes later)
Cook vegetables separately so they stay vibrant and don’t release too much water into the tahdig
Reserve plain/sauce-only rice (no veggies) for the bottom crispy layer
Keep the tahdig layer drier than the top layers
Towel-wrapped lid = catches steam so the top doesn’t rain back down and soften your crust
You want the rice partially cooked so it can finish during the tahdig stage without turning mushy.
Rinse the jasmine rice until the water runs mostly clear.
Cook with 1.25 cups water and a pinch of salt.
Cook only until halfway done / par-cooked (the grains should still have firmness in the center).
Do not steam it fully at this stage.
If your rice cooker auto-finishes too aggressively, stop it early and check texture.
The rice should feel underdone because it still has a full second cook.
Cooling releases excess steam and prevents the grains from overcooking while you prep the rest.
Spread the par-cooked rice onto a sheet pan.
Draw lines through it with a spatula/spoon to release steam and help it cool faster.
Let it cool until warm (not piping hot).
This step keeps your grains more separate and helps them absorb sauce without breaking.
Each vegetable releases moisture at a different rate. Cooking separately keeps the final rice from getting soggy.
Rough chop all vegetables.
Heat a wok (or large pan) with a little olive oil.
Lightly sear/cook each vegetable separately:
carrots
broccoli
crimini mushrooms
kale
garleeks
jalapeño + serrano
Oyster Mushrooms
Cook just until lightly seared / slightly tender.
Do not fully cook them through — they will steam later during the tahdig cook.
Keep oyster mushrooms separate and cook them well for topping later (more color, more texture).
Work in batches and don’t crowd the pan.
Salt lightly as you go (remember soy sauce is coming later).
For mushrooms: let them sit before stirring so they actually brown.
The steak gets sliced and added on top at the end, so you want a hard sear and a glossy finish.
Salt the steaks and let them come closer to room temp.
Pat very dry (important for a hard sear).
Sear on high heat 2–3 minutes per side (depending on thickness).
Baste/glaze with teriyaki sauce near the end.
Remove and rest before slicing.
Glaze at the end so the sugars in the teriyaki don’t burn too early.
Let the steak rest at least 8–10 minutes before slicing so juices stay in the meat, not on the rice.
You want the rice to absorb flavor without turning into a wet stir-fry.
In a large pan over low heat, add oil (you mention garlic oil — use garlic-infused oil here if you have it).
Add the cooled rice in batches.
Add soy sauce and chili sauce.
Finish with a small drizzle of sesame oil.
Toss gently just until the rice absorbs the sauce.
You’re not making final fried rice here — you’re just seasoning and lightly coating the rice.
Add sauce gradually. You can always add more, but wet rice will ruin your tahdig texture.
Taste for seasoning here: the rice should be savory but not overly salty (it concentrates slightly in the final cook).
Save 2 cups of rice without any veggies for the tahdig base.
Mix the remaining rice with the cooked vegetables (except the oyster mushrooms, which stay as topping).
Vegetables on the bottom layer can burn, leak moisture, and prevent a proper crispy crust.
Add butter + olive oil + a small splash of water to the bottom of the pot/rice cooker.
Add the reserved veg-less rice first to form the bottom tahdig layer.
Gently stack the rest of the rice + vegetable mixture on top.
Shape into a loose mound (don’t pack it down hard).
Cover the lid with a clean kitchen towel and place it on the pot.
Cook on medium heat for 30–40 minutes.
Cook according to your Persian rice cooker instructions/settings.
The bottom layer should be lightly coated in fat so it crisps, not dries out.
If using stovetop, you should hear a gentle sizzle — not aggressive frying.
If it smells like burning, reduce heat immediately.
Let it rest 5–10 minutes after cooking before unmolding (the crust sets as it cools slightly).
Pan-sear oyster mushrooms until golden and lightly crisp at the edges.
Season with salt and pepper.
Set aside for topping.
Oyster mushrooms are best when cooked a little harder than the other veg here — they give contrast against the soft rice and steak.
Slice the rested steak.
Plate the tahdig fried rice.
Top with:
sliced wagyu steak
oyster mushrooms
egg yolk (optional, for the “egg” part of fried rice)
sesame seeds
green onion
If using egg yolk, add it right before serving while the rice is hot so it turns into a glossy sauce when mixed in.
First cook went too far
Veg released too much moisture
Too much sauce added
Spread rice out to cool longer before assembly
Use less sauce next time
Cook veg a little harder / drier before mixing
Not enough fat at bottom
Heat too low
Bottom layer had veggies/moisture
Use a little more butter/oil
Keep bottom layer plain rice only
Extend cook time slightly on low-medium heat
Heat too high
Pot too thin
Too much sugar-heavy sauce reached bottom
Lower heat and use a heavier pot
Keep seasoned veggie rice away from bottom layer
Add a tiny splash of water + fat to base before layering
Chili crisp drizzle
Lime wedge for brightness
Crispy garlic chips
Furikake (for extra umami + sesame)
Pickled onions or quick cucumber for acid contrast
Soft scramble eggs separately and top the rice
Or add a jammy egg if you want less “saucey” finish
This is one of those dishes that feels like a remix but still respects both sides of what makes it great. You get the wok-y comfort and savory punch of fried rice, but the tahdig gives it structure, texture, and that little dramatic moment when the crispy bottom hits the plate.
It’s cozy, it’s a flex, and it’s honestly such a good way to make rice feel exciting again.
If you make it, don’t skip the oyster mushroom topping and don’t be shy with that egg yolk moment.
— Sol
I’ve been called racial slurs by people who likely had Tourette Syndrome a few times in my life. It may seem wild when only about 1% of the population has Tourette Syndrome and only a small percentage of those have vocal tics that can cause them to yell out profanities and slurs. But I’m a Black woman in a majority white area and if there’s a racial slur to be said, there’s a large chance it’s gonna find me.
Both times that it happened to me I was a young adult working in retail. I remember the first time clearly. I remember a young man staring at me anxiously in the long line of holiday shoppers. I remember him turning his head away and back at me. I remember his family looking at him anxiously as well, like they knew what might be coming. This young man stood out to me because I’m a Black woman and part of why I was able to grow from a Black girl into a Black woman was because I learned early on to be on alert for white men who stare. So I was on alert. I was trying to ring up purchases in this long, impatient line. I was trying to be friendly and helpful. And every few seconds I was looking up at the white man who couldn’t stop staring at me.
It felt like it took him ages, but it likely only took a few minutes for the racial slur to be shouted out. As soon as it was out a hush went through the entire line. It seemed to match the air that was taken from my lungs in the same moment.
It was not the first time I’ve been called a racial slur, and certainly not the last. I’ve been called various racist slurs online, in person, via old-school snail mail. By busses full of schoolchildren, by white gay men at clubs that were supposed to be safe, by elderly white men I volunteered to help as a teen, by white women who wanted me to be more “understanding” of their bullshit than I am, by angry young college kids who wanted to feel a moment of power. And every time it hits in the gut. It hits a little less hard now than it did when I was younger. But I know what’s in that word. I know how many times it was said as people were kicked, punched, shot, strung up. That reality comes with the word every time.
I know why that word exists.
So in this moment of my 1990’s youth, while I was trying to ring up Christmas purchases for $6 an hour, I was frantically trying to assess my safety after a grenade of a word had been launched at me in very hostile (white) territory.
As I looked at this young man, it was clear from the immediate horror on his face and on his family’s face that this man did not mean to shout what he did. It was clear by how they dropped their purchases and immediately shuffled out the door while apologizing. And even though it was also clear that nobody else in the line was going to say anything to acknowledge what had just happened, at least nobody else was going to join in.
“Okay!” I shouted, and took some deep breaths and went back to work.
I didn’t blame that young man for what happened. It wasn’t his fault that the word existed. Once I was able to get my heart rate back down, I actually felt bad for him. I could see his embarrassment and shame. In a world where every other time I had been called a racial slur it had been excused away by witnesses as just “something that happens,” his response was one of the few appropriate ones I’d experienced.
None of my coworkers said anything at the time. Nobody checked on me.
And I think it would have been okay if we had just stuck with that cowardly silence. But instead, within a few days, it became a bit of a joke. To them - perhaps because I didn’t scream, didn’t cry, because they couldn’t see all that I had to do to keep standing there, ringing up purchases - it became a funny story to reminisce about in the break room. Instead of being a one-time moment, it became something I got to relive over and over and over for the entertainment of my white peers.
Every Black person I know has a story of just trying to get through their day when some racist shit pops up. Every Black person I know has to regularly calculate their safety in those moments and figure out their next move. And every Black person I know is punished for whichever way they choose to react. If they are openly angry then they are dangerous, or militant, overreacting, or lacking empathy for the person who has just harmed them. If they react with kindness or a desire to educate then they are forced to carry the emotions of the person who has just harmed them. If they decide to ignore it then they are told by others that it’s obvious by their reaction that this harm is acceptable and it will continue in with gusto.
These moments happen at work, on the street, in the grocery store. And they apparently also happen to our most celebrated actors onstage in front of an audience of millions. And when it happens, with the cameras rolling, they will have to assess their safety, gather their emotions, and continue on. Customers are waiting.
And the room will be silent. The burden will be entirely on them. They who didn’t say the word. They who didn’t create the word. They who have generations of trauma associated with that word. They will have to do all of the work.
In the aftermath of the BAFTA awards and the BBC’s decision to not remove a racial slur hurled at two Black actors from their broadcast (even though their lengthy air delay allowed them to cut out the portion of Akinola Davies Jr.'s speech that said “free Palestine”) there have been two very different conversations happening from two very different groups of people.
There have been the conversations about Tourette Syndrome, how it works, and the empathy and understanding we must have for it. In these conversations, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo are barely mentioned. In the immediate aftermath of the slur being yelled, this was the only narrative, with host Alan Cumming saying: “Tourette syndrome is a disability, and the tics you’ve heard tonight are involuntary, which means the person who has Tourette syndrome has no control over their language. We apologise if you are offended tonight.”
The BBC followed suit focusing on understanding for the white man who had said the slur, only later offered a blanket apology, due to public pressure, that did not mention the two Black men that the racial slur was aimed at. The two Black men who had to gather themselves in front of cameras and continue on with their jobs as if nothing had happened were not given the basic respect of an apology by the network who decided to compound this hurtful moment by millions when they aired the slur unedited.
When I look at this incident and the coverage around it I, like many other Black people, think of my own personal history with racist slurs. But I also think of my experience as a disabled Black woman. And how much grace is given to whiteness that would never be given to someone like me.
Ableism is real, and it’s deadly. It’s especially deadly if you are Black, brown, or Indigenous and disabled. Over half of people killed by cops are disabled. Black and Indigenous people are more than three times more likely to be killed by cops than white people. You do the math as to what it means to be Black and disabled in this country.
When we are harming nobody and we are beaten, arrested, shot, killed - there are no pleas for understanding. There is no demand to see our humanity. No demand to understand why we may act the way we do. When Elijah McClain dared to be an Autistic Black man in public, nobody demanded understanding for him. His needs were not centered. He was brutally murdered while he begged for his life.
I think about Elijah all of the time, even 6 years after his horrific murder. I think about his family, and the pain they must carry. I think about him now more than ever as I get ready to send my 6’5 neurodivergent Black teen off to college. I think about what the world will see when he’s struggling, when he gets overwhelmed or overstimulated. When he dares to be Black and Autistic in public. Who, besides me, will center his humanity? Who, besides me, will call for understanding? What will happen when I’m not there?
This is the fear of every Black parent, and the fear that dominates many thoughts of Black people with disabilities and the people who love and care for them. Every day of my life as a Black, queer, neurodivergent woman I’ve had to be hyper-aware of how I appear to people. I’ve had to control and stifle so much of who I am for my own personal safety. I have had to mask on so many different levels that I don’t even know who I fully am anymore. All of this to have a greater chance of survival. And I am reminded every day that none of it may be enough.
I, and every other Black disabled person in this country, has had to carry the entirety of the burden of this racist, ableist society on my shoulders. And instead of offering to carry any of it, the white people who witness and benefit from it will at best call me brave. At worst, they will tell me that I’m handling that burden incorrectly, or cry at having to witness it and expect me to comfort them in their tears.
I do not want outrage at John Davidson, the man who from all understanding did not intend to yell a racist slur at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo. I want the same level of understanding and sympathy being offered to him by so many to be extended to the men who were primarily harmed in front of an audience of millions. In fact, I want more for them. I want them to be centered, I want them to be cared for above the person who caused harm - whether he meant to or not. I want accountability from the BBC; accountability that names what happened, named who was harmed, and takes full responsibility. I want this burden lifted off of the shoulders of those two Black men, off of all of us who right now are having to process this so publicly for our own safety, for our own humanity.
We should not have to do this work while we are actively being harmed. And yet we are, each and every day of our lives. We are doing this work to save our own lives and it’s killing us. It may be killing us more slowly than this racist system aims to do, but it is killing us nonetheless. It is robbing us of our lives while we are still living.
It is unfair, it is unjust, and it needs to stop.
If you, by privileged accident of your birth, do not have to do this every day like we do I ask this of you: do your fucking part. Center us. Center our experiences. Demand understanding, demand care, demand accountability, demand justice.
We are not made unsafe because a disabled man yelled a racist slur against his will. We are made unsafe because the entire violence of that word is allowed to hit us every day of our lives as if that is a burden we were born to bear. We are made unsafe because people will witness that violence and more in silence. We are made unsafe because our humanity is never centered. We are made unsafe because an entire audience decided they were a spectator instead of the participant that they actually are.
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