Myriam Gurba

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Luz Collective: America Prefers Teachers Who Offer Themselves as Tribute

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Teachers as Tribute

Martyrdom underwrites our goodness.

Feb 23, 2021 LuzCollective.com

As the coronavirus continues to take lives, the lives of teachers and school staff included, the good-educator-as-unflinching-martyr trope is being used to shame those of us who express concerns about IRL instruction. Last month, New York Times’ columnist David Brooks penned a screed that all but accused educators critical of their working conditions of laziness, stupidity, and cowardice.

Brooks seems to prefer stoic teachers ready to become ill and die and I imagine the columnist watching Stand and Deliver, nodding in approval at a scene set during a night school session. Escalante, who has taken on a second job as an English instructor, shuffles about a classroom, clutching at his chest while he leads adult students through a set of language drills. The students seem unaware of their teacher’s distress and Escalante excuses himself. Once he’s out of their sight, he loses his composure. He sweats and pants, wheezing as he struggles to make his way down a desolate flight of stairs. Crumpling to the floor, Escalante presses his face against the seemingly cold cement as he experiences a heart attack.

(I imagine Brooks leaping to his feet to give a standing ovation! “That’s the spirit!” he screams.)

Read the rest on Luz Collective.

FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS DEEPENED MY DESIRE FOR JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TO EAT A BAG OF DICKS

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Hilaria and Alec Baldwin
Hilaria and Alec Baldwin

Watching Britney Spears shave her head in 2007 made me want to do it too. The bitch looked good bald, better than Demi because she wasn’t doing it for a film role, she was doing it because life, and I recall feeling liberated by proxy as I watched Spears snatch hairdresser Esther Tognozzi’s razor and drag it along her scalp, using it to carve her femininity away, the precise curve of her cranium set free by her own hand. This incident and others appear in Framing Britney Spears, a new documentary by the New York Times that blends archival footage with recent interviews featuring lawyers, former staff, and activists to trace the rise of the Free Britney movement, a grassroots campaign which advocates for an end to Spears’ conservatorship. The film casts strong doubt over the legitimacy of the patriarchal legal arrangement under which the megastar has been stuck for the last twelve years. Framing Britney Spears also deepened my desire for Justin Timberlake to eat a bag of dicks.

Read the rest on TastefulRude.com

Mental Illness Does Not cause Misogyny

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Harper's Bazaar
Designed by Ingrid Frahm

For Harper’s Bazaar, I wrote about how mental illness does NOT cause male supremacy.

Read it on HarpersBazaar.com

Though some men who abuse women do have mental illness, mental illness does not turn men into male supremacists.

At the end of last year, musician FKA Twigs, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, brought allegations of romantic terrorism against her former partner, actor Shia LaBeouf. Barnett’s lawsuit, which was filed last month in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that LaBeouf perpetrated sexual battery, battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence. Also in her lawsuit, Barnett issued a warning: “Shia LaBeouf hurts women. He uses them. He abuses them, both physically and mentally. He is dangerous.” The musician explained that she brought the lawsuit not for personal gain but “to help ensure that no more women undergo the abuse that Shia LaBeouf has inflicted on his previous romantic partners.” LaBoeuf has not yet filed a response, though he told the New York Times “many of these allegations are not true.” This week, the singer participated in an extended interview with Louis Theroux for his BBC podcast, Grounded, sharing more about her experience with partner violence. Of the relationship, she said, “People often ask the survivor, ‘Why didn’t you leave?’ instead of asking the abuser, ‘Why are you holding someone hostage through abusive behavior?’”

Like Barnett and millions of other women, I am intimate with romantic terrorism. After a whirlwind courtship, a man I dated used romantic terrorism to trap me. I remained with this batterer for a long time, and, like Barnett, one of the ugliest questions I’m asked is, “Why didn’t you leave?” The question is audacious considering that I did leave. That’s why I’m able to freely discuss the experience. The question also presupposes that my batterer and I are gendered equals. It erases our gendered power asymmetry, and it obscures the disproportionate social pressure placed on women to make romantic relationships, including toxic ones, “work.” The question also elides the terroristic work of batterers who end up killing their victims. The most dangerous time for battered victims is separation, or what I call escape. Post-separation violence, including stalking, kidnapping, and femicide, is likeliest to occur in the months immediately following the escape.

Read it on HarpersBazaar.com

LA TACO: HOW A BROWN PREACHER AND HIS ANTI-LGBTQ HATE GROUP IS RE-INVIGORATING A LEGACY OF BIGOTRY IN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

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First Works Baptist Church
First Works Baptist Church

After a homemade bomb goes off in Delfin Bruce Mejia’s heavily protested evangelical church classified as a hate group by SPLC, questions arise. My latest in LA Taco:

“Welcome to friendly El Monte” is the slogan of the San Gabriel Valley city where a DIY bomb placed in First Works Baptist Church exploded early Saturday morning. The force of the blast shook the ground, turning the church windows into a bed of ground glass that shimmered along Tyler Avenue, the very place where members of Keep El Monte Friendly, a coalition of local activists and organizers who oppose the bigotry peddled by First Works’ pastor, Delfin Bruce Mejia, had planned to stage a Sunday protest. Stunned neighbors emerged to investigate as sirens wailed, smoke billowed, and storm clouds approached.

By sunrise, garlands of yellow tape restricted access to the 2600 block of Tyler Avenue. There would be no Sunday protest. Instead, there would be an investigation. Beneath a gray sky, FBI men patrolled the damp streets. Cops huddled under tarps, hiding from the drizzle. First Works Baptist Church, an anti-LGBTQ evangelical organization identified by Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, was finally being taken seriously.

To members of Keep El Monte Friendly, the bombing came as no surprise. It did, however, break hearts. A fellow organizer woke Amanda Mansoorbakht to share the news of the explosion and Mansoorbakht says that for the last month, Keep El Monte Friendly worked hard to warn city officials of the potential for danger: “We had hoped El Monte would take preventative measures to keep all of us safe.” 

Mansoorbakht’s disappointment with city officials begs two questions. 

For whom is El Monte safe? 

To whom is it friendly?

Read the rest on LATaco.com

Tasteful Rude: Don’t Call Me Resilient

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AOC, instagram
AOC, Instagram

I wrote about why calling trauma victims “brave” often feels like an insult. I also list meaningful actions people can take instead of doling out hollow compliments. Read the rest at TastefulRude.com

THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO IN LIEU OF CALLING A TRAUMA VICTIM BRAVE

At the risk of sounding like an ungrateful bitch, don’t ever call me “brave” for a) having had a life-threatening trauma forced upon me and b) talking honestly and angrily about it.

I’ve had my fill of the compliment.

“Brave” isn’t the compliment that many people think it is. Worse yet, I have a suspicion that some assholes who use the word to describe victims know that.

My brain can tell the difference between a compliment and an insult and I typically feel insulted when people, passive-aggressive cisgender men in particular, call me “brave” for having experienced trauma and for addressing that history in public. The choice to use the word “brave” feels slimy, minimizing, and condescending and I’m going to explain the logic behind my reaction to the word.

Read the rest on TastfulRude.com

Tasteful Rude: Facism Goes to School

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Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini, former elementary school teacher

I wrote about gendered pathways to authoritarianism and the dangers of fascism in the classroom. Read the rest at TastefulRude.com

Before Benito Mussolini became Italy’s fascist dictator, he worked as a schoolteacher. I find this bit of trivia about Il Duce telling. Most children have their first encounter with public authoritarianism in a classroom, I certainly did, and I’ve heard it quipped that what white men are to policing, white women are to public education. Both of these professions can serve as gendered pathways to small-scale authoritarianism.

According the Department of Education, the average schoolteacher in the United States is a 43-year-old white woman. In 2016, 47% of white women voted for President Donald Trump. In 2020, that number rose to 55% Columnist Moira Donegan has noted that the high level of support Trump enjoys from white women has elicited “exasperation” and “rage” from the left. Because I’ve worked in public education among middle-aged white women for over a decade, I’m unsurprised by these numbers as well as by this bloc’s enthusiasm for an autocratic strongman.

Read the rest on TastefulRude.com

Tasteful Rude: Hilaria Baldwin & the Perverse Myth of Reverse Body-Shaming

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The internet recently busted yoga instructor Hilary Baldwin for moonlighting as a Thpanish immigrant and upon learning that “Hilaria” wasn’t born in Mallorca but instead in Massachusetts, I decided to skip her recipe for Boston baked beans estilo Madrileño. In a video clip that went viral, “Hilaria” pretends not to know the English word for a vegetable her bear of a husband played in Married to the Mob, “Cucumber” Frank De Marco, and social media continues to hum with speculation as her charade dissolves like a moth-eaten mantilla. Some chisme alleges that “Hilaria” is Alec Baldwin’s consolation prize and claims that the Beetlejuice star pursued and was rejected by a Latin-American actress known for her role as a snake-dancing vampiric stripper. The tea, or té, is that “Hilaria” might be the closest her Mexican-chasing husband comes to disfrutar una esposa Mexicana o Chicana pero quién sabe. Not me. I’m just repeating what a bunch of tías are saying on el internet.

Read the rest on TastefulRude.com

Introducing Tasteful Rude

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myriam guey

Today I launch my new website Tasteful Rude, as part of the Brickhouse Cooperative, a group of journalists . I’m the editor-in-chief, and one of the writers. Tasteful Rude’s editorial voice eschews politeness in favor of truth-seeking and fun. It is Tasteful Rude’s mission to abide by Edward’s Said’s commandment: “Criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination, and abuse.” Here’s my introduction:

Dear Reader,

When I was a little girl, I sipped black coffee.

I also dreamt.

One of the things I fantasized about was growing tall. My family does produce statuesque Mexicans so I believed that this goal was attainable. As a result of early childhood caffeination, I topped out at five feet. Tasteful Rude, however, is the manifestation of another early dream.

Like many families, mine strengthened its bonds through communal television watching and one of the weekly programs we (nerdily) enjoyed together was 60 Minutes. The newsmagazine taught us about a range of current events, issues, and public and private figures and my brother, sister, and I would warm the couch as the program’s correspondents shed light on our weird world. (There were, though, moments that I suspected we were being lied to. I saw the episode where then-Governor Bill Clinton told journalist Steve Kroft that his relationship with Gennifer Flowers was “friendly but limited.” MENTIRAS!)

In addition to philandering politicians, 60 Minutes also introduced my siblings and me to criticism, commentary, and satire and while I found the show’s reporting interesting, what really secured my status as a fan was a treat that concluded the program.

“I could do that!” I thought as we laughed at “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney.”

I adored Rooney, a masculine frump who Morley Safer once described as “having the demeanor of an unmade bed.” Rooney did my dream job. He drew his paycheck by having an opinion and spreading it and he’d launch his weekly commentary, which he delivered as a monologue set to a curmudgeonly cadence, from a desk messier than my dad’s. “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” inspired me, proving to me that a commentator didn’t have to be cute for people to listen to her. A critic could be as ugly as Andy Rooney as long as she made what she said about the world compelling.

Rooney typically began his monologues by describing a situation that seemed undeserving of further consideration. However, as Rooney complained, it grew clear that he’d identified a problem in need of critical attention. The opening lines of a 1980 segment demonstrate Rooney’s approach: “It’s a mystery to me why people fight to have either a political convention or the Olympics held in their city. It’s like bidding to have World War III fought in your area because of all the money the war brings local businessmen.” 

With a cup of black coffee in hand and “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” in mind, I would pace my childhood home, practicing cultural criticism:

“It’s a mystery to me why my mother thinks I won’t recognize that Santa Claus’s handwriting looks identical to hers. What does she take me for? An elf? While I might be short, I…” 

“It’s a mystery to me why my best friend’s father hides his Playboy Magazines under the bathroom sink. The magazines are filled with beautiful women! Why not display them on the toilet tank? It’s important to show guests hospitality and…”

“It’s a mystery to me why I must shop for a training bra. I have nothing to train. As Judy Blume wrote in Superfudge…”

My understanding of criticism, commentary, and analysis has evolved but my concern and commitment to these phenomena remain as strong as ever. For better or worse, Tasteful Rude is influenced by early touchstones like “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” and it’s not a mystery why I prioritize shit-talking. Shit-talking entertains. It also paves the way for justice.  Criticism is a tool of liberation, mine and yours, and I look forward to taking this caffeinated journey with you.

Yours in shit-talking,

Myriam Gurba

11 December, 2020 www.tastefulrude.com

From Persephone To Tara Reade, Rape Victims Are Relegated To Everyday Hells

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silence encourage rapists
For those who have wondered what it’s like to run into your rapist, unintentionally, years after assault, my latest in Luz Collective is for you.

I’m glad English speakers took the word schadenfreude from the Germans. Adopting it was an emotionally intelligent move. The affective vocabulary English speakers rely on is slim and I look forward to the day that we develop a language abundant enough to articulate our internal hellscapes with precision. 

Until then, we’re left fumbling, unable to name so many crappy states, including one that’s been on my mind since watching a TikTok video by anti-rape activist Wagatwe Wanjuki.

As Wanjuki lip syncs, “Actual goals, AF!” her TikTok performance unfolds to the tune and lyrics of Eva Gutowski’s Literally My Life. Clad in athleisure, Wanjuki flashes a grin and a thumb’s up sign. Glitter splashes across the screen and she imitates a victory dance while this message hovers overhead: “Me finding out my rapist graduated law school and became a lawyer.”

Wanjuki’s video spoofs the inverted schadenfreude to which rape culture subjects sexual assault victims. I’ve experienced variations of this state. It’s an absurd horror, well-suited for satirical or parodic interpretations given that rape victims living in the United States navigate a two-faced society. This duality comes into focus when the supposed illegality of sexual assault is juxtaposed against criminal justice data.

According to the nation’s penal code, rape ranks among the worst of crimes, a felony whose perpetrators deserve to be locked in cages. Criminal justice statistics, however, tell a much different story. According to RAINN, “perpetrators of sexual violence are less likely to go to jail or prison than other criminals.” In fact, “out of 1000 sexual assaults, 995 perpetrators will walk free.” These numbers underscore that rape is more accurately described as a theoretical crime. The volume of perpetrators walking among us shows that the ability to commit sexual assault free of repercussions is anything but rare. Instead, rape is a commonly exercised privilege.

Those of us who are the victims of rapists experience the ramifications of sexual assault across our lifespans. One of the ugliest and most painful dimensions of rape’s aftermath is exactly what Wanjuki so brilliantly communicated through TikTok. Rape culture requires the majority of sexual assault victims to co-exist in a society where our rapists do more than move freely. In a rape culture, our attackers thrive.

December 9, 2020. Read it at Luz Collective

Believer.com: Chismosa Bitch

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“On vocabulary test after vocabulary test, Mrs. Braun dragged her red pen across nouns, gleefully deducting points for my ‘bad Spanish.’”

I wrote about Spanglish fluency and getting a B in Spanish for The Believer.

Several weeks into attending my graveyard-adjacent nursery school, my parents noticed something weird. When I got home from school, I’d grab Mom’s or Dad’s hand and take them on a tour, introducing them to household objects. “This is the television. This is a chair. This is a sofa. This is a plate. That is a lamp. This is its switch. The lamp is now off.” My behavior mystified Dad until he realized what I was doing and burst out laughing.

“Bebé,” he called out, “Myriam’s teachers think she can’t speak English! They’ve been trying to teach her! That’s why she acts like a parrot when she comes home! She’s parroting the ‘lessons’ they’re giving her.” He chuckled as hard as he did when he watched Saturday Night Live. While I find it funny that I mimicked these lessons, I also find it a little spooky. Were the “pioneers” posthumously colonizing my vocal cords? Were their ghosts speaking English through me?

Read it at believermag.com

New on Luz Collective: Racial Pretendians

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After taking a sip of wine, Dad explained that certain Americans like inventing stories, especially tales that turn them into native people. Dad’s thesis illuminated nothing. The girl’s behavior still made no sense.

“But why?” I demanded.

“They think it’s exotic,” Dad over-asserted the word exotic to heighten its vulgarity, “and, it eases their conscience. It makes them feel better.”

“Better about what?”

“About taking things.”

“Ooooooh,” I uttered as the puzzle pieces slid together. By things, Dad meant the lands called the United States of America. Still, I didn’t want to believe that my friend, or her family, were liars, and so, I did the work of whiteness: I continued to defend her innocence.

“But she really could be part Cherokee!” I insisted.

Dad replied, “Yes. Or she might be a typical Anglo American who insists that she’s 1/16 Cherokee and descended from a princess whose name nobody seems to know.” 

“HOW DID YOU KNOW THE PRINCESS PART?!” I yelled. “AND THE 1/16 PART?!!”

Dad sighed, exasperated. “Because it’s always the same damn story. Now eat your ejotes!”

Dad was on to something. The lies my classmate told me closely resemble the fabrications for which various racial and ethnic fakes have recently been held to account. Last year, Jeanine Cummins, a writer who had publicly identified as an unelaborated white lady, began announcing herself as both a “Latinx woman” and “boricua.” It was noted by many who followed her story that her attempt at claiming a spicy identity coincided with the publication of her highly anticipated novel, American Dirt. That book, a narco-thriller set in México, fetishizes immigration to the point of unintended satire. It’s a fun book to hate-read.

Cummins is perhaps the most prominent among this new crop of Dolezalitas. Others include BethAnn McLaughlin, a white woman and former assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University. McLaughlin crafted a pretendian Twitter persona, @sciencing_bi. The persona remained unnamed but, over time, @sciencing_bi developed an elaborate identity, that of a Hopi anthropology professor working at Arizona State University. On July 31, McLaughlin killed her nameless invention, announcing on Twitter that @sciencing_bi had died of COVID-19. Shortly thereafter, an ASU spokesperson exposed McLaughlin’s hoax. The outing prompted McLaughlin to pander for pity. She blamed her bad behavior on an unnamed mental illness.

Read on Luz Collective