fear
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
–Matthew 25:31-46
“Having a soft heart in a cruel world takes courage.”
–Katherine Henson
When you rewatch The Golden Girls, as I often (that is, constantly) do, it’s more apparent how rough around the edges the show was in its first season. They were entering new territory on network television and introducing the four main characters as types that hadn’t been seen before–”old” ladies living as a chosen family and doing all the things normal (that is, not “old”) people do like work, socialize, date, and eat cheesecake–and in the second season, the writing leans into and finds beautiful humor in issues that people in that stage of life faced. It also found the Girls’ inimitable mastery of comic timing and gave the cast more room to expand and refine the characters we all came to love. But it was in the third season that the show really hit its stride. One of my favorite episodes is the fifth in season three, “Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself.” It’s not one of those episodes that spawned multiple iconic moments or barbs, but it’s among my favorites because it shows how a sitcom is able to tackle “important” questions and deep fears.
Perhaps not a surprise because of its title, the episode explores our fears and strategies to confront them. With no concern for narrative continuity (the Girls emerged in a time when the focus of a sitcom was the sit…you know, the situation, not the characters or the hyperrealism that are the dominant in sitcoms today), Rose, Dorothy, and Blanche identify and confront their greatest fears. Learning of her aunt’s death, Rose panics about having to deliver a eulogy and guilts Dorothy and Blanche into joining her for moral support. That triggers Dorothy’s fear of flying, which turns her into a white-knuckler on the flight to the Bahamas for the funeral. And then, in a ridiculous and slapsticky twist, Blanche realizes that they are living out her recurring nightmare: she was trapped on a plane filled with bald men. In the dream, the plane crashes, and this detail sparks a sentimental outpouring as the Girls try to relish their final moments. Just as they snap out of this fatalist terror, the flight’s captain announces an unexpected return to Miami because of a tropical storm. With this diversion from the end of Blanche’s dream, Dorothy and Blanche find relief having both faced and conquered their fears, and Rose grabs the mic to finally conquer hers. She delivers an impromptu and touching eulogy to a cabin full of bald men, who, it turns out, were “all former Mr. Cleans on their way to a reunion.”
On the surface, it’s just farcical fun–unusual and silly complications converging on a happy ending–but I think the episode is really tapping into deeper questions like, what does it mean to be human? Our fears are the evolved outgrowths of our most primitive and basic instincts, and, not much evolved beyond our most ancient ancestors, we still respond with fight, flight, or freeze. Ooh! I love a good parallel. Rose fights (against the obligation to give a eulogy), Dorothy flees (or tries to get out of the trip), and Blanche freezes (stunned, finding herself trapped in her worst nightmare).
In a twist that is probably just delightful complementary writing but that also reeks of deep existentialist discernment, the episode’s B-plot revolves around Sophia’s participation in the Daughters of Italy Cooking Contest. When she tests a recipe on Dorothy and Blanche, she declares, “it’s garbage.” Dorothy and Blanche protest, but Sophia notes that they didn’t give the look when tasting the sauce. The look? The look of “total instant pleasure,” she explains. “Your father put that look on my face once.” Later, she tells the story of her luckiest dish. “Picture this, New York City, 1931.” After their first marital spat, her husband, Sal, had tears in his eyes as he ate Sophia’s veal parm. “‘This meal is like our marriage,'” he said in Sophia’s retelling. “The veal is like him, tough and stubborn. The tomato sauce is like me, hot and spicy. And the mozzarella is like our love: it stretches but it never breaks.” Sophia concludes the story by noting that Dorothy was conceived that night.
The look. The mozzarella. And then along came Dorothy. While Rose, Dorothy, and Blanche engage their fears, Sophia is focused on another deeply human instinct: pleasure. Sexual pleasure. The pleasure of a good meal. And eventually the pleasure of a win. The episode ends with Sophia recounting the cooking contest and her tie for the win, followed by the sudden death of her competition, 103 year old Louise Polito. “That’s terrible,” cried Rose. “You think that’s bad?” Sophia said, nodding to Rose, “guess who I volunteered to give the eulogy.” And with that, buried in a joke that ties the plots together in a tidy bow, the episode is punctuated by one more deeply human experience: death. Fear. Pleasure. Death. And the transformations that come from them. It’s perhaps the most existentialist episode in the entire series.
What’s the takeaway? The Girls teach us how to face the unknown: they lean into love. Facing their final moments, even in a fit of irrational panic, Rose, Dorothy, and Blanche turn to their friendship, the bond of a chosen family, for comfort. Looking for inspiration, Sophia turns to passion and keeps digging into her capacity to give others pleasure, whether trying to mend a young marriage or to capture the prize. Sophia pairs love with mozzarella–”it stretches but it never breaks”–and, not to get too cheesy (#rimshot) but that’s pretty good advice. We can tap into any of our instincts, any of our capacities, to respond to the unknown and to the things that frighten us, but if we tap into our capacity to love and be loved…
Why, you might wonder, am I getting so philosophical about The Golden Girls? This week, I’ve been leaning into my own fears. And not by choice. I’m not alone–social media is saturated with friends and strangers lamenting the whiplash of the new administration’s first week. As NPR succinctly summarized, “Trump signed dozens of executive orders affecting everything from immigration, climate change and oil exploration to health and medical research, as well as eliminating federal diversity programs, directives defining gender and much, much more.” The first outcome of all of this is just chaos and confusion, perhaps an intentional diversion from more insidious efforts to erode democratic processes, to stack the Cabinet, and to disempower and dismantle federal agencies. The second outcome is a target placed on the backs of millions of people. The new administration set to work quickly to scrub both physical and virtual federal spaces of any references to DEI, LGBTQ+, and Black Lives Matter and, perhaps most surreally of all, to restore Denali’s colonialist designation and rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Ok, can we pause on this one? Renaming the Gulf of Mexico? The administration might believe this is a patriotic move, but it’s been known as the Gulf of Mexico since 1550, its name rooted in the Nahuatl name for the Aztecs. That name is itself a vestige of European colonization of the western hemisphere and of the displacement, subjugation, and near-eradication of indigenous people, but somehow this move just feels like revenge for a grudge carried by perpetually ignorant Manifest Destinists.
But back to my fears. Among the first week’s orders were sweeping moves around environmental, energy, immigration, and foreign policies, the civil service, the establishment of new and sharply focused initiatives like the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE, you know, like the heads of state and of the oligarchy who ruled Venice for a thousand years), and reactivating federal executions. Concurrent with the pardon of January 6 insurrectionists, these orders read like a textbook exercise in propaganda and nationalism. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the closest I’ve come to something like this was my undergrad and graduate research on the history of antisemitism and the rise of the Nazis in Germany. For years, the Nazis tapped into extant and latent prejudices against Jews, communists, ethnic minorities including the Roma and Sinti (sometimes referred to as g***ies), religious minorities including Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and mentally, developmentally, and physically disabled people. They blamed those groups, Jews in particular, for the social and economic humiliation Germany experienced after the first World War, and steadily gained political power on a plainly insular and racist platform. If you’ve never perused it, the whole platform is a fascinating and terrifying read, but here are some highlights (emphases in bold added):
Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State. Only those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the nation.
Non-citizens may live in Germany only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens.
The right to vote on the State’s government and legislation shall be enjoyed by the citizens of the State alone. We demand therefore that all official appointments, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, in the states or in the smaller localities, shall be held by none but citizens.
It’s worth reminding oneself frequently when scanning these texts that “citizen” has been narrowly defined according to racial constructs and German blood.
We demand that the State shall make its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) must be deported from the Reich.
All non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after 2 August 1914 shall be required to leave the Reich forthwith.
It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.
The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working German the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the notion of the State (through the study of civic affairs). We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand: (a) that all editors of, and contributors to newspapers appearing in the German language must be members of the nation; (b) that no non-German newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State. They must not be printed in the German language; (c) that non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing German newspapers, and that the penalty for contravening such a law shall be the suppression of any such newspaper, and the immediate deportation of the non-Germans involved. The publishing of papers which are not conducive to the national welfare must be forbidden. We demand the legal prosecution of all those tendencies in art and literature which corrupt our national life, and the suppression of cultural events which violate this demand.
We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence nor offend the moral feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not commit itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common interest before self-interest.
To put the whole of this program into effect, we demand the creation of a strong central state power for the Reich; the unconditional authority of the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and its organizations; and the formation of Corporations based on estate and occupation for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by the Reich in the various German states.
Oh, and then there’s the closing line:
The leaders of the Party promise to work ruthlessly–if need be to sacrifice their very lives–to translate this program into action.
Defining true citizenship along identity lines. Mandating and restricting school curricula. Fomenting a notion of journalistic bias based on national and racial prejudice. Subjugating religious and intellectual freedom to political permission. All tailored to serve the state, all under the threat of ruthless reprimand. Sound familiar? Try this: read it again, but change “Germany” to “America,” and substitute “trans” or “LGBTQ” for references to Jews.
The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and quickly implemented the Reichstag Fire Decree (which suspended basic civil rights and turned Germany into a police state), the Civil Service Law (which eliminated Jews from governmental agencies and positions of cultural influence), and the Enabling Law (which neutered the Parliament and handed complete authority to Hitler and his cabinet). Two years later, the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, known together as the Nuremburg Race Laws, defined German citizenship according to racial purity and banned marriage and sexual relations between people of “German or related blood” and Jews, Roma, Sinti, and other ethnic minorities. Ensuing laws steadily isolated Jews, invalidated their passports, required them to use distinctively Jewish names, and, tapping into medieval European laws, mandated that they wear a yellow badge in public.
I started this research in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and even then, the parallels between Nazi attitudes toward Jews and conservative American attitudes toward queer people alarmed me. The parallels between “then” and “now” are absurdly tight: after a destabilizing and devastating global pandemic, marginalized groups get blamed for everybody’s problems, and fascists come to power riding on racist, heteronormative, and misogynistic fears. “The gays are the new Jews,” I once said to a professor who dismissed my observation and laughed it off as a ridiculous and paranoid notion. But year after year, as Anita Bryant’s crusade and the “Moral Majority” morphed into grassroots political and judicial activism, into the rise of the Tea Party, and more recently into Trumpism boring the Republican Party from within and partnering with white supremacists and trad wives and domestic terrorists who already have queer, Black and Brown, and non-Christian people in their crosshairs, my insight has only rung truer, louder, and with greater urgency.
And then this week came, and the first round of chaos-inducing orders arrived. Here are a few that particularly rattled me:
“Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service” directs agencies to screen candidates for their commitment to government efficiency and the "ideals of our American republic.”
“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” terminates all diversity programming in the federal government.
“Defending Women from Gender Ideology and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” mandates a binary biological distinction (even if the title almost comically reeks of cisheteromansplaining).
“Prioritizing military excellence and readiness” designates trans folx as unfit to serve in the military.
Oh, and just yesterday, with “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” Drumpf signed an order to promote patriotic propaganda in education and to punish schools that teach racial justice education and gender diversity.
And they just keep coming, each like a dagger thrown indiscriminately toward children, educators, health professionals, civil servants, active duty military, and anyone whose identity diverges from the tribe. None of these initiatives were surprises–aren’t they all aligned with the platforms, the politicking, and the vitriol we’ve seen bubbling up at the corners for years? Well, now it’s not just the folx on the margins who are facing the pressure: we’re all consumed in it. So…what the fuck now?
Over the last few years, I’ve been part of Village Seattle, an intentional community that sprung up as a space for connection in a time of social distancing. We don’t have any prescribed ideology–just a commitment to a “locally connected world.” I’ve really come to love the people that form this community, and I’m so grateful for the chance to connect with people whom I’d otherwise never intersect. Part of our regular gatherings is “open space conversations”–anyone can propose a topic for conversation, and over time we’ve dived into the absurd, the absurdly funny, the profound, and the profoundly difficult. This week, my friend put a tough question on the table: Can–or, should–you love someone who voted for the “other guy”? I joined this chat with earnest curiosity–I wanted, I needed to hear how others were navigating this challenge.
Now, I’m pretty good at keeping my cards close and self-moderating to maintain composure. I’m a good listener, and when I talk, I usually scan the crowd to make connections and to avoid offending or locking horns with anyone. But before I could tap any one else’s wisdom, just asking the question opened the floodgates and impelled me to gush the anger and fear that had been stirring inside me. I don’t often get so raw, but, as words were coming out of me, I realized that I hadn’t–I couldn’t–process what was going on in the world. For the first time in my life, I feel like every vote in that direction was a dagger thrown at me. I’d like to be able to love someone who voted for the “other guy,” I said, but I’m not there yet. At this point, I don’t want people who voted “for the other guy” in my house–not because I disagree with them in principle, but because their votes have directly endangered me and millions of others. I want so badly to be able to get there, but how can I when the fruit of those votes have blossomed into a postmodern and nearly dystopian redux of the Nazi platform and the Nuremberg Laws?
Searching for an opening for empathy, my friend wondered whether this was a moment when the tables had turned, when folx on the left were experiencing the kind of fear that folx on the right had known for years, but I couldn’t accept that. To my knowledge, folx on the left have never threatened whole categories of people with deportation or the erosion or downright revocation of their civil rights. They never empowered fringe groups who have blatantly, persistently, and proudly dreamed of purifying the country by eradicating any trace of sexual, religious, racial, ethnic, and intellectual diversity. I accept that my vision is limited, and I don’t fully understand the values, experiences, and the fears that motivate them, but I reject any notion of equivalence.
And, frankly, I’m sick of being the one to take the high road, to look at the big picture, to approach the other side with empathy. I’m exhausted by it. I’m tired of being the one stepping out to find common ground, and if I’ve learned anything from queer history or my own experience, it’s not my responsibility to teach others how to love. I’ve done the work to listen, to understand, and to love, and I’m ready to be listened to, to be understood, to be loved. From this point, my options seem limited to exhausting myself or giving in to nihilism.
And then I remember my favorite line in my favorite of Dr. King’s speeches.
“Don’t allow anybody to pull you so low as to make you hate them.”
And then I remember one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s most profound teachings.
“Understanding and love aren’t two separate things, they’re just one.”
And then I remember Jesus’ clear instruction on the ultimate significance of how we treat each other.
“Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
And then I remember Sophia’s wise insight.
“And the mozzarella is like our love: it stretches but it never breaks.”
So what do I do with all of this? I’m going to lean into love and find comfort and inspiration in my chosen family and try to make safe spaces for others to find the same. I’m going to lean into passion and, in the face of hatred, hardship, adversity, and injustice, do my best to give myself and others opportunities to know pleasure and joy. I’m going to lean into being raw, to being authentic and honest about my fears as much as I am about my hopes. And while I might not venture out into the streets looking for them, I’m going to keep my door (and my mind and heart) open no matter how thinly we stretch the mozzarella.
