the politics of cruelty

When I arrived at work this morning,  my colleague MS told me that a poster advertising his Queer Religion course had been defaced with a Trump picture. We walked over to my office and realized that someone had pinned that same Trump picture to the bulletin board outside my office right next to a safe space sticker. None of our other colleagues on the third floor had received this specific attention. It seems someone on campus wanted to send the two of us who teach queer studies a message. Perhaps one of intimidation?  

It does make me feel a bit weird to think of someone harboring bad feelings for me and walking all the way up to my office knowing I would not be there and leaving me something they think I'll find menacing. But to what end... It's not like I'm going to look at this picture, realize the error of my ways, and suddenly become a white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative prig?

In other places in Michigan today: High school boys in Escanaba walked around telling girls, "your body, my choice." A friend in the Ann Arbor area who is black received a text telling them they'd been "selected to pick cotton at our nearest plantation." Clearly, the enabling effects of electing a rapist and a racist to the highest office are immediate.

Pic: I blanked out the more distinctive parts of my name because I'd rather not end up on any more professor watchlists.  LV, my office neighbor tore the picture up like Captain Von Trapp ripping up the Nazi flag in The Sound of Music. That part was so satisfying--as was seeing Big A and At cursing up a storm on family chat.