"Religious" Objections to Vaccine Mandates are Bullcrap - We Should Eliminate Religious Exemptions

 

While this post is specifically about supposed “religious” objections to vaccines - particularly the Covid vaccine - much of this argument applies to religious exemptions to most laws, particularly civil rights laws. There are some exceptions, such as conscientious objection to war, but they are far more rare than Fundies and Evangelicals would have you believe. Most boil down to “I don’t want to,” not to anything truly religious, and many are even straight-up bigotry toward minorities. These are not religious objections, but social objections. They come down, not to what the believer genuinely believes God requires of him, but his objection to society requiring his cooperation. It is a belief in a lack of responsibility toward others, and a belief in one’s entitlement to do what one likes, despite the damage to others. 

 

So let’s dive in. 

 

1. What is a TRULY religious objection?

 

Fair disclosure: I am a religious person. I consider myself devout, although I have become unwelcome in organized religion because of my failure to adhere to certain orthodoxies, namely support for Trump and the GOP, rejection of racial and gender hierarchies, rejection of nationalism, rejection of social darwinism, rejection of a literal hell, full acceptance of LGBTQ people, and so on. So I come to this discussion as a religious person from a religious point of view. 

 

As I see it, a legitimate, honest, religious objection to a law will have to fit into the following two categories:

The law requires me to do something that I believe God says is a sin. 

The law requires me to refrain from doing something I believe God commands. 

 

Furthermore, the specific command of God involved must be directed at ME, not at OTHER PEOPLE. So, if I believe that God doesn’t like black and white people mixing, that is not a command that God has given ME, but one that seems, somehow, magically, to apply in practice to black people. Hmm. (Before you dismiss that, take a look at the case I linked. Religion was used as an excuse to refuse to serve African Americans. Which is part of the point of this post.) 

 

So, a good test here is, does the burden of my “religious” belief fall entirely on ME? Or does it fall on other people? That is the crux of the issue. Religious beliefs can legitimately burden the believer (some people don’t get to eat bacon), but cannot be used as a weapon to burden other people. More on this later. 

 

But let’s go one deeper for now. 

 

The overwhelming majority of “religious” exemption claims have nothing to do with religion.

 

When it comes to vaccines, I dare you to ask the person what sin they think they would be committing by getting a vaccine. You will never get an actual response. Never. Not one fucking time. Because it isn’t really about religion and never has been. 

 

Follow up question, in case you DO get something that sounds like a legitimate response: so, do you believe getting ALL vaccines is a sin? Because chances are, said person has already vaccinated their kids and themselves in other ways. Like with the tetanus shot, for example. 

 

At this point, let me address a new “religious” objection that is popping up. It is total shit, but it sounds fine until you actually question it. 

 

“But what about the fact that vaccines are tested using embryonic stem cells? Since I believe abortion is murder, it would be a sin to get a vaccine that used them.”

 

Sounds legit, right? Except that literally every drug that might be used during pregnancy has been tested using embryonic cells. Every. Single. One. Why? Well, before you give a drug to a bunch of pregnant women (which, well, hasn’t gone well in the past) you might check whether it crosses the placenta (most drugs do) and whether it has a negative affect - which is done using embryonic cells first, because it is a low-risk way to screen for bad results. This is standard practice. So, if this is really your belief, then you need to stop using pretty much all modern drugs, from Tylenol to Ibuprofen to heart medication to...well, pretty much everything. Just stop using modern medicine altogether. 

 

At this point, surely you can see what bullshit this is. If there truly was a consistent belief, there would be the attempt to figure out which medications were “tainted” and stop using them. Which would be followed by a widespread refusal to get medical treatment. Instead, as we see clearly every single time, the only focus is vaccines. Which seems to indicate that it isn’t really the embryonic cells that are the issue, but the desire to avoid getting vaccinated that is driving this. (And, as is pretty obvious, it isn’t evidence driving this but deliberate misinformation by people who made and make a hell of a lot of money selling antivax paranoia.) 

 

Also, let me just put this out here: The Pope has said (and not just this one, but previous Popes) that the Catholic Church does not consider it a sin to use medications and vaccines that involve cell lines from the past. Whatever sin it might have been (if you consider it one) to do the abortion or use the embryo in the past, it is not an ongoing sin, because use of cell lines causes no further damage. 

 

This, by the way, is the ONLY case where I have ever heard an actual sin cited as the “religious” objection to vaccines. 

 

 

2. Do religions actually forbid vaccines?

 

Short answer: NO. NO. NO. And NO. 

 

I actually looked up some of the religions that I thought were the most likely to forbid vaccines. And I was surprised at what I found. 

 

Jehovah’s Witnesses: (Who forbid blood transfusions.) No, Jehovah’s Witnesses are fine with vaccines. (I have a number of JW clients...all vaccinated.) 

 

Jains: (Who believe in the sanctity of ALL animal life.) Nope. Jains are okay with vaccines and antibiotics. 

 

Amish: (Because electricity, yo.) Nope, Amish have no theological objection to vaccines. 

 

Christian Science: (Who eschew medicine in general.) Actually, no, they do not object. In fact, they are concerned with living in peace with the rest of society. 

 

In fact, about all I could find as far as official theological objections are coming from specific churches within the greater Fundamentalist/Evangelical movement. And in each case, the objection is social and political, not religious in the sense of considering vaccines a sin. The objection is to other people (government, scientists, liberals, etc.) having the nerve to tell THEM what to do. And that leads into...

 

 

3. What is the REAL objection here?

 

This breaks down into two categories, in my experience. The first is based on false beliefs. The second is based on an entitlement complex: the right to endanger and harm others without consequence. 

False Beliefs

 

This would be a post in and of itself. The bottom line always seems to lead back to a certain Andrew Wakefield, who fabricated data to “prove” that MMR vaccines cause autism. Which is a total fucking lie. He fucking lied about it, and lost his medical license as a result. (He should be in prison for life in my opinion.) That millions of people continue to believe his lies is infuriating to me. (And unfortunately, that includes my mother, who went off the medical deep end during my teens, and continues to follow Joseph Mercola and other charlatans to this day. I absolutely refuse to discuss “alternative medicine” bullshit with my parents for that reason.) 

 

Many of those claiming “religious” objections to vaccines are in reality basing it on their belief in these lies, that vaccines are harmful, that the underlying diseases aren’t serious, and that they should thus have the right to refuse vaccines. 

 

Guess what? Believing lies is NOT a valid basis for a religious objection. There is nothing religious about it. It is a denial of reality, not a belief in sin. 

 

A secondary version of this applies to those who are vaccine skeptics, but who haven’t actually fully bought into the lies. These people are those I would consider more in the “bad at math” category. These are the ones who are certain that they will be in the extremely small percentage who have a reaction to a vaccine, but not in the far larger percentage who would be harmed by the disease itself. In reality, the percentage of serious reactions (most of which are treatable, by the way) to Covid vaccines is extremely small. Whereas 1 in 500 Americans has died of Covid. Included in the 500 are Americans who have not been infected (including my entire family) and those who have been vaccinated (all except my youngest, who will be vaccinated when it is approved), the actual death rate is a LOT higher. (Current estimates seem to run about 1.15% - more than 1 in 100. And of those who are infected (and unvaccinated), a high percentage will have “long Covid” - symptoms that last months or more. Vaccines reduce the likelihood of long Covid too. 

 

This is why I consider antivaxxers in this category to be bad at math. It’s kind of like being terrified of dying in a terrorist attack but not in a car accident. (Or perhaps better, a person who won’t get in an airplane, but who refuses to wear a seatbelt in a car.) 

 

But let’s think about this. Is there anything religious about that? (I mean, other than badly deluded beliefs, which are endemic to Fundies of all religions.) This isn’t a religious belief, it is a social belief. It is a choice to believe the lies of charlatans over the evidence of tens of thousands of scientists and public health experts who have devoted their lives to understanding and studying pathogens and how to stop them. 

 

Giving preferential treatment to people who believe lies has no place in public health policy. Period. 

Entitlement and sociopathy

 

This is, unfortunately, all too common. The main benefit of the vaccine isn’t to protect one’s self. (Although it does that too.) The benefit is to protect those who are vulnerable to Covid. Vaccines significantly reduce the spread. They do this in two ways. First of all, despite what antivaxxers say, you actually are substantially less likely to be infected with Covid if you are vaccinated. Furthermore, even if you do get a breakthrough infection, you will likely be less contagious and for a shorter period of time. Even though vaccinated individuals can occasionally spread infection, the current spread is overwhelmingly between unvaccinated persons.  

 

My experience, however, has been that antivaxxers do not believe they have ANY obligation to protect others. 

 

“I don’t think government should tell me what to do.”

 

But not just government, of course. They are furious when businesses (say, cruise ships, airlines, restaurants, concerts) require vaccines. “Nobody tells me what to do.”

 

Let’s be honest about what this is. It is sociopathy. It is the belief that one owes zero duty to the safety of others. (On a related note, antivaxxers are statistically likely also to be anti-mask, against any form of gun control, and against Black Lives Matter. Hmm. There might be a trend here…) Sure, there are exceptions. I know a few people who are fine with wearing a mask, distancing, and getting tested before going in public. But they are the exception that proves the rule.

 

I have friends with medically vulnerable children. I have friends with immune issues. I have friends who are vulnerable for various reasons. And the response they seem to get from antivaxx friends and family is “well, if you are afraid, you can just stay home.” Yeah, because excluding the vulnerable from society is definitely better than mandating that the rest of us take reasonable steps to protect the vulnerable. It is a breathtaking sense of entitlement. And, I might add, ableism. (Discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities.) 

 

But look back at that again. Is there anything religious about that? “You aren’t the boss of me” is NOT a religious belief, but a social belief. And it has no place in public health policy. 

 

Again, for those in the back:

 

“I Don’t Wanna” is NOT a religious belief, and should not be coddled in our society.

 

And the corollary:

 

There is no right to put others at risk. Period.

 

And that leads to my proposal for public policy.

 

 

4. Public Policy

 

When it comes to vaccines (and indeed to most although not all cases where religious beliefs conflict with the law), I believe that we should generally deny “religious” exemptions. 

 

My home state of California ended religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccines for school children recently. I believe this was the right decision for the reasons stated above. (“Religious” exemptions are not actually based on a belief that vaccines are sinful, but on the basis that people don’t want them - that is, social beliefs; there is no right to put others in harm’s way because of your beliefs.) 

 

I also believe strongly that the burden of religious beliefs should be placed firmly on the believer, not on others. 

 

So, I would, in the case of vaccinations, deny ALL religious exemptions without exception. This should apply to every facet of participation in society. You are not permitted to walk into a crowd shooting your gun randomly (except maybe in Texas), and you are not permitted to spread germs in public randomly either. 

 

In practice, there are limited practical ways to enforce this. Nobody is going to go door to door checking vaccine status. But we should use the tools we have, and the tools that were used in the past (dating back literally 150 years in US law) to mandate vaccines. 

 

The simplest is this: once the vaccine proves safe for children, we make it one of the mandatory vaccines for school. The infrastructure for this is already in place, and we already enforce it. Let’s just do it with Covid too. And yes, this should apply to private and charter schools too. (Colleges are already mandating vaccines, and transmission rates are dropping as a result.)

 

Likewise, just like we have in past cases (see: Smallpox, Polio, Measles) require proof of vaccination for public carriers. That means trains, planes, and boats. 

 

The same way, large gatherings such as concerts and sporting events - many venues are already doing this, and I bet after the first time one gets sued, more follow suit. 

 

I also agree with President Biden that OSHA has a key role here. You want to work with other humans? You take steps to protect them by getting vaccinated. No religious exemptions. (Kudos to United Airlines for doing this right.) I believe that most large employers will do this soon anyway. (Even Fox News, for fuck’s sake! And the NFL, even for fans!) It’s basic safety. And basic “not wanting employees out sick with preventable Covid. If you want to work, you eventually will have to be vaccinated. Get used to it. Employers will not be interested in indulging your sense of entitlement on vaccines any more than they will your belief that you should not have to show up on time. Employers are also - correctly - demanding actual proof of a religious objection. This isn’t like, say not working on the sabbath, that is easy to see as a legitimate religious belief, let’s just say. And the law only requires a “reasonable accommodation,” which likely does not mean the right to risk harming customers or co-workers. For a comparison, would you want to be served by a fast food worker with active tuberculosis? How about teach your kids? (I had to get a TB test every year I coached violin in our local high schools.) Well, a majority of us don’t want you giving our kids - or us - Covid either. Get your damn shot already. 

 

I would go a bit further for this too. Do you want government benefits (including unemployment)? Get your vaccine. Do you want to get a government contract? All your workers must be vaccinated. Do you want to work around kids? Not only to we do a background check to make sure you aren’t a sex offender, we check your vaccination status. If you want to participate in society, you need to respect the safety of others. Period.

 

Those of us who have sacrificed throughout this pandemic, who continue to wear masks, who got our vaccines - you know what? - we are fucking sick of antivaxxers. As Leonard Pitts put it:

 

Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people's faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here's a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye. The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don't want to do. Like that's new. Like you're not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you're also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seatbelt. So you're mad at government and your job for doing what they've always done. But the rest of us, we're mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you're the reason it isn't.

 

 

5. What have we learned from all this?

 

Unfortunately, what we have learned is that certain people - those with specific religious and political beliefs - are both particularly susceptible to believing lies AND have a sociopathic approach to living in a society. We know who these people are. (Hint: white evangelical Trump voters.) 

 

But also, we have learned from past pandemics that the way forward is mandates. People will do the right thing when it gets inconvenient for them to be assholes. As California found, ending the religious exemption led to a significant increase in vaccination rates. Most of these “religious” beliefs just melted away like the morning mist as soon as the antivaxxers had to lift one goddamn finger to bear the cost of their own decisions. Which means they were never actual religious beliefs at all. 

 

That is the bottom line.

 

Religious exemptions permit people to shift the costs of their behaviors onto others. By denying them, we force people to bear the actual costs for their choices and behaviors. 

 

And, it appears, most of them are unwilling to do that.  

 

Very, very few will be willing to work from home, avoid travel, homeschool their kids, stay away from entertainment, and so on. As soon as they actually experience a bit of inconvenience, it will be shocking how ephemeral their “sincerely held religious beliefs” actually are. Because they are not deeply held beliefs. They are just asshole entitlement. 

 

***

 

Medical Exemptions

 

Let me be quick to distinguish religious exemptions from medical exemptions. There are people who cannot get vaccines for legitimate medical reasons. There are not many of these people, but they do exist. The way to document a medical exemption is to have a doctor specify exactly why you cannot safely get a vaccine. (Mostly, in the case of everything except live-virus vaccines, allergies to ingredients. Which are easy enough to document.) Are there abuses? Of course. Which is why a part of the enforcement needs to be revoking the licenses of doctors who write bogus exemptions. Here in CA, we have found that it is just a handful of charlatans who do this. (See: Mercola, Joseph, who should have lost his license and been imprisoned for the unnecessary deaths he has caused over the years with his toxic advice.) But again, doctors can’t just say “medical exemption.” They have to specify why, and provide evidence. 

 

And also: for medical exemptions, there is no reason not to require regular Covid testing and mandatory masking as the reasonable accommodation. 

 

***

 

Our stupid (and racist) healthcare system

 

I want to note that not all of the unvaccinated are antivaxxers. Because our medical system was set up to exclude black people, we continue to refuse to join the rest of the first world in treating healthcare as necessary infrastructure. This means that uninsured (or underinsured) or low income people are worried about costs. I know people who forego necessary medical treatment because they cannot afford it. That is the reality of living in a cruel and bigoted nation. I happen to know that the Covid vaccine is free to everyone (like all necessary medical treatment should be), but many are unaware of this. (My wife has had patients who didn’t get vaccinated because they thought they couldn’t afford it.) Likewise, not everyone has paid sick leave, and are afraid that if they, like me, have a day of flu-like symptoms after the second shot, they will lose their jobs or at least a day of necessary pay. 

 

So yes, these are structural issues that make it harder to vaccinate certain populations. But we can fix that - and I know of a number of local civic organizations working hard to do that. 

 

[Note here as well: much of the developing world lacks access to sufficient vaccines. This is deeply shameful and also a public health risk to everyone. The US and other rich nations should be giving significant priority to getting vaccines out worldwide. If not for altruistic reasons, at least for selfish ones.] 

 

*** 

 

Why I think that this applies to civil rights laws. 

 

This could be a whole post - it was, actually - but I believe that “religious liberty” exemptions from civil rights laws are equally problematic. And why they exist for the same reason: to give assholes and racists special privileges to abuse and endanger people they consider less worthy than themselves. You don’t want to treat people with different beliefs (and skin color, and sexual orientation, etc.) with respect and dignity? Get the hell out of our society. You are not so special that you are entitled to harm others. 

 

And no, I don’t want to hear about how “intolerant” that is. A tolerant society can only exist if the assholes are kept in check. If my kids are spitting in other peoples’ food and hitting other kids, they would be sent away from the dinner table until they were willing to behave. Same with bigots. You should be excluded from society until you are willing to treat everyone with respect, whether you like their skin color or what they do with their genitals or not. 

 

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

We previously enjoyed Jacqueline Woodson’s autobiographical poetry book, Brown Girl Dreaming, on one of our trips, and we found it delightful, even if we did have to evacuate for the Creek Fire. For this book, we had a trip cancel (dang wildfires and vehicle breakdown) so we didn’t get to this one when I thought we would. Since it was running out of renewals, we went ahead and listened to it while driving to and from school related stuff. 

 

This book isn’t written in the same obviously poetic style, but Woodson’s generally poetic way of writing tends to come through. The title is based on Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers,” and the poem serves as kind of a theme throughout the book, both the imagery of feathers and the idea of hope. Feathers is set in the 1970s, and probably reflects some of the author’s experiences, even if the plot is fully fictional.

 

The book is about the experiences of 11 year old Frannie, as she seeks to make sense of the world around her, particularly her school classmates and her family. Her older brother, Sean, is deaf, so he goes to a different school. Frannie grew up with him, so she doesn’t even remember a time before she learned to speak sign language. But she is fairly unique in that, and, as she comes to understand, Sean wishes he could connect better with the “normal” world as well. Her mother has had a series of miscarriages, and before that, her infant sister died of congenital issues. 

 

School too has people she struggles to understand. Her longtime friend Samantha seems to be becoming more invested in her faith, which Frannie doesn’t really understand. The school bully, Trevor, has a white father who abandoned him, and lives on the other side of the highway, and his insecurity about his lack of a father and his biracial identity drive his meanness. And then there is “Jesus Boy.” We never learn his real name, but he is a white kid with long hair who Samantha thinks looks like Jesus - and may even be Jesus himself. Well, he isn’t, of course, he’s just a kid. A kid who was adopted by a black family, and who transferred to Frannie’s school because his parents and siblings were subjected to racial terrorism when they tried to live in the white section of town. Naturally, Trevor decides to direct his bullying toward “Jesus Boy.” 

 

As a result of the events in the book, Frannie comes to see others as more human than she had, and decides that “Jesus Boy” is right: there is something of the Divine in everyone, if you are willing to see it, and this makes hope possible. 

 

It is a gentle and inspiring ending to a book that feels very real. Frannie’s inner life is lovingly and perceptively portrayed, and all the characters seem well drawn and nuanced. My eldest has read other Woodson books, and also agrees that she is a wonderful writer of both prose and poetry. Having read two now, I have to agree. Her writing is beautiful, and her outlook on life is equally lovely. As I noted with Brown Girl Dreaming, her books aren’t “issue” stories about civil rights, but are rather lovingly told stories of African American boys and girls living ordinary lives in ordinary (and often loving) families, and experiencing the usual conflicts at home and school, and feeling ordinary human feelings. You know, the kind of books that white kids are in all the time. I think this is a wonderful thing - and her books feel truly universal. We will definitely be reading some more. 

 

This audiobook was read by Sisi Johnson, who does a fine job. Brown Girl Dreaming was read by Woodson herself, which was really great. 

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

 Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. This book was on my own reading list, so I was glad that it became a selection for the club.

 

For those unfamiliar with Noah, he is a comedian who hosts The Daily Show, combining political commentary with humor. This book is a collection of stories about his childhood, growing up in South Africa as a mixed-race child. 

 

Back in 1984, South Africa was still an apartheid state, which Noah notes combines all of the worst elements of segregation, slavery, and the forced removal of native populations. Which the British carefully combined into Apartheid, having studied institutional racism around the world in order to craft the perfect system of racial oppression. 

 

When Noah was born, it was literally a crime for his parents to have sex. (The book opens with the statute to that effect.) In practice, had they been discovered, the likely result is that his Swiss-German father would have been fined, his mother imprisoned for a few years, and Trevor sent to an orphanage. 

 

It is easy to see things like this as “in the past.” Except that this was during my lifetime. As Faulkner put it, “The past is never dead. It's not even past." 

 

Noah is a skilled storyteller, and he brings his childhood to life. In spite of the fact that horrible things happen, that South Africa even after the end of apartheid remains grossly unequal, and that his life contains violence and suffering and heartbreak, Noah manages to see the humorous side to everything. The book is a lot of fun to read. I hear from other book club members that the audiobook - which he reads - is wonderful as well. 

 

Trying to recount any of the stories seems futile, because he tells them better than I ever could. Some of his lines are so good that I will quote and comment on them a bit, but seriously, go read the book. 

 

One of the things I loved is that Noah doesn’t candy-coat racism, but just flat out describes it. His lived experience of not really fitting a category is fascinating, and the deadpanning of his experiences makes the everyday prejudice and systemic disadvantages seem all the more real for being mundane. Within the Xhosa community on his mom’s side, he was considered “white” at least by comparison, which meant he got away with more than his cousins. (Except from his mom, though, who tried to keep him in line.) 

 

Growing up the way I did, I learned how easy it is for white people to get comfortable with a system that awards them all the perks. I knew my cousins were getting beaten for things that I’d done, but I wasn’t interested in changing my grandmother’s perspective, because that would mean I’d get beaten too. Why would I do that? So that I’d feel better? Being beaten didn’t make me feel better. I had a choice. I could champion racial justice in our home, or I could enjoy granny’s cookies. I went with the cookies.

 

One reason Noah was able to go between cultures as well as he did was that he, like his mother, learned languages well. He speaks English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Tsonga, and some German, and used all of them regularly as a child. Our club thought his explanation of the unifying nature of language was great. He was nearly mugged by some Zulu guys who thought he was white, until he spoke in their language. 

 

They were ready to do me violent harm, until they felt we were part of the same tribe, and they we were cool. That, and so many other smaller incidents in my life, made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people. 

I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color. If you spoke to me in Zulu, I replied to you in Zulu. If you spoke to me in Tswana, I replied to you in Tswana. Maybe I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you. 

 

On the other hand, switching only gets you so far. As young Trevor found when he changed schools for Jr. High. All of a sudden, groups were formed, and he had to figure out who he was. 

 

But the real world doesn’t go away. Racism exists. People are getting hurt, and just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And at some point, you have to choose. Black or white. Pick a side. You can try to hide from it. You can say, “Oh, I don’t pick sides,” but at some point life will force you to pick a side. 

 

For many of us white folk, Trump was what forced us to pick a side. And it was disappointing how many chose racism. 

 

Noah also notes that while the missionaries educated the native Africans, the Dutch and later the English shut that down, relegating non-whites to lesser schools without academic rigor. The reason was pretty obvious, just like it was in the American South, when teaching the enslaved to read was forbidden: “A knowledgeable man is a free man, or at least a man who longs for freedom.” 

 

I should also mention the passage on their pet dogs, including the part about why black people don’t own cats in South Africa. (For one thing, you are considered a witch…) But they had this dog that they thought for years was super dumb. It wasn’t until the dog had to be put down after breaking her back, that they discovered the truth. 

 

“It must have been strange for your family living with a dog that was deaf,” he said.

“What?”

“You didn’t know your dog was deaf?”

“No, we thought it was stupid.”

 

In another incident, they found that the same dog was living a second life with a neighbor. (We have had cats like that…) Noah’s observation is spot on. 

 

I believed Fufi was my dog, but of course that wasn’t true. Fufi was a dog. I was a boy. We got along well. She happened to live in my house. That experience shaped what I’ve felt about relationships for the rest of my life: you do not own the thing that you love. I was lucky to learn that lesson at such a young age. I have so many friends who still, as adults, wrestle with feelings of betrayal. They’ll come to me angry and crying and talking about how they’ve been cheated on and lied to, and I feel for them. I understand what they’re going through. I sit with them and buy them a drink and I say, “Friend, let me tell you the story of Fufi.” 

 

This is precisely why I do not worry about my wife “cheating” on me. I do not own her. We have a certain understanding about how our relationship works, but if she decided someday she would rather be with someone else than me, I would be sad and lonely, but I would not consider it a “betrayal.” I do not own her. Full stop. 

 

Noah’s dad doesn’t come into the book that much. He was actually skeptical about having a child, but was convinced by Noah’s mom. The two of them didn’t entirely have a relationship of that sort, although they were friends. They kept up pretty well until his mom remarried the abusive and controlling Abel, who made it impossible to see each other. They later reconnected when Noah could provide his own transportation. His observations of his dad are fascinating. This one stood out. 

 

One thing I do know about my dad is that he hates racism and homogeneity more than anything, and not because of any feelings of self-righteousness or moral superiority. He just never understood how white people could be racist in South Africa. “Africa is full of black people,” he would say. “So why would you come all the way to Africa if you hate black people? If you hate black people so much, why did you move into their house?” To him, it was insane. 

 

His dad actually ran one of the few integrated restaurants in South Africa, before the authorities shut it down. I very much sympathize with him. I too do not consider my anti-racism to be a thing of self-righteousness or moral superiority - it just seems to not make any sense. I love living in a diverse city in a diverse state on a diverse planet. It seems insane that white people would move to the Americas, enslave people and bring them here, and then complain that not everyone is white. If we didn’t like Chicanos, why did we come to their home? I mean, racism is offensive for moral reasons, and is against my religious beliefs. But it also is irrational and stupid. 

 

Part of the history of South Africa is the intermarriage of the first Dutch colonizers with the Khoisan indigenous people. These eventually became the “colored” category, separate from white and black (and don’t even try to figure out how Indian, Chinese, and Japanese are classified...it’s complicated.) Trevor was “colored” by appearance, but he was black by culture, which meant he didn’t fit with any legally defined group entirely. He also notes that within the “colored” category, genetics were...weird. 

 

Colored people are a hybrid, a complete mix. Some are light and some are dark. Some have Asian features, some have white features, some have black features. It’s not uncommon for a colored man and a colored woman to have a child that looks nothing like either parent. 

 

I have seen this happen in real life too. Some church friends of ours when I was a teen had an adopted daughter who was mixed race of unknown composition. From appearance, she was part black, but maybe Asian of some sort mixed in. And by “black,” here in America, that means one has white genes too, from all that rape back in the slave days. She then married a Latino man. Their first child looked mostly Asian. Then they had twins, one of which looked black, and the other looked white. And neither looked all that much like either parent. If you saw the three kids together, you would never guess they were siblings. 

 

Here is another amazing observation on race - and tribe. 

 

[I]t is easier to be an insider as an outsider than to be an outsider as an insider. If a white guy chooses to immerse himself in hip-hop culture and only hang out with black people, black people will say, “Cool, white guy. Do what you need to do.” If a black guy chooses to button up his blackness to live among white people and play lots of golf, white people will say, “Fine. I like Brian. He’s safe.” But try being a black person who immerses himself in white culture while still living in the black community. Try being a white person who adopts the trappings of black culture while still living in the white community. You will face more hate and ridicule and ostracism than you can even begin to fathom. People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. But when they see you as a fellow tribe member attempting to disavow the tribe, that is something they will never forgive. 

 

Man, this has been a lot of my experience in leaving Evangelicalism. It is also the ultimate cause of the breakdown of my relationship with my parents. I had to disavow the culture, and that is unforgivable. 

 

Also fascinating in this chapter is the description of the process to get “reclassified” within the apartheid system. Unlike in the US, where one could try to “pass” and hope for the best, in South Africa, there was a process to get reclassified. That it was arbitrary and inconsistent was the result of a system that classified humans based on a social fiction (race) in the first place. But, one’s classification determined everything from who you could marry to where you could life - indeed the entire course of your life. 

 

Another observation really hit home. Noah describes the time his stepfather went all medieval on a bully who beat him. Abel was disproportionately violent, and the young Trevor went from enjoying revenge, to terror that Abel might actually kill the kid. (Abel would later shoot Noah’s mother, putting a bullet through her skull that miraculously missed everything important.) It is Noah’s observation that caught my eye.

 

Revenge truly is sweet. It takes you to a dark place, but, man, it satisfies a thirst.

 

There is no doubt that Noah loves his mom - in many ways, the book is a tribute to her. She was pretty feminist, leaving home early to get a job. Razor smart, able to speak multiple languages, well read, and devoted to Trevor and her other children. He describes the way she attempted to teach him about women throughout his childhood, even before he hit puberty. This bit was particularly great. 

 

“Trevor, remember a man is not determined by how much he earns. You can still be the man of the house and earn less than your woman. Being a man is not what you have, it’s who you are. Being more of a man doesn’t mean your woman has to be less than you.”

 

Leaving aside the emotional baggage of “man of the house” for those of us who were in the Patriarchy movement, her point is great. Being a man is who you are, not your position of dominance, or your money, or your supposed superiority to women. In fact, in an egalitarian relationship, one can very much be a man - as defined by being that kind of a good person who shows love and caring for one’s partner. 

 

Here is another one that I loved. 

 

I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. “What if…” “If only…” “I wonder what would have…” You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days. 

 

This is true for me. What if I had defied my parents and moved out at eighteen and gotten a normal college education? What if I had put my foot down forcibly the first time my mom said something hostile to my wife? What if I had said something about the flagrant favoritism toward my sister? And perhaps most of all: what if I had walked out of Evangelicalism and organized religion before our children had to experience it? What if. 

 

Noah also has a great observation about how we teach history, which seems even more relevant now, with white people freaking out about the possibility that history might be taught in a way that makes them feel bad about the past. 

 

In Germany, no child finishes high school without learning about the Holocaust. Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it - what it means. As a result, Germans grow up appropriately aware and apologetic. British schools treat colonialism the same way, to an extent. Their children are taught the history of the Empire with a kind of disclaimer hanging over the whole thing. “Well, that was shameful, now wasn’t it?” 

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We weren’t taught judgement or shame. We were taught history the way it’s taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: “There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it’s done.” It was the same for us. “Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let’s move on.” Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension. It was as if the teachers, many of whom were white, had been given a mandate. “Whatever you do, don’t make the kids angry.”

 

That’s a world class mic drop. That’s exactly what the whole moral panic over “Critical Race Theory” is all about. Don’t make white kids feel bad. Don’t make non-white kids angry. Don’t address the moral and emotional dimensions. 

 

During high school, Trevor got in the business of pirating music (not even considered immoral in his circles - there is a great discussion of that), then eventually working as a DJ. He started making decent money. 

 

For the first time in my life, I had money, and it was the most liberating thing in the world. The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.

 

Again, a mic drop. This is why it is so impossible to explain to people who have never experienced poverty what it means to have to constantly be told no, and to have few meaningful choices. And even some of those who have experienced poverty, but, in part because of their privilege (and the socialism we used to have when my parents came of age), were able to rise out of it. Money means choices, which is why income supplements often result in better employment, better outcomes, better choices. Money means freedom and better choices. 

 

Perhaps the most hilarious story is the one entitled “Go Hitler!” What happened was, this kid named Hitler was great at dancing, and became part of Noah’s DJ entourage. They would host a block party, Hitler would compete at dancing, and everyone would cheer. “Go Hitler! Go Hitler!” Which was fine, until they played for a Jewish neighborhood…

 

But first let me go back. Here in the West, the Holocaust is in many ways our most traumatic event. Yet, without in any way minimizing the evil and destruction of the Holocaust, it actually isn’t the greatest atrocity committed by white Europeans. We killed 80% of the indigenous population of two continents - which is arguably the greatest genocide in human history. We killed an estimated 60 million Africans through the various facets of the slave trade. But see, those were brown skinned people so we don’t really count them. As horrific as anti-semitism is, our racism generally is at least as bad. 

 

Noah explains this well. 

 

The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that’s especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium’s King Leopold would come up way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson. 

I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don’t have that Jewish people do have is documentation. The Nazis kept meticulous records, took pictures, made films. And that’s really what it comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It’s harder to be horrified by a guess. When Portugal and Belgium were plundering Angola and the Congo, they weren’t counting the black people they slaughtered. How many black people died harvesting rubber in the Congo? In the gold and diamond mines of the Transvaal?

So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa, he’s just another strongman from the history books. 

 

Of course, one of the reasons we don’t want to see Hitler as just another in a string of evil people who plundered and exterminated other humans is that we don’t want to have to look in the mirror. Germany had to do that. The United States needs to. 

 

The musing on crime is excellent as well. Throughout the book, he notes that criminalization mostly applies to impoverished people, many of whom are not doing things intrinsically immoral (rape, murder, abuse, and so on) but are “hustling,” doing things that get them a bit more ahead of where they are. Noah felt no guilt doing typical things like pirating music or movies, or reselling stolen property. It wasn’t until a camera got into his hands, with the vacation pictures still on it, that he had a twinge. Because these people had faces, and weren’t just “white people with insurance.” He generalizes it beyond “crime” to how society in general works.

 

In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don’t see the person it affects. We don’t see their face. We don’t see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t have to live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place. 

 

This is true to a point. I do, unfortunately, know people who have so little empathy that even living with the results of their cruelty wouldn’t melt their hearts. After all, the enslaved lived with their enslavers… This is why I believe that white Evangelical doctrine has been carefully curated to create a pathological lack of empathy, to enable people to be cruel without remorse. 

 

South African Apartheid “worked” in large part because the whites divided the blacks by tribe, and set them against each other. One example of this was the way that the Tsongas - Abel’s tribe, deeply patriarchal - thought of the Xhosas like Noah’s mother. 

 

Every other man had some docile girl from the village, and here he’d [Abel] come with this modern woman, a Xhosa woman no less, a culture whose women were thought of as particularly loudmouthed and promiscuous. 

 

As weird as it sounds, this was the culture shock between my family and my wife. While Amanda’s parents were part of a patriarchal cult too, her grandparents were of New York educated stock, and it was assumed she would go to college, and speak up for herself, and probably have a career. Which meant that she was viewed as “particularly loudmouthed” and, because she refused to wear the patriarchal costume, on the “promiscuous” side. Noah also explains how it is that “traditional” men sometimes end up with feminist women. 

 

Abel wanted a traditional marriage with a traditional wife. For a long time I wondered why he ever married a woman like my mom in the first place, as she was the opposite of that in every way. If he wanted a woman to bow to him, there were plenty of girls back in Tzaneen being raised solely for that purpose. The way my mother always explained it, the traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He’s attracted to independent women. “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.” 

 

This tends to be true of most abusive men, in my experience. It is sad, but it also illustrates why it is important to teach our children to avoid abusers, narcissists, and sociopaths. And how to recognize them. 

 

There is so much more in this book, of course. I could have quoted dozens more places. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and highly recommend this book. 

 

 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

I had this one on my list, but my second kid (who is into all things Japanese), read it and passed it along. I also try to read a few books in translation every year - I love the different vibes you get from different countries and cultures. 

 

Convenience Store Woman is a short novella, and a rather unusual one at that. With the exception of the one major event in the book, nothing changes; and in fact, the event is an anomaly, so by the end, things have gone back to the way they were at the beginning. The tone of the book also remains the same throughout, and the perspective of the narrator is static. 

 

The basic plot is this: the narrator, Keiko is an odd woman, who has never fit into society. If I were to give an armchair diagnosis, I would say she is on the autism spectrum, in part because some of the stories from her childhood parallel those of my wife’s autistic uncle, including what Keiko says about the incidents. Certainly, she is neurodiverse in some way or another. Just to give a couple of examples, she discovers a dead bird in the park, and suggests to her mother that they bring it home and cook it. In another incident, she stops a fight at school by hitting one of the combattants in the head with a shovel. As she explained to the horrified school counselor, the fight needed stopping, and “I just thought that would be the quickest way to do it.” 

 

Keiko’s family keeps trying to “fix” her, but she doesn’t feel she needs fixing. She mostly wants to be left alone. 

 

Later, when she attends the university, she sees that a convenience store would soon be opening, and was hiring. She decides to give it a try, and discovers that she has found her life calling. There is a giant procedures manual to learn, and rigid and repeatable things to do. It is like heaven. Finally, she has the ability to perfectly meet expectations and become the model citizen. Well, at least model employee. So, Keiko decides to work there indefinitely. 

 

Eighteen years later, there is finally (at about the midpoint of the book) a change. A man her age, Shiraha, starts working at the store. He is everything she is not: unpredictable, incompetent, rebellious, and insubordinate. He is soon fired, but he and Keiko run into each other later. 

 

Shiraha too is an outsider, except he refuses to conform at all. He is also an asshole, but there you have it. He makes Keiko a proposition: if she lets him live with her, she can appear “normal” - have a boyfriend and eventual husband if she wants. She supports him, he gives her a “normal” story. He is clear that he finds her ugly and would never have sex with her. He also doesn’t intend to do anything useful with himself. His value is in what he makes her appear. 

 

Keiko is skeptical at first, but soon decides that Shiraha would be like a pet - kind of like an unaffectionate cat or something. She would feed him and let him sleep in the bathroom, and she would get her story. 

 

The problem is, she ends up not liking being “normal.” All of a sudden, other people, instead of thinking of her as weird, start expecting her to not be, and flooding her with advice and sympathy and other things she cannot handle well. Which is why, in the end, she has to find another store to work at, one where nobody knows about Shiraha. 

 

The book does a good bit of backhanded musing on societal conformity, the modern industrial workplace, and the way society treats people who are different. And particularly about the expectations placed on single women.  

 

So yes, that’s a bit weird. Keiko has a peculiar way of talking too, in part because she has adopted the language and cadence of the workplace in everyday life. Her perspective on life is decidedly different as well, which makes the book feel like seeing life from the perspective of a different species at times. And yet, it also feels familiar, as if we all have some element of Keiko in us. It is effective writing (and effectively translated by Ginny Takemori.) Here are a few examples that stood out to me. 

 

It was fun to see all kinds of people - from university students and guys who played in bands to job-hoppers, housewives, and kids studying for their high school diploma at night school - don the same uniform and transform into the homogenous being known as a convenience store worker. Once the day’s training was over, everyone removed their uniforms and reverted to their original state. It was like changing costumes to become a different creature. 

 

The thing is, for Keiko, she never changes the costume, so to speak. She becomes the Convenience Store Worker incarnate. 

 

When I can’t sleep, I think about the transparent glass box that is still stirring with life even in the darkness of night. That pristine aquarium is still operating like clockwork. As I visualize the scene, the sounds of the store reverberate in my eardrums and lull me to sleep. When morning comes, once again I’m a convenience store worker, a cog in society. This is the only way I can be a normal person. 

 

Or how about this perceptive observation? 

 

When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why. I found that arrogant and infuriating, not to mention a pain in the neck. Sometimes I even wanted to hit them with a shovel to shut them up, like I did that time in elementary school.

 

Yeah, me too, Keiko. 

 

In a weird way, Keiko and Shiraha are alike, although, as I noted, he is not just odd, but a jerk. This exchange during their discussion of the possibility of a marriage is fascinating. 

 

“What the hell are you saying? That’s ridiculous! I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’ll ever be able to get it up with you, Furukura.”

“Get it up? Um, what has that got to do with marriage? Marriage is a matter of paperwork, an erection is a physiological phenomenon.” 

 

This was a fascinating book, and not exactly like anything else I have ever read. I also feel like ten different readers could take ten (or more) different impressions and ideas away from it. Which is a sign that it has something deeper going on with it than a quick glance would suggest. 

 

Spamalot (Stars 2021)

Back when I was a teen, a friend of the family lent my mom a set of Monty Python VHS tapes. She was, shall we say, NOT impressed. So that was essentially my first introduction to Monty Python. Not that she let me WATCH them, but I at least knew what she thought. It wasn’t until I had moved out that a friend of the family (who my sister was dating at the time…) brought Monty Python and the Holy Grail over so my siblings and I could watch it. It was then that I both realized how hilarious British humor was, and also why my mother would never understand it. Some people get bawdy humor, and others...don’t. 

Later, our former pastor used to use Monty Python sketches in sermons, and I think only a few of us actually got it. And pretty much all of us who got it, ended up leaving the church in the wake of Trump and the swerve to the Fundamentalist side the church made at that time. Oh well, what might have been.

By now, our family banter is full of references to The Princess Bride, Pride and Prejudice, P. G. Wodehouse, Broadway musicals, and, of course, Monty Python. 

If we hadn’t already wanted to see this production, the fact that Ken Burdick and Kevin McDonald were in it was enough to make it mandatory. My older kids’ friend and classmate was also in the ensemble, and got to slap people with fishes, so that sold them on going. 

Spamalot is kinda of sorta of based on The Holy Grail, but also incorporates some other stuff from the Flying Circus, The Life of Brian, and general 1970s and 80s Broadway satire. So, you get the fish slapping dance, “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life,” and the Lady of the Lake as the quintessential Broadway diva with her torch ballads and dissatisfaction with being cut out of the second act in favor of these prancing knights. This was comic gold. 

The musical itself only dates to 2005, which surprised me. Somehow, I figured it was older. The script itself is credited to Eric Idle, with music by John Du Prez. 

I won’t bother to recount the plot, but do want to mention some fun moments, and the casting. It was both awkward and hilarious when Sir Robin tells Arthur that he can’t be in a Broadway musical, because, well, to have a successful musical, “you have to have Jews.” The parodies of Fiddler on the Roof that follower are pretty spot on, and truly, it is difficult to imagine the musical theater tradition - or, for that matter, the American classical music tradition - without the contributions of Jewish Americans. I mean, really. It would be just as unthinkable to imagine musical theater without LGBTQ artists. (And would Broadway even exist without camp? Really?) And that leads to another hilarious moment. Arthur is a bit dense, and has to have Patsy, his faithful (and unappreciated) servant point out that the Lady of the Lake has the hots for him. 

Arthur: “But I thought you were a fairy.”

Lady: “No, that’s Lancelot…” 

And yes, one of the jokes in the musical is that Lancelot, the hyper-masculine, violent, and not always the brightest, is secretly gay, although closeted and in denial, until the youth in distress lets him see who he is…

Actually, this isn’t entirely implausible. I mean, doesn’t Lancelot seem like he is overcompensating for...something? And in this production, those gold pants did rather work on him. 

I can't forget the song of Sir Robin, where his bravery is extolled, and the perils he will brave - and the bodily dismemberment that he will undergo - is explicitly set forth. Watching Kevin McDonald's face in this one is worth the price of admission.

So, casting. In a local production like this, you will always have a limited number of actors who are outstanding at acting, singing, and dancing. Others will be good at two out of three, and some will be good at one. Figuring out how to cast that is therefore, a challenge. In this case, that meant that the toughest roles were Arthur and Lancelot, requiring all three, and a handful of other roles that could go with a combination. 

 Ken Burdick as King Arthur

Arthur was, in the only possible casting, Ken Burdick, who is always a delight to watch in anything. He has a strong voice and gravitas in the straight-man role. And also Arthurian hair and beard. (Ken and I used to play in the Bakersfield College orchestra together many years ago, and he has been in stuff like Johann Strauss’ The Gypsy Baron and Gianni Schicchi on the classical side, our Bakersfield Symphony rock and roll concert - stuff from Led Zeppelin to Elton John - and a whole list of stage performances locally.) He’s a consummate professional and always a joy to watch. 

 John Spizer as Lancelot

John Spitzer was great as Lancelot. I mentioned him for his great work in Measure for Measure at BC, and Le Misanthrope at Shafter Ford Theater. He has fantastic projection, great moves, and a nice range of acting styles. It was good to see him in this one. 

 Kevin McDonald as Sir Robin

Kevin McDonald has long been one of my favorite local actors. I mean, You Can’t Take it With You, The 39 Steps, Crazy For You, A Christmas Carol, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder - another one with Ken Burdick, Einstein, and, of course, Twelfth Night. As the cowardly Sir Robin, he was hilarious, stealing scenes right and left. His dancing is so much fun because he is both good at it, and, in a certain way, goofy and awkward. In other words, exactly the way Sir Robin would dance. 

 Bethany Rowlee as the Lady of the Lake

Callout to Bethany Rowlee as the lady of the lake - another excellent voice who just killed those ballads. She’s another fixture of the local theater scene who can be counted on to be excellent in any role. She has been in several of the above-mentioned productions, including The 39 Steps. Those ballads, as my teens would say, absolutely slapped. We died laughing.  

Jesse Magdaleno as Patsy

 Zachary Gonzalez as Prince Herbert

Timothy Armijo as Sir Galahad

 Also kudos to Jesse Magdaleno as the long-suffering Patsy, Timothy Armijo as Sir Galahad, and Zachary Gonzalez as the dude in distress, Prince Herbert. I won’t name the ensemble individually, except for Callie, because she is my kids’ friend, has danced in Nutcracker for a number of the years I have played, and is an outstanding young lady. But ensemble, loved the dancing and singing and stuff. Lots of fun. Also, if you heard loud giggles from the back row, that was Lillian, my 10 year old, and she thought you were great. And some love for Perrin Swanson (no relation, but we’ll take him) who ran around all night doing tech stuff behind the scenes to make it all work. 

 It was a fun night, and it was so great to be back seeing local live theater. I appreciate all of what you local artists have done to keep the arts alive during difficult times and I want you to know that we missed seeing you in person and are glad to be back. I also appreciate that our arts community has been on the forefront of encouraging vaccines and masks and Covid safety. I realize this is a tough town for that, and many have experienced unnecessary unpleasantness from some. I want you to know that most of us appreciate the emphasis on safety, and we fully support mask and vaccination requirements to keep all of us safer and thus keep the lights on. Rock on. And we’ll be there cheering you on.