"What Is Behind the Rage Against Drag Shows?"

 

A Liberal Dose

March 16, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“What is behind the rage against drag shows?”

 

I recently heard someone say “Tennessee is currently the most anti-gay state in America, as judged by legislative activity.” I’m not sure if that is true, but if not, we have to be up there at the very top. Most of the legislation, and public outrage, has not been directed at gay people in general so much as at the trans community and drag queens. I can’t help but wonder if this is not, in part, because there has been such a swell of public support (even among conservatives) in the last ten or fifteen years for gay people, making it harder to score political points or stir up the base by attacking them, making it necessary to find more specific targets to serve that purpose.

Because make no mistake, that’s what is happening. In the last year or two, a large segment of the public seems to have come to the conclusion that public drag appearances are an imminent threat to their children. People bombarded the TTU website in protest a few months ago when they learned there were public drag performances at the Backdoor Playhouse (which, in reality, had been happening for more than two decades -people “learned” about it through social media posts of an aspiring conservative politician). People feel so strongly that, a few weeks ago, some Cookeville church leaders were willing to stand side-by-side with Nazis to protest it. Now a law has been passed that essentially bans any cross-dressing public event -equating “drag queen story hour” at the library with strip clubs and “cabarets”, as if the same thing happens in both venues.

It does not. Drag performances that are public, especially the ones geared toward kids, are in no way sexualized or “prurient” (a word the law uses, which is essentially defined by the beholder and therefore too broad to be legally meaningful). They are certainly less sexualized than a trip to Hooter’s or the cheerleaders at any sports event. Are drag shows in private spaces sometimes sexualized? Of course, but that is not the same thing at all, nor is it what anyone’s kids are going to be exposed to.

Soon after the law was introduced, a high school photo of Governor Bill Lee in drag was circulated online. He was furious at the implication because “it was obviously not the same thing.” I’ve seen anti-drag-show people saying similar things about Madea, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Tootsie. “It’s not the same thing!” Why isn’t it? According to the law as written, it sure seems to be. Yet still people make a distinction… so what is the difference? If public drag appearances are not sexual or pornographic, which they are not, and if it is okay for comedians or high school groups raising money to perform in public in drag… what IS the distinction? The distinction apparently is, it’s perfectly fine for straight people to do it, it is only dangerous, disgusting, and wrong if it is LGBTQ people doing it. So it really is a (not-so-cleverly-disguised) gay thing.

Many parents fear that drag queens are “grooming” their children, which means preparing them for seduction. I have never even heard of a drag queen sexually abusing a child -I’m sure it happens, but probably no more than with the public in general. What they are really afraid of is that drag queens will somehow make their children gay. Transphobia, homophobia… it’s all about fear. Not fear of a gay person physically harming you, but fear that you, yourself, or your child, actually is gay and exposure to LGBTQ people might bring it out so it must be suppressed.

It’s also fear of change, I think. Society changes, generation by generation, and it is hard for older people to understand or accept.

In this, as in so many things, there are people keeping themselves in office by stoking your fear. Stop falling for it.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

"Let's All Find the Better Angels of Our Nature"

A Liberal Dose

March 9, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Let’s All Find the Better Angels of Our Nature”

 

I want to begin this column by acknowledging John Gottlied’s statement last week that, despite our many disagreements, he is never attacking me personally because he believes I am a good man (and, in the past, he’s said my heart is usually in the right place). I can say the exact same thing about him. I recommended him for this column because I know he is a man of principle who would never hold back from ardently criticizing my views when he disagrees with them, without resorting to the nastiness that has become so common in our public life today. I am grateful to the Expositor for publishing both our viewpoints, because I think it is good for readers to see that two men, friends since childhood who love each other as brothers and respect one another, can disagree over politics -and even get mad sometimes -without losing sight of each other’s humanity. As I said, that seems to have become a scarce commodity nowadays.

It shouldn’t be like that. It doesn’t have to be like that.

I think frequently about the funeral of Democratic senator Ted Kennedy, the “liberal lion”, in 2009. I was moved by the heartfelt tears of Republican senator Orrin Hatch, one of Kennedy’s best friends. They were not only from different parties, Hatch had campaigned his way into Congress over thirty years earlier expressly on the platform of thwarting the liberal policies of, specifically, Ted Kennedy. Yet they worked together on important legislation through the years, and developed a powerful friendship

I think, too, of the presidential campaign of 1800. Back then, whoever came in second in the election would serve as vice-president to whoever won (what could go wrong?). In 1796 Thomas Jefferson had come in second to John Adams. Jefferson and Adams had been close allies and friends during the Revolution and for several years afterwards, but when our present government was formed as a result of the Constitution the two men found themselves increasingly at odds. By 1796 Jefferson and James Madison had formed a political party, the Republicans -known to historians as the Democratic-Republicans and reorganized in the mid-1820s as the Democratic Party, so not to be confused with the modern Republican Party. Adams, meanwhile, joined the Federalist Party formed by Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson/Madison and Adams/Hamilton had very different ideas about what was best for the country, which sometimes led to animosity.

This was especially true during the Adams-Jefferson administration, as the two men went at each other sometimes viciously, with Jefferson running against Adams again in 1800 and defeating him. To get by the “second-place gets VP” rule, the Democratic-Republicans also ran another candidate, Aaron Burr -all the party delegates were supposed to vote for both (each delegate got two votes) but one was supposed to NOT list Burr, guaranteeing he would come in right behind Jefferson if Jefferson won, and be his VP. But the delegates apparently became confused, because Jefferson and Burr wound up tied (ahead of Adams), which meant the election was sent to the House of Representatives to decide. The House was evenly divided and no clear winner was evident there, either. Hamilton stepped in and urged his party to throw their votes to Jefferson. Despite their differences, Hamilton viewed Jefferson as a good and honorable man, a “lover of liberty,” whereas he called Burr an “embryo Caesar” who loved nothing but himself (Burr later killed Hamilton in a duel). When Jefferson was inaugurated he sought to calm the acrimony of the campaign by saying, famously, “We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists.”   It took another decade, but after Jefferson left office he and John Adams even renewed their close friendship.

Here’s hoping our current season turns out more like that, rather than take the turn things did in the 1850s/1860s. Let’s all return, instead, to what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

“Two Years After Trump- Where Are We Now?”

 

A Liberal Dose

March 2, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Two Years After Trump- Where Are We Now?”

 

I am writing this on the second anniversary of my beginning this column. I still have a lot to say, and the world keeps giving me more every week, but I thought this would be an appropriate time to reflect on the past two years. I wrote that first column just a few weeks after the events of January 6, 2021, and that day was very much on my mind. I titled my first installment “History Is the Key to Everything.” I explained why I thought that was true, and then compared January 6 with Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 (a charismatic populist leader born to wealth and privilege stirring up the working poor to attack the capitol). I noted that in the final months of Trump’s presidency he had been “trying to forbid all of America from honestly looking at its past. This came as no surprise, since he daily tried to forbid the world from honestly looking at the present (or anything else).” I concluded that “In my opinion, it is my job as a historian to help people face the past even when they don’t want to, even when it is uncomfortable, in order to better understand the present and to make a better future. Come to think of it, maybe that’s everybody’s job. Let’s start doing it, together.”

I was worried about a lot of things two years ago. I worried that Trump losing the election, while a very good thing, would only further inflame the passions of his most hardcore supporters and potentially lead to even more violence, fueled by a misguided feeling of persecution on their part (because neither they nor he could accept that he lost). I worried that a wave of hardcore Trump politicians would get elected into swing state legislatures or as state attorneys-general, and be in a position to decide which votes “counted” in the next election. I worried that Trump’s base would be more mobilized in 2024 and that he would once more win the Republican nomination, and potentially get back into the White House where he could wreak way more havoc than even before. I also worried that some other politician -more canny, more competent, and less mentally unbalanced than Trump -would use Trump’s methods more effectively and continue to poke at the exposed nerve of aggrieved Trump supporters and thereby be in a position to become, in some ways, more dangerous than Trump himself.

In short, I was worried about the future of our democracy.

Where are we now, two years later?

Trump’s star seems to have waned somewhat with conservatives. In the last month or two, in fact, I have seen the Trump flags -which once seemed to be everywhere around the county -slowly, day-by-day, start to come down. I still would not dream of counting him out, though. Meanwhile, his legacy continues in several ways. Multiple states have passed laws -allegedly as a response to practically nonexistent “voter fraud” -restricting voting opportunities, thus excluding many constituents who would normally vote Democratic. Multiple states have passed draconian laws about how race and gender issues and history can be addressed in the classroom (which is, hardly at all). Roe vs. Wade was overturned, thanks to Trump-appointed Justices. Now states are passing laws against drag shows. I guarantee you that many more children have been sexually abused by pastors, scoutmasters, and teachers than by drag queens, but no one is trying to ban those groups from being near children (well, except maybe for teachers). Meanwhile, racist hate groups have proliferated and hate crimes have increased.

Ron DeSantis is right in the middle of it all, presenting himself as a more palatable, watered down version of Trump; George Santos, at the other extreme, is like the ultimate post-modern interpretation of Trump, for whom “fact” does not even exist as a concept.

And I still have plenty to write about.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

Thinking About Issues That Concern Native Americans

 

A Liberal Dose

February 23, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Thinking about issues that concern Native Americans”

 

My apologies for going AWOL last week. It is an incredibly busy time at work, and I couldn’t find time to write a column. You know I'm busy when I miss a chance to bloviate.

This week I want to respond to a couple of things my friend John has said recently -not in an antagonistic way, but rather with a view to set the record straight. First, briefly, John has commented that most people parrot a party line rather than think for themselves. I tend to agree with that statement, actually. I don’t recall him specifically naming me among that group, but I wanted to point out that I wrote a whole column outlining the ways in which I diverge from the mainstream Democratic party line. I do not base my principles, opinions, or passions on what some group-think tells me to believe. However, the Democratic Party lines up with what I think (rather than the other way around) ten times more than the Republican Party does. That said, I am in fact a Democrat (and adviser to the TTU College Democrats), and I chose to call this column “a liberal dose,” so it should come as no surprise that I present a viewpoint from the left rather than the right.

Here’s the other thing. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the need to use critical thinking (in other words, to think for yourself) and read between the lines and look for context when viewing news reports. I did not favor or condemn one media outlet over another, equally including Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and everyone in between. I specifically talked about two examples: coverage of missing or murdered women and coverage of oil pipeline protests. My overall point was that the fact TV news is commercially sponsored is going to influence what they cover, and how. John wrote in response, “Of course, he used examples that make groups he opposes look like the ones guilty of doing this. Perhaps that was part of his plan. Showing through example, how omission can be used to influence.”

I want to clarify that. While it is fair to say I oppose big oil companies, I do not oppose TV news media, nor the idea of commercial sponsorship. I was just trying to explain how they interact in ways that necessitate reading between the lines. However, it is not an accident that I chose those two examples -because they directly affect the Native community, which I teach about, write about, think about, and in fact stand strongly in solidarity with, so it should come as no surprise that such examples would be the first to come to my mind.

This brings me to something not directly related to my column (or John’s). Very few Americans think about the indigenous perspective -not just in the issues I mentioned, but just in general. This is largely due to the fact most non-indigenous people don’t encounter, interact with, or sometimes even know any Native Americans, who are only about 2% of the population. On the other hand, that means there are about as many indigenous people in our country as there are Muslims, Jews, Mormons, and several other groups. Sadly, that doesn’t keep many non-Natives from speaking FOR them, saying what does or does not, or should or should not, concern or insult American Indians.

At 6:00 p.m. tonight, Thursday, February 23^rd, at the Backdoor Playhouse on Tech campus, I’ll be hosting a panel about contemporary indigenous issues. I will be doing very little talking, most of it will be done by our panelists- five Native Americans from around the state (one from Cookeville) representing five different tribal nations. The second half of the hour will be them answering questions from the audience. This is a rare and wonderful opportunity to find out what is important to these individuals and their communities. I hope you can join us, it’s free to the public.

 (NOTE: the event went extremely well, with a lot of engaging discussion between the panelists and the audience.)

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Brief Overview of Indigenous Culture

 

In several of my classes, it is necessary early on to explain some basics about indigenous culture. This is true in early U.S. history, all my various American Indian Studies classes, Westward Expansion, and Environmental History. I give the same basic introductory cultural lecture in all of them- it is about 2 hour and 45 minutes of me explaining several things that most Native cultures have in common. Every nation and tribe is different, but just as there are some cultural things that make both French and Norwegians European despite their many differences, the same is true for Apaches and Seminoles.

During the first months of Covid, I wound up recording that lecture series (in five sections) on Youtube, to use in all those classes. I thought I'd post the links here so as to more easily direct people to them.

Part 1: The First Americans

Part 2: Native Culture

Part 3: Native Family and Gender

Part 4: Native Spirituality

Part 5: Native Style of Leadership

A Liberal Dose, Feb. 9 2023, "Rubbing Shoulders with Nazis- On a Slippery Slope with Skates"

A Liberal Dose

February 9, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Rubbing shoulders with Nazis- on a slippery slope with skates”

 

On the first week of February last year, my column was about a Tennessee school banning the graphic novel Maus, a Pulitzer Prize winning work about the horrors of the Holocaust. The school board’s excuse was that there were a couple of illustrations of naked mice in a concentration camp scene, and that it was therefore “dirty.” In the first week of February this year I wrote about literal Nazis in Cookeville protesting an adults-only drag show, chanting antisemitic phrases, and saying they were there to “protect children.” The progression from last year to this is both horrifying and completely predictable. Even more horrifying- where will we be this time next year?

While I am disturbed by the Nazis, I am perhaps more disturbed by the people who willingly protested alongside them. “Why shouldn’t they,” someone said to me, “since they have the same goals? It doesn’t mean they support all the other Nazi goals.” For one thing, I don’t care what you’re protesting- if Nazis, Klansmen, or other white supremacists come and stand beside you I expect you to immediately leave and go protest somewhere else. Alliance with Nazis, for any reason under any circumstances, is not morally acceptable in my opinion, and I hope not in yours.

But it is in some people’s. And that’s where my fear lies. You see, I know very well how fascism, Nazism, and authoritarianism take hold in societies, as do most of my fellow history professors. It is never a majority of the people. It is an active, violent, hateful few… whom the majority accepts, normalizes, and allies with on “little” things, until it has gone too far to turn back. The more you accept Nazis in your midst -on your side -the more solidarity you establish with them, and the more you feel justified in resorting to their tactics. I’m sometimes accused of implying that all Republicans are Nazis. I don’t believe that for a minute. But when Nazis keep showing up at your parties, and you keep allowing them to stay, the more, fairly or not, it tars everyone on your side.

Let’s talk about how the Nazis rose to power. One way they got support from more conservative Germans was by attacking the “hedonistic” and “immoral” attitudes prevalent among young Germans in the 1920s. Cabarets, “weird” art, more openness to LGBTQ lifestyles, adult-themed movies… all things Nazis pointed to as the corruption of innocent youth and thereby weakening of society. Now, one can believe all those things and not be a Nazi… but if you let Nazis speak for you on those topics, you are going down a dark and dangerous road.

What else did Nazis do? Ban books, try to limit thought and expression, and control what was taught in schools. This is why conservative politicians’ efforts to do those very things is so frightening. Banning Black History courses… any discussion of race, or the consequences in modern society of slavery, the Holocaust, and Native American repression, in the classroom until teachers and professors are terrified to broach the subjects… and white supremacists wreaking havoc in the streets… it’s all part of the same phenomenon. Common ground, not just with Nazis, but with Nazi ideas and ideals, and it’s getting worse and worse.

Our own state representative has proposed a bill to rename a Nashville street named after John Lewis to Donald Trump Boulevard. Does Mr. Sherrell know that Lewis was one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders of the 1960s, and that he participated in some of the first sit-ins in Nashville? Whether done out of ignorance or contempt, such an action -at the beginning of Black History Month! -is a testament to the need for more education on Black History.

Whether claiming there are “good people on both sides”, or just ignoring the Nazis on your protest line -from Charlottesville to Ralph’s Donuts -it is dangerous.

And I won’t hold back from saying so.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

 

A Liberal Dose, February 2, 2023 "Protesting with Nazis Is Alliance with Nazis"

 

A Liberal Dose

February 2, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Protesting with Nazis is Alliance with Nazis”

 

As I write this, it is Holocaust Remembrance Day. My uncle-by-marriage, who was a huge influence on me as a child and is the source of my love for history books and foreign languages, was a Holocaust refugee. He and two of his brothers were the only members of his entire extended family to escape and survive. I remember, even as a kid, feeling the weight of history on the couple of occasions I met his sister-in-law… a dignified lady who was also a concentration camp survivor, with numbers tattooed on her arm. I remember the feeling I had just a few years ago when one of my uncle’s cousins sent me a link to their ancestry.com page, and I noticed that dozens of their family members all had the same death date. I remember, also, the many other Holocaust survivors I met when I was living in Brooklyn in the 80s.

And just a few days ago, there were literal Nazis protesting on the streets of Cookeville, waving a swastika flag. I’m still hopping mad. These particular Nazis had joined a small crowd of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and (as I understand it) some members of a local church (including a pastor) in front of Ralph’s Donuts to protest an adults-only drag brunch taking place at the bar across the street. The whole crowd was yelling and chanting insulting things about drag performers and the LGBTQ community, but the Nazis were adding to the mix chants of “kill the Jews” and “Jews rape kids.” Some of the out-of-towners left the group and walked away after the Nazis did these things, while many of the local protesters expressed discomfort and even dismay at the activity- but remained on the protest line.

Let me be clear. Even Nazis have the constitutional right to assemble peacefully and to express their ideas. I’m not one of the people who think the police should have dispersed or arrested them, unless and until they did something illegal. But here’s what I do think.

The rest of us have the right to be disgusted by them. And the rest of us should be disgusted by them, and by their ideas (such as white supremacy, homophobia, and antisemitism). And we should express that disgust loudly, clearly, and without any hesitation or equivocation. It was Nazi ideas that led to millions of people -most of them Jews, but by no means all -being murdered in concentration camps. It was Nazi ideas that led to the situation that our fathers, grandfathers, or great-grandfathers risked their lives to stop, and which hundreds of thousands of American servicemen (and women) died opposing.

It took days for Cookeville city leaders to make any public statements at all about the situation, and on the couple of occasions they did they were very delicately phrased so as not to offend the people there WITH the Nazis. A lot of people are outraged by that, and they should be; we should know where our elected officials stand on issues, and if there is one issue that everyone should stand firmly (and without hesitation) against, it is Nazis.

And if there is one thing no one should ever stand BESIDE, it is Nazis. If you tell me not everyone on that line was a Nazi, I tell you that everyone who remained on that line chose to stand with Nazis and that makes them Nazi supporters and allies. Again, I am not saying the power of the city government should have silenced them, it should not have, but the people of the Upper Cumberland have the right, and in my opinion the moral duty, to condemn them. And WE have the freedom of speech to say so, and say so loudly.

And if your moral and political beliefs match those of Nazis so well they travel to protest with you… and you let them… that should tell you something.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE