12 responses to “Racial Equity Anti Hero: John Lennon”

1. 

   Lee Carney

   February 26, 2021

   Thank you! I hadn’t found it no.

2. 

   Julia Tayler

   February 24, 2021

   This has been a very informative and important series. One of my girls did a report on Lennon but none of this came up. The drugs did. The Beatles do seem to have a history of using and discarding people. And what a terrible song!

3. 

   Julia Tayler

   February 24, 2021

   She has a regular Facebook page. Queen of Thotropolis. I know your comments were a while ago so you may have already found it.

4. 

   Lee Carney

   February 24, 2021

   “I don’t seek the title of ally. I don’t think I can “earn” it.” I agree. I think the best we can hope to be is just less harmful as much as we can. I make an effort to try not to call myself an ally, as it feels icky to claim such a title when I’ve done very little for it.

5. 

   Lee Carney

   February 24, 2021

   Your comment reminded me of Lord Woodbine of whom John and Paul hounded in their early years, hanging around him at the Caribbean Centre in Liverpool. He mentored them and promoted them into Hamburg. Once they started coming up they split from him. I don’t believe they ever credited him for anything so your comment of John appropriating sparked a memory..

6. 

   Danielle Holcombe

   February 20, 2021

   Yes, and we were talking in admin chat the other day about how frequently it happens that a white person’s “aha moment” or the event that helped them move past some mental stumbling block is born out of a situation of violence to a Black or Brown person. There is no way to go back in time and undo that. But I must be a changed person going forward.

   Lace reminds us not to get stuck in toxic shame. It’s messy there because we generally end up asking the person we harmed to take care of and/or pardon us. But as I am learning to let go of toxic shame, this thought process has also helped me move away from cookie seeking to a big degree.

   There is no amount of anti-racism work I could do that would ever erase the fact that I spent many years with my head in the sand; enjoying the benefits that whiteness offered to me and pretending anyone could have them. I have been violent and wielded weapons of white supremacy, always with a self-first focus. I don’t seek the title of ally. I don’t think I can “earn” it. But that doesn’t even matter (esp if I am not focused on me). I do need to work every day so that my actions are aligned with my values. And my values dictate that I will work every day to lessen ad mitigate the harm (the violence) endured by Black and Brown people, perpetuated by white people (by me) and by white supremacy.

7. 

   Rebecca McClinton

   February 19, 2021

   This prompted me to do more reading, and I and learned it was after being “under attack” (ugh, a centering label for sure) from this song that Lennon then used adjacency to Dick Gregory, “the revered African American comedian turned civil rights leader” to then proclaim “how Black Stars changed his life,” later saying “Black music is my life,” which sounds pretty appropriative. The article indicated he grew in his personal journey after that and worked to change some of those narratives as an ally of Black social activists and refusal to play for segregated audiences, but similar to myself, current or future growth never takes away from harm done and needing held to account in the past.

8. 

   Emily Holzknecht

   February 19, 2021

   It may have been the lowest charting single of Lennon’s, but you’re right that both of them benefited from it. #57 on the Billboard Hot 100 based on sales is still $$$. They made $$$ off violence towards Black people.

9. 

   Emily Holzknecht

   February 19, 2021

   I haven’t found her yet either. I want to find her so I can compensate her.

10. 

    isa hopkins

    February 18, 2021

    An interesting point here — relevant to the ongoing discussion about whiteness v white-adjacency and how both interact with anti-Blackness — is that John Lennon didn’t write that song by himself: it was written with Yoko Ono.

    Yoko, of course, has been terribly villainized, largely without reason. And she’s the only reason John Lennon had any contact with any feminism at all; prior to his relationship with her, he was a wife-beating, child-abandoning jackass. That a woman — and a woman of color — “improved” him with her emotional labor, and then was labeled as the one who killed the Beatles for it… well, that’s already a whole history of white supremacist patriarchy. (Where are the multi-part miniseries digging into THAT part of the band’s history?!)

    But none of that absolves Yoko (or John) of anti-Blackness. And anti-Blackness, even when it comes from POC, invariably serves white supremacy, intentionally or not. And most of what Yoko has been villainized for is absolute and utter BS — but this song? That’s violence.

11. 

    Emily Holzknecht

    February 18, 2021

    I am aware of this. As Tiffany Washington says, it’s white feminism. It’s also erasure even though it actually uses the n word. Because if he says women are that of the world, then what are Black people? Non existent? Not of this world? Or perhaps more accurately for Lennon, not considered to have personhood, not part of the human world. Comparing these two communities in this way only benefits white women, giving them more sympathy while harming Black people. It also strikes me that this seems like a crude/green “light bulb” moment for Lennon, like he didn’t even really “get” white feminism and white women’s struggles until this harmful revelation of his. And obviously he didn’t understand intersectional feminism or Black oppression.

    I have participated in white feminism before. I think there will always be a danger that I will relapse and participate in white feminism again or in other forms of advocacy that harms Black people while helping a less marginalized group. I come to this community every day as part of my efforts to manage my addiction to white supremacy.

12. 

    LeeCarney

    February 18, 2021

    I’m really enjoying this series. I never knew that this was a lyric. Hate that word.
    Also, is there a Facebook for Tiffany as I can’t find her.