Undone By Her Radical ‘Do
Annah Anti-Palindrome is recounting a tearful tale to readers of Everyday Feminism:
I remember being ten years old and grieving my girlhood – that short period of time when I was allowed to exist without a preoccupation of my physical appearance constantly looming in the front of my mind – a time when my self-esteem wasn’t rooted in whether or not I was pretty enough, skinny enough, busty enough, sexy enough. Time passed and the more unattainable and oppressive heteronormative femininity felt, the more I grew to hate myself and everybody around me.
Hence, of course, the feminism. One mustn’t let all that hatred and self-involvement go to waste.
I let my leg and armpit hair grow long, and I let the hair on my head spiral into a nest of cords, matts, and tangles (a hairdo I would later ignorantly and appropriatively refer to as dreadlocks).
Bad dog. Minus ten points.
I ran away from home – started hitchhiking all over the country, going to feminist music festivals, entrenching myself amidst the company of other (mostly white) grrrls who were shirking their feminine hygiene routines (shaving, bathing, hair combing, general beauty maintenance regimens of all types).
We must warn The Patriarchy. Some woman hasn’t washed.
In navigating through a predominantly white, feminist punk subculture, I never gave a second thought to whether wearing my hair in dreadlocks was offensive — at least to anyone other than The Patriarchy.
Because if there’s one thing The Great Patriarchal Hegemon™ fears, it’s an unwashed woman with pretentious hair.
Having dreadlocks was part of what allowed me to stop obsessing over my appearance.
Yes, of course. Self-imagined radicals with ostentatious hair – hair intended to be “offensive to The Patriarchy” – give no thought at all to how they wish to seem. Who could possibly think otherwise? However, despite this selfless, fearless attempt to provoke The Patriarchy and render it a-tremble, it seems that in the real world no-one gave a shit:
I wasn’t followed around by security guards every time I went into a store. I wasn’t hassled by the cops for hanging out with my friends on street corners. I wasn’t hauled off to jail on the presumption that I was a gang member just because of my non-conventional appearance.
All that effort to no avail.
Being a white grrrl with dreadlocks, as well as someone who wore clothing scrappily held together by safety pins, dental fIoss and band patches, I was still considered employable and trustworthy.
Imagine her dismay. The beast isn’t biting. What’s a grrrl to do?
Despite my rebellious appearance, I enjoyed a level of tolerance from authority figures and society at large that can only be attributed to my whiteness.
There we go. Another windmill at which to tilt.
And so,
Everything changed when I stopped travelling, started investing in local activist projects, and began building a broader, more multiracial community. For the first time, my peers had lots of questions and critiques about my choice to wear dreadlocks.
Finally, someone has noticed her hair. And better still, new frontiers of outrage have opened up:
I learned to identify the ways that white colonist mentalities show up in our contemporary everyday lives. I realised that I was participating in the shitty reality that, for centuries, white people have felt entitled to taking pretty much anything their hearts desire – entire continents, human bodies, land resources, and, yes, whatever cultural trappings of the communities they colonised that were thought to be intriguing at the time.
Crackers be stealing the Sacred Black Essence. We’ve been down this road before, I think.
I finally cut them off – and when I did, I felt (literally and figuratively) a dozen pounds lighter.
And anyway, oppressing all those dark folk with one’s hair is so exhausting.
Though I am still pretty “alternative” looking, I’ve learned to stand up against systems of oppression by doing the actual footwork in my daily life. I no longer naively expect my physical appearance (on its own) to do that work for me.
Not that she ever cared about her appearance, you understand. Being so terribly alternative.
Annah Anti-Palindrome is “a Bay Area-based writer, musician, optical sound-smith and queer/femme antagonist.”
Spotted by Greg Knapp.
Update, via the comments:
On visiting Everyday Feminism, the first thing to appear was this:
“Scholarships available.”
Feel free to tickle my button.
I remember being ten years old and grieving my girlhood
Smells like bullshit from start to finish. Can we just bomb San Francisco?
Hence, of course, the feminism. One mustn’t let all that hatred and self-involvement go to waste.
That.
See also Laurie Penny, whose radical crop, matching nails and endless stream of selfies are merely to demonstrate how little she cares about her appearance.
Consider your button tickled, Mr T.
I no longer naively expect my physical appearance (on its own) to do that work for me.
At least when she decides her fashion choices aren’t working for her, she can easily change them, unlike Mr Luke Clark.
Meanwhile, in other Bay Area news…
Consider your button tickled, Mr T.
Appreciated.
“I enjoyed a level of tolerance from authority figures and society at large that can only be attributed to my whiteness.”
Or your femaleness, sweetheart. Mayhap.
On the topic of “cultural appropriation”… I’ve never really understood it, seeing as how pretty much all cultures “appropriate” stuff from other cultures all the time. It’s called “adopting” or “borrowing” or “cultural syncretism,” is it not? There’s no such thing as a “pure” culture; “pure” cultures go extinct.
To give a random example, I have a kanji tattoo on my back. Am I “appropriating” Japanese culture? Maybe.
But the accusation is odd, seeing as how the Japanese appropria- ADOPTED rather, their writing system from China. And, in fact, the word ‘kanji’ is merely the Japanese reading of logograms which mean literally ‘Chinese characters.’
English speaking people, when we use our writing system of Roman letters, are we “appropriating” Roman culture?
And when a non-white person uses electricity and running water, are they “appropriating” white culture?
What do you call this kind of ideology? Moronism?
Annah Anti-Palindrome
Translation: I’m a huge poser and not to be taken seriously about anything.
Translation: I’m a huge poser and not to be taken seriously about anything.
She’s advancing the cause of womanhood by being laughably pretentious.
Even minus her dreadlocks, Ms Anti-Palindrome is still challenging our expectations of what a “Bay Area-based writer, musician, optical sound-smith and queer/femme antagonist” looks like.
No trace of conformism there.
Ugly tattoos. Check
Armpit hair. Check.
Nose ring. Check.
Retro hipster glasses. Check.
Her uniform is complete.
By the way, on visiting Everyday Feminism, the first thing to appear was this.
“Scholarships available.”
I started… going to feminist music festivals… amidst… other (mostly white) grrrls who were shirking their feminine hygiene routines (shaving, bathing, hair combing,
Bad feminist music + angry, smelly women ≠ good times.
Time passed and the more unattainable and oppressive heteronormative femininity felt, the more I grew to hate myself and everybody around me.
Translation: ” Why won’t everybody pay attention to me?”
Never, in the annals of dripdom….
I love the cultural appropriation idea. The Canadian aboriginals appropriated the wheel, rifle, big screen TV and several billion dollars a year.
Cultural appropriation? One is tempted to tell her feminism is appropriation of male culture, for the spectacle: she may start spinning in ever-decreasing circles until she disappears up her own arse.
More of Ms Anti-Palindrome’s deep wisdom here.
“White voice” is bad, m’kay?
Love the idea that someone so unconcerned about her appearance that her clothes require to be held together has dental floss in her cupboard to do the holding together…
BTW what the hell is an optical sound-smith?
I remember being ten years old and wanting to be a spaceship.
“Whooosssshhhh!” I’d say, zooming through the playground at an impressive fraction of the speed of light, the relativistic effects blurring and red-shifting images of other, lesser, children playing football or hopscotch.
“Fire photon torpedo!” I’d order, when I was about to poo.
But that all changed the day my Dad took me into his study and explained the facts of life.
“Son,” he said, because he really bought into that whole patriarchal nuclear family paradigm, “You’re not a spaceship and you can never be a spaceship.”
Was this a Klingon trap? I prepared to arm my phasers and make a jump to hyperspace but his next words rocked me to my very warp core.
“You’re a Shit-Lord, son. Just as I am a Shit-Lord and your grandfather was a Shit-Lord before me.”
I was intrigued. “What’s a Shit… Lord, Papa?”
He just smiled and turned on an overhead projector.
“Genghis Khan… Terry-Thomas… Emperor Palpatine… all of these great men from history had one thing in common, son. They weren’t just random Shit-Lords from history. These are your ancestors, boy.”
“But what does it all mean, Father?”
He knelt down and put a hand on my shoulder, looked me straight in the eye and said:
“It means, boy, that you are entitled to take anything your heart desires. Entire continents, human bodies, land resources – you can even listen to that rappity rap music if you want to. Life is a pop of the cherry when you’re a boy.
“Just remember this…” he shuddered with revulsion, “The only thing that can stop us is radical grrrls with great big musty bushes under their armpits. Fear them, laddie! Fear their manky, nit-ridden matted hair!”
“I will, Dad! I’m going to start being a Shit-Lord right now! I can’t wait to use my cispatriarchal colonial cultural appropriation super powers to taunt fatties and set fire to tramps!”
And now you know the rest of the story.
You had me at Papa.
To further my point, being a white grrrl with dreadlocks, as well as someone who wore clothing scrappily held together by safety pins, dental fIoss and band patches, I was still considered employable and trustworthy.
Indeed, probably by the shop that sells clothes scrappily held together by safety pins, dental floss, and band patches.
We idolized musicians like The Slits, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, Ani Difranco, L7, and Switchblade Symphony – all feminists who wrote songs about smashing mainstream beauty standards…
Songs about smashing mainstream beauty standards, yes, one of the great musical themes going back to the ancient Greeks and which, no doubt, explains the success that has made these bands household names all across the Castro Street block between 16th & Beaver.
I read them and learned more about the history and symbolism of dreadlocks in the US in context to black folk’s resistance movements against white supremacy. I learned that black folks in the US with dreadlocks are not seen as “quirky” or “alternative,” but as “dangerous” and “militant”.
Actually, it was black (and white and every shade of tan in between) stoner culture aping Jamaican stoner culture and wasn’t seen as anything but stoner culture, the “dangerous” and “militant” are more into Afros, leather jackets, truncheons, guns, and stylish berets.
Annah Anti-Palindrome is a bay-area based musician/Optical Sound-Smith, writer, and queer/femme…
You cannot imagine my surprise.
Annah performs using a variety of different mediums including a Line 6 (DL4) looping system, kitchen utensils, gas-masks, raw eggs, blood pressure cuffs, found objects, her body (mostly her throat), and more!
Her next show is 21 August, I think I can just make it if I can find a scalper with a ticket left. Her music can be found here if you are not sure you want to go, but after you listen, I am sure you will.
My mother died in 2007 from a morphine overdose, at which point I changed the spelling of my name from Anna, to Annah. This was a cathartic shift for me— a shift which symbolically allowed me to resist the life of being a Palindrome…”Why resist palindromes?” please know that it is not a request of those around me, but more a personal vendetta neatly folded up into a mouthful: a daily mantra meant to preserve my integrity. To keep me Inhabited.
Sorry about your mom, but OK, now I see the burden my uncle Bob went through all his life.
Everyone should visit her website particularly if you are a patriarchal person of pallor or otherwise appropriating someone else’s culture.
So the “societal pressures” of “oppressive heteronormative femininity” now include bathing and combing your hair…?
It’s hard to keep up with all these imaginary problems.
It’s hard to keep up with all these imaginary problems.
[ Wheels out correction booth, blows dust off valves, sets it to Heavy Scold. ]
So the lady went from being Anna Palindrome to Hannah Palindrome who drops her aitches?
Ah, but notice how deep she is still in the system, she writes “The Patriarchy”. Capitols! Showing Respect! She needs more radicalization to be a true wimminz!
Annah Anti-Palindrome
Oh fuck off will you?
Thankfully that gene thread ends with her.
Can we just bomb San Francisco?
Nah. That’d be like bombing London, again, just because Penny went back.
The actual SF—and general bay area—version of Come the revolution . . . is to finally have the latest bubble(s) pop so that the hipsters finally go away and leave the rest of us to enjoy taste, style, and a clue . . .
Apparently the Visigoths invented the trouser. No trousers for non-Visigoths.
Apparently the Visigoths invented the trouser. No trousers for non-Visigoths.
Hmmm. After all, someone invented roofs and housing.
—now extend that one out . . . !
Retro hipster glasses. Check
Oh, no, not only being pointless and tacky by having unneeded glasses stuck on the face, having only frames . . can’t quite tell in this case, but some lot of the congeal of hipsters have been going about with just the eyeglass frames, with no lenses.
Yes, it’s not enough to merely inflict an additional layer of being a useless cretin, the hatred of anything of quality must be proclaimed.
Nah, Bomb San Francisco. I watched a video filmed there, to protest George W. Bush they took turns shitting on an American Flag to the wide cheers of the people.
Best use incendiaries, lots and lots of incendiaries.
“What do you call this kind of ideology? Moronism?”
National-Socialism.
Not that its adherents will have noticed. And they’d scream blue murder if you accused them of it. Convinced as they are that Nazism is “right-wing”, Leftists are constantly sleepwalking into its tenets by accident.
And they wonder why the rest of us think they’re a bit dim.
Her music is boring and derivative. Also she uses instruments and effects perfected by Ethnic White Males using anti-femiNazi technology. It’s a four-chord song, except there’s only two. My 12-year-old can do better than that using Sibelius-7.
Best use incediaries
Nuke them from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.
I think it’s been noted here before that SJWs frequently resemble nothing so much as old-fashioned racists.
The point about cultural appropriation is that it assumes, like much of the prog doctrine, that there are strong, oppressor cultures and weaker, victim cultures. No historical development is ever meditated that could change this. Non-whites were, are now and will always be oppressed and in need of looking after.
It’s made more ludicrous by the fact that it is cultural influences that, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, have done as much as anything else to transform the reputations of blacks amongst whites.
Plus the targets of leftie ire are so ludicrously trivial – stuff like twerking and headdresses.
So, white grrrls of pallor wear their hair in “dreadlocks,”, it is white supremacy at work. So what is it when wymym of color straighten their hair, ala Mochelle O?
. . . a video filmed there, to protest George W. Bush they took turns shitting on an American Flag to the wide cheers of the people.
So, yeah . . . That’d be like bombing London, again, just because Penny went back.
The actual SF—and general bay area—version of Come the revolution . . . is to finally have the latest bubble(s) pop so that the hipsters finally go away and leave the rest of us to enjoy taste, style, and a clue . . .
Say, that Everyday Feminism course looks great. I’d love to learn how to free myself from other people’s toxic self-talk.
oh wait…
The Canadian aboriginals appropriated the wheel, rifle, big screen TV and several billion dollars a year. . .
As I love pointing out to the anti-appropriation scolds, that wonderful American plains culture was directly caused by the fact that the Spanish were lousy with animal husbandry. Oh, and that marvelous bead work you see in art museums? French trappers trading bits of glass for beaver pelts. In other words, each side giving up something they valued less for something they valued more. Cultural appropriation is a win-win proposition.
“Armpit hair. Check.
Looks like she has Willie Nelson in a headlock.
“Despite my rebellious appearance, I enjoyed a level of tolerance from authority figures and society at large that can only be attributed to my whiteness.”
Being a leftist, she cannot bring herself to recognize the more likely scenario: her eccentricities are tolerated because she is female.
My mother died in 2007 from a morphine overdose[…]
Pretty much all that needs to be said. While I’m sure that somewhere there exist radical lefties who are not the product of severe dysfunctional, abusive, or broken families, I’ve yet to see the counter-example.
The great man, Tim Blair, has linked to your post.
“My mother died in 2007 from a morphine overdose, at which point I changed the spelling of my name from Anna, to Annah.”
Of course, why not? Quite conservative really. Why not add an ampersand or ‘@’ instead and really stand out in the fight against stuff n that?
The great man, Tim Blair, has linked to your post.
And now there’re Aussies everywhere. Help me move the sofa back to make more room. And for God’s sake, lock the liquor cabinet.
Let me explain the Bay Area.
No, there is to much. Let me sum up:
a good 50% of the population of the five counties comprising the SF Bay Area are, to be polite, less than totally sane. Some of them (I estimate 15%) belong in straight jackets.
Be afraid.
Time passed and the more unattainable and oppressive heteronormative femininity felt, the more I grew to hate myself and everybody around me.
I’ve got a tenner that says she was sexually abused to some degree, hence the loathing of her won femininity.
They always leave that part out and blame Teh Patriarchy.
And now there’re Aussies everywhere.
I don’t think they’re here yet. You normally hear ’em before your see ’em.