On overdue debts
The last few weeks have felt very busy for me, because I am fortunate enough to have a very interesting job that I love and am quite good at, and opportunities come at you at what feels like the speed of light, and it would be foolish to not grab them because what if they led to new possibilities and new realms of soul-reward?
Of course, in the middle of these exciting times, there is a real risk of fatigue. I have felt very, very tired recently, both mentally and physically, and as I get older I realise how much recharging costs me: the price has gone up and I cannot always keep up by paying the minimum balance (hello, ill-advised credit card from my 20s).
Sometimes, it feels like the fatigue wants a payment in something vital, like blood or sinew. Even before I caught the whiff of anti-semitism that arguably dwells in The Merchant of Venice, I found the “pound of flesh” debt to be deeply creepy and mind-bogglingly immediate. The Nigerian in me responds to the casual horror of it with an alarming sort of readiness. It’s a visceral way of thinking about debt, and forces us consider how we make up societal rules that we tell ourselves are even and equal, or fair. To have to tear a strip of your flesh off — and then to present it to someone — is about more than equity or restitution. It is about the debtor feeling a measure of discomfort, or maybe pain. It might not necessarily be a punishment, but it is about giving the other person some level of now you have an idea of what this might have felt like for me. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But I see the value, or at least the sentiment of the intention. Sort of.
I was thinking of the notion of debts and how sometimes, we can acknowledge them even as they remain unpaid. This week, I was thinking of Professor Anita Hill, a black woman entire generations in America can and should be grateful to and for, because she is the mother of a very specific legacy that is taken for granted: her decision to not shut up about the workplace sexual harassment she endured gave us new, essential language. It should be noted at this point: some of us have repeatedly refused to get fluent in that language.
And inevitably, I found myself thinking about the decision by some women (and their supporters) to boycott Twitter for 24 hours, following the platform’s brief suspension of actor Rose McGowan, who has accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of rape, NDA etc be damned. Ms McGowan had been vocal for years about this, and it finally picked up some speed in 2017, following meticulously reported blockbuster stories from both the New Yorker and the New York Times, detailing several alleged crimes or misbehaviour that go back decades, as well as accounts from an expanding list of women in the film industry.
I thought about the many women who do not know Professor Hill’s name, despite living in a world her pain and legacy helped build. I thought about the women (most of them black) targeted by Twitter’s roving mobs of rancid, yelping goats (with apologies to goats) prior to the suspension of Ms McGowan’s account. I thought specifically about Leslie Jones, the writer and comedian who was almost felled by a wave of toxic, racialised sexism effluvia on that very same platform less than two years ago. I thought about the women and girls who have been abused by powerful men, only to have their pain mocked and ridiculed and Bad Men who have been defended and protected, buffered by power and influence and the inane utterings of internet-and-IRL-men (and women) who cannot fathom that someone who has not come for them yet could possibly have come for someone else; someone weaker, or less powerful than they are.
And I thought about the pyramid of women’s pain and how after a while debt might not be something you even recognise, because you have not torn off a strip of your own flesh before. Because perhaps you had never been required to. There is value in taking a stand. Sometimes the timing if the stand is the crucial element.
This has been a ramble. I don’t necessarily want a pound of anyone's flesh. But there are some long overdue debts that need to be paid.