Mourning Problematic Things

I wrote this on my Tumblr yesterday and immediately felt kind of shitty about it -- not because it's flip, but because, sadly, it's true:

If I removed everything from my iPod that was at all ideologically imperfect, I’d be left with nothing but maybe that one Le Tigre song where Kathleen Hanna gives a shout out to everyone from bell hooks to Vaginal Creme Davis.

I did, in a fit of self-righteousness, removed a handful of acts from my playlist a few months ago because they didn't  jibe with my personal politics, and because as a blogger whose primary goal is pointing out isms in popular culture, going back and listening to those same artists felt way too hypocritical. But it's just as hypocritical to not admit -- even to myself -- that I still like some of those artists.

A few days ago, I published short eulogy for Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, who died of cancer last week. The Beasties were one of those bands that turned me from a casual music fan to a full-on geek, but their earliest stuff was sexist garbage. I don't know how much of that I realized as a thirteen-year-old who took her cues from the guys who made her mixtapes, but at some point I quit listening to the band. I've been more than happy to watch their evolution, but those first couple records are hard to listen to. And I don't think it's unfair at all to include this among all the accolades.

I had similar problems writing about the death of Adrienne Rich -- maybe more so because I was supposed to identify to her in a way I'm not with musicians, and because I couldn't find any concrete evidence of the transphobia of which she'd been accused. I feel as though I should provide a litany of faults -- it's irresponsible not to -- but on the other hand it's stifling my writing.

And it's become so predictable it's getting tiresome: everyone who's done something great, conversely failed in other ways. Maybe that's the problem there.