Can we ignore Ben Shapiro’s attack of Megan Rapinoe? It is shallow, it is predictably mean-spirited, and it is far less interesting than a dog barking at a Roomba. Rapinoe is, of course, the co-captain of the US women’s team that won the 2019 World Cup by beating Netherlands 2-0. She also won the competition’s Golden Ball and Golden Boot. But it wasn’t these impressive achievements that made her a household name and an obvious target of the men and women whose millions are made from exciting, on twitter and radio, the sad passions of millions of Americans. Rapinoe is now a very famous and vivid critic of Trump. Indeed, her statement about not visiting the White House if the US women’s team won the Cup transformed their journey towards that prize into a statement against the president, whose policies are bluntly racist and sexist.
Rapinoe returned to the US from Paris at a very interesting time. As she celebrated her team’s victory in New York City—and demanded equal pay from FIFA and that Trump represent all Americans and not just White Straight Christians—the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was attacking, very publicly and loudly, “the squad” (four congresswomen who are not white and not taking any shit from the right or the center left). These women are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Also this week (which we will call it Rapinoe’s Return), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed that he was just like Barack Obama because both are descendants of slave owners. “We both oppose reparations,” McConnell “we both are the descendants of slave owners.”
In what follows, I want to link the elements of Rapinoe’s Return (scolding, anti-Trumpism, slaveholding fathers of old) with the key object in a new film by Lynn Shelton, Sword of Trust.
Here is the relevant part of the film’s plot (SPOILER ALERT): A lesbian couple, Cynthia (Jillian Bell) and Mary (Michaela Watkins), visit Birmingham, Alabama, to claim the house of the Cynthia’s recently deceased grandfather. But they soon learn the house is now owned by the bank and the only thing of value he owned is a Civil War sword. The film follows the couple as they try to make some bank on the artifact, which proves to have considerable value with white supremacist collectors. Eventually, they meet a rich white supremacist leader who offers them a ton of money for the sword; but, at the last minute, Cynthia decides that it’s all that she has of a grandfather who, though a racist, was kind to her as a girl.
Now there are two ways of reading this very significant plot line. One: The white lesbians who are as progressive as our real-world Rapinoe cannot, at the end of day, break with their past, the US’s racial history, and its foundation, which is the raw exploitation of black African labor. The sword of racism is also a sword of trust (between grandfather and granddaughter). But would it have been any better for Cynthia to sell the sword? Not at all. And it is here that we have the second reading: The grandfather’s house has no worth, but his racist relic does. And so, if sold, this only means that the US’s history of slavery is transformed into financial security for the white lesbians. The ghost of white supremacy is monetized. And is this not the present situation for many white Americans on the left and right? This sword of racism? Its monetary and sentimental value?
How to escape this situation? Destroy the sword’s two values by tossing it into a deep well or melting it in fire. Just get rid of the fucking thing. Now that is a tall order for many Americans. And it is here we see what really separates people of color from whites. For the most part, POCs have never been presented with a sword of trust. The past does not haunt them in this way, which is why the politics of the squad is about breaking completely free with America’s past. The violence of this break (or call to break) is so loud that it has alarmed Pelosi. And what precisely is the Speaker of the House worried about? Freaking out her party’s Blue Dogs (the Dems RINOs), many of whom are from the South.
As for McConnell, he knows that the main purpose of his political work is the maintenance of the sentimental and financial value of all manner of slave-era relics. This is so obvious that he has to remind the public that he is not alone. The sword is also there for a black man, Obama. This, he is saying, is simply a part of American life, and the best we can do is to learn to live with it. It’s not going away any time soon.
If one gives this position some thought (McConnell’s), they will see it provides the right with lots of ammunition when “ambushing” whites on the left. The lesbians in Shelton’s film might say “fuck you” to Trump, but they still have that sword in their possession. You can expect that Rapinoe will be reminded of it as well. In a sense, Shapiro already has. You are famous, you are white, you have the sword, you have nothing to complain about. Fifty percent of white women in the US voted for Trump.
