Irregular Note 7: Earthquake Yellow

Notes on Marxist literary criticism, eight year anniversary of my arrest at the first Trump inauguration riots, the music of Jensen McRae and searching for hope in 2025

Apologies for my absence. I have been quite depressed with the state of world these days. I don't think I am unique. As someone who tries to remain optimistic, it has been quite hard. A number of my close friends face incarceration, poverty and debilitating health issues. It's been over eight years since my arrest at the J20 inauguration riots. Alongside 300 other defendants, I faced numerous felony charges and a potential sentence of 80 years in prison which were dropped after a year and a half. Despite that, things feel much worse than then while the anti-fascist street resistance of my youth seems non-existent.

In December, I visited California to celebrate a loved one's birthday, see old friends, build with new comrades, and enjoy the rays of the sun. About a month later after I left, the wildfires raged destroying friend's homes and filling the air with toxic fumes. I watched live-streams where dudes rode motorcycles through burning neighborhoods as the sky burned orange and yellow. I shared crowdfunding posts on Instagram. I ranted on my story about people not understanding “mutual aid” as it was originally intended as if that could change a horrifying reality like the fires.

(the only photo I took of my trip to Los Angeles in Early December)

Then, the second Trump inauguration. Billionaires, crypto bros, livestreamers, IG models and internet fascists celebrate while I was stuck reflecting on the past eight years. The streets this time were absent of resistance. Meanwhile, people cried about Tik Tok being banned while their founders courted the incoming administration. It feels so easy to be hopeless these days. A Black Neo-Nazi shoots up a school. ICE raids happening across the country as people post incorrect information on Instagram. Fascist street thugs are released with full pardons. The world in crisis while Eagles fans drink and party next to riot cops in Center City after the NFC championship. The world is emptied and devoid of meaning. Many friends of mine have turned to “internal emigres” focusing on relationships and their internal life. They retreat from the public sphere.

But in my moments like this, I turn to art and music. I've written about this before but I think that most political art especially coming from self-described leftists is bad. I think perhaps that is why it has been hard to find hope these days.

I've been reading a book of Marxist literary criticism by Terry Eagleton. In the text, he describes how Engels despite being communists, often took issue with socialist novelists being “openly partisan” with critiques and potential political solutions. Rather, Engels suggests

“A socialist-based novel fully achieves its purpose . . . if by conscientiously describing the real mutual relations, breaking down conventional illusions about them, it shatters the optimism of the bourgeois world, instills doubt as to the eternal character of the bourgeois world, although the author does not offer any definite solution or does not even line up openly on any particular side” (Eagleton 46).

While I have not recently read any novels recently that have spoken to me in this way, Jensen McRae's recent song Earthquake Yellow evokes some of these feelings for me especially in terms of a search for political hope in a world filled with despair and disaster

McRae released the track “Earthquake Yellow” to raise funds for families displaced by the Eaton fire. The song is a love song to the city of the Los Angeles. More than that, it is a song of solidarity. One of the best written in this century. The first line that made me realize that this song was something different was “when the cops got us surrounded”. Her melancholic voice reminded me of the moments in 2017 in Washington D.C. as those of us in the black bloc realized the police had us trapped in kettle.

(nineteen year old me holding up a make racists afraid again banner after being pepper-sprayed and tear gassed)

Earlier than that lyric, she narrates the color of the sky and the wind “blowing in to kill” and her desire to wait for someone in the hills. As someone who recently shot a music video in the Los Angeles, it really hit. The world is uncertain and filled with terror more than anything else but we still have the hills. And that feeling that despite everything, we have hope is so present in the most subtle and beautiful ways throughout the track.

She has a lyric where she says “I'm only getting older doesn't mean I'm giving in”. I have really been feeling that lyric. When Trump was elected the first time, I was eighteen. I was arrested at nineteen at his inauguration during a riot. I am twenty seven now. I have lived through a pandemic, an anti-police uprising, and the disasters only seem to “come in tandem” as McRae sings. But despite everything, it feels hard to give up despite the circumstances getting worse. Throughout the song, she sings about climate disaster, there's a lyric where she sings “when the river turns to desert, when the desert turns to ash...when you need me most I will not turn my back”. Unfortunately, things are gonna get worse. There's no other way to put it. Putting the fires front and central in the song gets at that, there will be more disasters. The desert will turn to ash. The lions leave the mountains. A new plague hits too close. McRae shatters the optimism of the bourgeois world as Engels would say. But the song is not a doomer anthem. We will have each other's backs as McRae insists.

There is a feeling of hope in spite of the horrors. Earthquake Yellow is a love song to the city of Los Angeles. A love song to a city feels necessary especially in a moment as cities are demonized in the media as crime and immigrant ridden havens filled with woke ideology. Furthermore, McRae sings that “it'll burn but some of it will grow again”. This sense of hope speaks to a world beyond the bourgeois climate disaster void that we inhabit. Again, McRae sings that “it may be doomed but it is still my home”. Despite the potential doom, we have to hold each other and our communities tight so we can resist. Songs like this instills a sense of doubt about the bourgeois world as Engels describes while speaking to the feelings we all having right now.

So yeah. I've been thinking a lot. Highly recommend you check out Jensen McRae's new track. I don't believe in art as resistance. I believe in resistance itself. But songs about resistance in the face of horror and cruelty are beautiful. They must be cherished as we cherish one another.

Some further reading and links:

Good article on J20 by Kim Kelley and it's significance to the first Trump era

Submedia Documentary on the J20 Riots and Subsequent Prosecution

Rough Drafts episode on Hope and Nihilism that Maurice and I recorded after the election

A local Philly organization I like that supports people facing political repression (donate to them)

Marxism and Literary Criticism by Terry Eagleton

A piece from Crimethinc about it being “safer in the front” when fighting tyranny