To state the obvious: I am not a man.
So I don’t know what it feels like to be a guy who makes his living wearing a hard hat and flannel shirts. I do, however, know what this sort of person looks like, as I am the daughter of just such a man.
After seeing a couple of recent political ads, I thought a brief tutorial in labor menswear might be helpful.
Please note: A hard hat is meant to protect, not accessorize.
I keep my father’s hard hat next to his lunch pail in my home office. His yellow hat is filthy from all those years at the electric plant. It sits on a bookshelf as a gentle reminder that I have yet to know a hard day’s work.
Contrast Dad’s hat with the lily-white number that plays a starring role in Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich’s ad. You may have seen this ad no matter where you live because bloggers and pundits across the country have had too much fun pointing out that the steelworker holding the hard hat isn’t a steelworker at all, but rather feature actor Chip Redden.
Apparently, Kasich couldn’t find a real steelworker willing to play one on TV. Seeing as I’m on a roll in stating the obvious, I offer this observation: If you have to hire someone to play a steelworker, then you aren’t fighting for steelworkers. And if you’re going to use a fake steelworker, you don’t want him to look like a stripper for Chippendales.
I don’t expect an actor to look as if he just walked out of a blast furnace, but I’ve got coffee mugs more scuffed up than the hard hat this guy’s carrying. It’s so shiny, so new. It looks as if someone peeled off its plastic packaging, shoved it in Redden’s hand and shouted, “OK, now look manly!”
His flannel shirt is pretty, too.
Which brings me to my second helpful hint in workwear.
Four years ago, my dad’s 69-year-old heart called it quits, and after we buried him, I inherited one of his old flannel shirts. I bought it for him when I was still in my 20s, and I wear it occasionally when I’m working in the yard. I cannot help but smile whenever I pull it on. It’s an Arrow XL, and it’s plaid, like all his flannel shirts. It stood out in his closet, too, because it was a palette of pastels — light blue, dusty cream and pale teal.
Dad never would have picked out this shirt for himself, which you could tell by the look on his face when he unwrapped it.
“It’ll look so nice with your red hair,” I told him.
He looked at me as if my head’s last marble had just dropped to the floor and rolled under the couch. I left convinced he never would wear the thing. It was only after he had died that I discovered he’d worn it down to its sturdiest stitches. The collar is split and frayed, and the colors have faded to the soft hues of a newborn’s blanket. It’s all worn-out, just like all his other flannel shirts.
Whenever I think of Dad in one of his tattered flannel shirts, several words come to mind: Rugged. Strong. Stubborn.
I never, ever think of the word “hicky.”
Yet here was the casting call for a political ad airing in West Virginia and produced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee:
“We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look. These characters are from West Virginia so think coal miner/trucker looks.” The memo also suggested “Dickie’s type jacket with t-shirt underneath” and “John Deer hats.”
Good Lord. At least, spell it right. It’s John Deere.
If you think America’s blue-collar workers are “hicky,” then you never have worked with your hands or known anyone who has. Or, worse, you’re betraying the people you came from, and how sad is that?
The “hicky” ad was supposed to support Republican businessman John Raese in his U.S. Senate race against Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin. The actor who drew the most fire was Philadelphian Damian Muziani, who showed up in the ad with a crisp plaid shirt and lots of negative opinions about Manchin.
Turns out, Muziani has his own thoughts about the best candidate in the West Virginia race, which he shared Monday with Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball”: He likes Manchin, the Democrat.
“I kinda hope he wins,” he said.
He was wearing a suit and tie at the time.
Make of that what you will.
Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine.
Copyright 2010 Creators.com
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy