Staunchly, vol. 31: Men Explain LaCroix to Me
(Originally posted: 9/8/17)
Hi Staunch honeys,
How was your week? I spent mine reading a lot of really good detective fiction, listening to “At the Ballet” from A Chorus Line for an essay on unhappy childhoods, and reintroducing an array of rich, plummy fall lip shades into my make-up routine (despite an average heat index of 95 degrees).
I also discovered that the absolute best way to escape the world is to self-medicate with your vice of choice and watch a video of echidnas having sex. The sight of them waddling their stumpy, spiny bodies into a sort of orgiastic conga line will melt all your problems away.
(I know what you’re thinking: so centipeding is cute when adorable egg-laying mammals do it?? Yes. Yes, it is.)
Let’s dive in.
This week’s Political Thot was going to be about the immorality of ending DACA. On Instagram, I got pretty petty & fired up thinking about pint-sized bigot/intolerance piñata Jeff Sessions...
But then I came across something that hit way too close to home and it was hard to focus my thoughts on anything else (this is one of my famously horrendous pivots)...
[Trigger Warning: assault, violence against women]
In 2007, during my junior year of high school at Harvard-Westlake, Rupert Ditsworth (a grade older; quiet; used to sit against the lockers outside the foreign language classes, offering up a smile as you walked by; isolated—never saw him with a friend but always chalked that up to the brutality of high school), invited a girl to get Jamba Juice with him after school. She agreed because she was kind and caring in a way most teenagers aren't. They drove a couple blocks from school, he parked the car, took out a hammer, and broke her skull open.
Rupert was a white boy from a very rich family and as such got away with barely a slap on the wrist. I hadn't heard his name in 10 years until today, when I was sent this article.
Turns out, Rupert is married with two kids and a different last name. He's also a GOP county chair in Florida. Not surprisingly, he's a big Trump supporter.
His fellow Fort Lauderdale Republicans (god that is a grim group) apparently *just* learned about his history and are trying to distance themselves from him. Here's the thing though: you can't distance yourself from the rotting core of your own party.
Rupert's hate and misogyny is not anathema to the modern, pro-Trump GOP, it is the heart of it. He represents the absolute worst of a system rooted in white privilege and white violence, a system that Republicans are clawing to preserve.
He is a stand-in for all the white men across the country who see themselves as victims and have alchemized a nebulous sense of rejection into a concrete set of scores to settle. In other words, the backbone of the Trump coalition. It's time to expose them for who they are.
Dudes Across the Land: stop telling me how to say LaCroix.
Last week on the podcast Lovett or Leave It, Cord Jefferson ranted about the pronunciation of my favorite brand of delicately flavored sparkling water: “It is La Croy, rhymes with ‘enjoy.’ Simple as that. It’s over. There’s no more debate about it. If you ever hear somebody say ‘La Cwah’ you can tell them they’re being a snob and that they’re wrong. Wrong snobs are the worst snobs.”
All due respect to Jefferson, but that is bullshit. The real snobs are the people who pronounce it La Croy and make a big fcking deal about it like they just discovered plutonium (wait I picked the worst example. Those guys had to kept it secret!).
I have news for you: LITERALLY EVERYONE KNOWS IT RHYMES WITH ENJOY BUT WE DON’T SAY IT THAT WAY BECAUSE IT SOUNDS DUMB.
Yes, I took French for 10 years. And yes, I studied abroad in Paris. That has nothing to do with anything. “Ah” sounds are more pleasing than “Oi/Oy” sounds. It's that simple.
Try it right now. Say “La Croy.” Then say “La Cwah.” Did you feel it? La Croy purses your lips, closing you off from society. La Cwah opens your mouth and your heart to receive all the love and beauty in the world. I didn’t mean that to sound so sexual.
And you know what else: LACROIX PRONUNCIATION IS GENDERED.
I can’t tell you how many friends I have who were devout La Cwah-ers until their husbands, boyfriends, priests, whatever shamed them into calling it La Croy.
Look, ok in general I am against raising the flag of ~ feminism ~ to defend things that are objectively, factually, wrong. And yes of course we should be striving for a society in which everyone is wrong less but also: fuck that! Men get to be wrong so much more than women do! Who was the last person you corrected? Probs a woman!
This is some basic, anecdotal shit but I can’t kick the suspicion that some men (hashtag Not All Men) just really love the opportunity to tell a woman she is being silly and wrong.
There is no room for that soul-crushing pedantry in my world!
It comes down to this: La Cwah is happiness, luxury, and respite. It is the sound of the weight of the world tumbling off your shoulders. The most beautiful wave crashing to shore. It is Capri in July. A siesta by a sun-dappled lake. Free upgrades, ample parking. The Barney’s fall beauty bag.
La Croy is the stifling bureaucracy of modern existence. Your overdue bills and delayed flights. Exceeding your mobile data limit. A tick bite. Some la cr’ointment. Lyme disease, probably.
Let me end by saying this: last year I learned from watching The Crown (I get all my history lessons from prestige steaming television) that King George used to call his daughter Elizabeth his “pride” and Margaret, his “joy.” Life is short. We’re probably all going to die in a nuclear holocaust before Columbus Day anyway (ironic?). Let me live while I’m alive. Let me choose my joy over my pride.
You know what else rhymes with LaCroix?
Au revoir, boy.
Staunchly yours,
Carey