In the current climate, it’s important to remember what John Lennon (and, de facto, Yoko Ono) said in 1972: “Woman Is the Nigger of the World.” A controversial metaphor even then, radio stations were unwilling to play it, and civil rights activists weren’t exactly quick to “embrace” what is easily viewed as a reductive comparison between the oppression of women and the oppression of Black people (which means the Black woman is, as Malcolm X, once said, “The most disrespected person in America… The most unprotected person in America… The most neglected person in America”). Indeed, how could one not be offended, as a Black person, to effectively be told, outright (not that it hasn’t been said in actions for centuries) that the worst thing in society you can be is Black? That the only way to get across the message of how mistreated women are is to liken them to a “nigger.”

And, needless to say, in the present, there is little room for “acceptance” of such a brash, diminishing statement. Which is why, when Honora tried to pitch the idea of writing about how the song still holds up in honor of International Women’s Day, she couldn’t find any publication willing to run with an article like that. Let alone the one she worked for daily, which was, of all things, The Women’s Lib. Billed as a supposedly “radical feminist magazine,” Honora knew from the get-go that there was nothing radical about a rag that was reliant on advertiser backing (a bleeding cup brand, incidentally, was one of their biggest financial contributors). But still, she wanted to believe in it. Believe that, inherently, it meant what it said about being “radical,” which would entail being open to exposing its readers to a wide range of feminist viewpoints. Even one as “scandalous” as “Woman Is the Nigger of the World.” Honora was so vehement about wanting to write on the subject—including a dissection of both why it was still resonant and why it was still offensive—that she even got her editor, Lakshmi, to meet with her for a drink in an attempt to persuade her, one last time (through the “greasing agent” of alcohol), of why this article was important.

Lakshmi nodded along patiently throughout, in a way that almost—almost—made Honora believe she might actually be coming around to the idea. Of course, all that was really going on was that Lakshmi was “humoring” her. Doing her best to make her feel “heard,” while, in the end, she was still planning to give the same answer. Honora supposed that’s what it was to “be a boss”: repeatedly (and “diplomatically”) having to say no. But that didn’t make her any more understanding of why Lakshmi was being so goddamn rigid. Didn’t she understand that articles like these were what prompted a discourse? But no, in the current epoch, that’s not what anyone wanted. What they wanted, instead, was to play to the “algorithm approach.” Only catering to what the audience already believed, therefore wanted to hear/have reiterated to them.

And what they believed was that John Lennon was another entitled white man making grotesque generalizations about what it is to be a woman while, in the process, insulting an entire race. But Honora didn’t think it was that simple. After all, Yoko was the more significant contributor to the song. And, as a woman, shouldn’t she be given credit for knowing how a woman feels? Better still, cachet-wise, she’s not a white woman. Which, especially now, gives her more clout in terms of being taken seriously vis-à-vis what it means to be oppressed. Obviously, white ladies like Honora had no say in it, for they’re deemed little better than white men in terms of being “the problem” (#Karen). But with Yoko backing the cause, there was much more room to argue in favor of the song.

As John remarked, “It’s something Yoko said to me in 1968; it took me until 1970 to dig it.” In other words, to come around to the idea of just how much women have gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop in this life. John also noted of Yoko’s aphorism, “She’d had to fight her way through a man’s world—the art world is completely dominated by men—so she was full of revolutionary zeal when we met. There was never any question about it: we had to have a fifty-fifty relationship or there was no relationship, I was quick to learn. She did an article about women in Nova…in which she said, ‘Woman is the nigger of the world.’” So yes, Yoko was the true brainchild behind the tendentious statement. But Lakshmi wouldn’t hear of it. And if Lakshmi wouldn’t, it probably meant that the majority of their readers wouldn’t either. There was a reason she was the editor, after all. She was the one who knew, supposedly, what their audience wanted to read. But, more importantly, what they didn’t want to.

On the Thameslink going back to Croydon, Honora listened to the song over and over again. She kept focusing on the verses that stuck out to her the most: “We make her paint her face and dance/If she won’t be a slave, we say that she don’t love us/If she’s real, we say she’s tryna be a man/While putting her down, we pretend that she’s above us” and “We insult her every day on TV/And wonder why she has no guts or confidence/When she’s young, we kill her will to be free/While telling her not to be so smart, we put her down for being so dumb.” These words kept eating at Honora, who wanted so badly to write this goddamn article about how the song still resonated more than ever in a world run by white (and orange) male fascists. But, as Honora was learning after enough time spent working as both a freelancer in general and at The Women’s Lib in particular, it was apparent that women weren’t just the niggers of the world, but also the appeasers of the fascists of the world. The ones who told them how to act, how to “be” and, worst of all, how to write.

Well, Honora wasn’t going to be told, nor censored. She would publish the article anyway. It might be read by all of five people because it would be limited to her personal website, but still. It had to be said. An “opposing” view had to be offered somewhere. And so, to those who were even continuing to look, they would find that, yes, somewhere in this world insistent solely on “right-minded” thinking, there was an “off-center” opinion.