I cannot stop thinking about how much that @nytimes obituary of Larry Kramer pissed me off.

Yes, what a perfect example of "provocation for its own sake." No political point being made here at all. No truth being spoken to power. No attention being drawn to something often ignored.

Just pure good-natured trolling by a lovable scamp with no axe to grind.

The @nytimes, who politeness-to-power'd us right into the Iraq Fucking War, does NOT get to reclaim Larry Kramer.

His anger wasn't a foible that we can overlook in light of his accomplishments. His anger was the force behind his accomplishments. It made him impossible to ignore.

The @nytimes folks do NOT get to pretend that Kramer's "achievements as an author and social activist" are separable from his anger. They do not get to pretend that what Kramer stood for is somehow compatible with their own credulous, deferent, even-keeled, noncommittal centrism.

To think of Kramer's anger as a bug rather than a feature is to fundamentally (and I would say kind of insidiously) misrepresent his legacy.

His approach was acerbic. That wasn't a troll or an affectation. It was (1) earnest, and (2) the fucking point.

To be clear, I'm not saying you have to agree with Kramer's approach to activism, or use it yourself.

But if you're from the civility-above-all-else/politeness-will-prevail school of social engagement, then I'm definitely saying Kramer's legacy does not fucking belong to you.