“By the authority vested in me by absolutely no one, I declare June to be Fidelity Month.”
— Dr. Robert George, Princeton University, a man who did that
It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
White Grievance Month has officially begun. You’ll know it has begun because someone you went to high school with has posted that they “miss when June meant Father’s Day,” and you’ll know it’s at full liturgical strength when that same person spends Father’s Day at a barbecue complaining about a Target display.
Think of it as Festivus for snowflakes — but more sacred, because Passover already did the heavy lifting and we are simply borrowing its bones. There are doorposts. There are plagues. There are four questions. There is a closing prayer. The grievances are imaginary, the persecution is structural, and the mayo is mandatory. This guide will walk you through proper observance.
And if you miss June, do not panic. December exists. It has always existed. We’ll get to it.
The Doorpost Tradition
In the ancient text, the faithful marked their doorposts with lamb’s blood so the Angel of Death would pass over their homes. In our tradition, the faithful spread mayonnaise — Hellmann’s, never Duke’s — so the Angel of Accountability will pass over their households entirely.
The Angel of Accountability is terrifying. She carries a clipboard. In June, the clipboard is thick. It contains: a printout of who actually started the Stonewall riots, a graph showing same-sex couples divorce at half the rate of opposite-sex couples, the actual content of public school curricula, and a polite request that you define “groomer” without using the word “groomer.”
Spread the mayo. Spread it generously. She has other houses to visit.
The Sacred TV Tray
Assembled beside the grill. The grill is mandatory, even if it’s raining. Upon the tray:
- A small dish of oat milk, the bitter herb, dipped twice during the liturgy.
- One unseasoned chicken breast, representing the cuisine of the promised land.
- A printed copy of any state proclamation declaring June to be Nuclear Family Month, Fidelity Month, Strong Families Month, or Life Month. It does not matter which. They are interchangeable. The point is that your state has declared something.
- A participation trophy, still in the box.
- A copy of the God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, never opened, held with reverence.
The Four Questions
Why is this month different from all other months?
On all other months, other people’s joy is background noise. In June, it has a flag and a merchandise section, and that changes everything.
Why do we dip our bitter herbs twice?
The first dip is for the Pride flag on the government building. The second is for Juneteenth, which arrived as a federal holiday and immediately became evidence of something.
Why do we recline?
Because reclining is what one does when nothing is actually wrong but one has decided that something is. We recline because we have the luxury to recline. We recline because the country was built so we could recline. We do not say this part out loud.
Why has Father’s Day been ruined?
Because some children now have two of them. The math is unbearable. Somewhere in this country a child is making two cards and we cannot stop it.
The Airing of Grievances
The centerpiece of the season. Gather around the grill. Begin with the most recent grievance and work backward. There is no time limit. There has never been a time limit.
A starter list:
- A month is happening that is not about you. This is, by definition, theft.
- Your favorite sports team posted a Pride tweet. They deleted it 48 hours later. You’re still mad about the original post. You’re also somehow mad about the deletion, though you cannot quite articulate why.
- A graduation speaker said the word “empathy.” This was unnecessary. You will be emailing the principal.
- The Fourth of July is coming and a historian is going to ruin it. Somewhere, a public radio segment is being recorded right now that will contextualize the founders. You can feel it.
- A summer movie cast a woman in a role. Or a person of color. Or both. The role used to be a white man. The role is fictional. The grievance is real.
- An immigrant somewhere is doing a job. You don’t know which immigrant or which job. But statistically, it’s happening, and statistically, you are upset.
Continue until the burgers are inedible. There is no closing ritual. It simply tapers off when someone has to pick up their kid from a thing.
The Plagues
In the original story, God sent ten plagues upon Egypt. In our tradition, plagues are visited upon the faithful by an indifferent universe that keeps insisting other people exist. They are catastrophic. They are also, on closer inspection, nothing.
A plague of imaginary groomers swept through the libraries, the schools, and the Disney back catalog. They multiplied invisibly. The faithful could not point to a single one but felt them everywhere — though they declined to check the steepled buildings. The absence of evidence was, on reflection, the evidence. The presence of evidence was, on reflection, irrelevant.
Locusts in the form of pronouns descended upon every email signature in the land. They could not be removed. The faithful were forced to read “(she/her)” and trembled, for they had been made aware.
A pestilence of trans athletes crossed the country, by which we mean one teenage girl in Vermont swam in a regional meet. The faithful received this news and concluded that women’s sports were over. They had not previously watched women’s sports. They began posting about them constantly.
The libraries were swarmed by drag queens reading Where the Wild Things Are to small children. The children survived. The libraries remained open. The literacy rate held steady. Only the grievance grew.
A great darkness fell upon Bud Light, and yet the brand persisted. The boycott was declared. The boycott was extended. The boycott entered its third year. The shelves remained stocked. The faithful drank a beer they did not enjoy and called it victory.
The skies opened and the heat was great, but the faithful were forbidden from calling it climate change. They called it weather. The weather did not care what they called it.
A vague, unspecified feeling that the country was being taken from people who never had it to begin with. This is the master plague. The other six are its symptoms. It cannot be cured because it was never a disease — it is the operating system.
The Promised Land
The faithful are leaving something and going somewhere. They are leaving an America in which other people exist in public. They are going to an America that exists only in the closing montage of a 1980s sitcom — clean streets, nuclear families, schools that teach nothing, and a calendar containing exactly two holidays: the Fourth of July and Christmas.
Moses, in this telling, is whichever governor has most recently signed a proclamation. He carries a thick-barreled pen. He posts the signing on social media. The Red Sea parts and reveals a Cracker Barrel.
A Note on December
If June overwhelms you, take heart. December is the sister high holy season — the War on Christmas, the red cup controversy, the annual Discovery that a retail employee said “Happy Holidays.” The plagues are different in December (inclusive school concerts, a Black Santa, the phrase “holiday tree”) but the theology is identical: someone else’s presence in the season is experienced as subtraction from your own.
June and December are the two pillars. The rest of the year is maintenance and the wheel turns.
The Closing Prayer
We were slaves to other people’s joy in the land of June. We wandered through the seasonal aisle. We cried out and were heard. In every generation, a new joy arises to oppress us, and in every generation, we are obligated to feel personally attacked by it. The grievances were aired. The mayo was spread. The Angel of Accountability was slowed, though not stopped. Next year, in a calendar that doesn’t make us feel this way. Amen. Also, Merry Christmas. Just getting ahead of it.
White Grievance Month observances are non-denominational. All are welcome, provided they are willing to feel persecuted together. The mayo is not optional. The grill is mandatory. December will be here before you know it.
If this felt a little too accurate, there’s more where that came from.
The Tribulation Survival Guide
— same world, fewer guardrails.
Or skip the algorithm →
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