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l A May 22 A-section article
quoted a New Georgia Project
spokesman who incorrectly
stated that the mail-ballot
rejection rate in Georgia
increased 400 percent in
municipal elections in 2021. The
figure refers to the rejection rate
of applications for mail ballots,
not the ballots.The Washington Post is committed to
correcting errors that appear in the
newspaper. Those interested in
contacting the paper for that purpose
can:
Email: c [email protected].
Call: 2 02-334-6000, and ask to be
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National, Foreign, Metro, Style, Sports,
Business or any of the weekly sections.
Comments can be directed to The
Post’s reader advocate, who can be
reached at 202-334-7582 or
[email protected].Harry Styles has
a new album,
which means
that the British
pop star’s
presence on the
cultural stage
has been
magnified and
his charisma is
on fizzy, full
display in interviews and
performances. And his attire is a
reminder of what free expression
can look like, even as it serves as
a reminder of how everyone isn’t
nearly as free as Styles.
Styles’s music isn’t provocative
or political. It’s a bit of soul, a
hint of funk, a smidgen of folk
and a lot of easy-on-the-ears
lyrics. The new album has been
well-received but it’s fair to say
that “Harry’s House” is not going
to transform the pop genre. His
more significant contribution to
the culture is his style, which is
akin to a cultural mille-feuille.
He is a man who embraces the
grandest gesture and the fanciest
dress. He’s part of a long line of
musicians who have used
fashion as the vehicle onto which
their music is hitched.
Styles’s public presentation —
heavy on Gucci’s gender fluid
sensibility and supplemented
with feather boas and
mismatched prints — is a
delight. It’s a chipper declaration
about the obsolescence of boy-
girl rules, the tediousness of
assumptions and the glory of
creativity. Styles embodies all of
this, he is applauded for all of
this, within the safe confines of
the entertainment world and
from the privileged position of
someone whose identity has
been cause for curiosity but has
not been equated with a
transgression.
Styles presses on wearing his
tulle and organza, and being his
singular self, at a t ime when
people from so many corners of
society are intent on telling less-
advantaged folks, whose
individual lives have little impact
on their neighbors, how to be
and how to live. It’s a small but
invigorating thing to see a pop
star making full use of all of the
sweet liberty that comes with his
territory.
Fame has its burdens, some of
which can be cruel to the psyche.But in the case of musicians, it
also comes with a particular
benefit, which is the expectation
of eccentricity — which is really
just another way of saying
individuality. It’s a gift that can
be tragically rare in so many
other fields. Styles has leaned
into that freedom.
His attire blurs gender as it
has long been defined. He takes
the dresses and sheer shirts and
frilly blouses that are associated
with delicate femininity and he
slides his muscled, tattooed arms
into those darling sleeves and
wears these garments with quiet
confidence. He wears frippery
onstage. He wears it when
making an appearance at some
charitable event. He wears it just
strolling down a path with his
girlfriend. In most any other
profession, dressing outside of
convention would be a
provocation. What does one
make of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema
( D-Ariz.) and her cheerleader
skirts and fuzzy boleros? John
Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s
Democratic nominee for senate,
built an entire persona on his
hoodies and shorts and inked up
arms. Observers itch for an
explanation. A meaning.
Styles’s appearance begs
questions not because it’s in
violation of some unwritten rule
but because it’s so invigorating.
We’re less inclined to ask “Why
does he do it?” and more likely to
wonder “How does he do it?” We
should all get the expressive
leeway of pop stars.
It’s taken a lot of history to
arrive at this point. To arrive at
Harry Styles. There have been a
lot of rockers and soul singers
who have gussied themselves up
and used a combination of biker
leather and frilly ruffles to
highlight roiling machismo, to
suggest that their testosterone is
cranked up so high that they
need a lacy jabot to tone it down
to a level that their fans can
handle. Feminine attire on men
has been used as an intentional
violation, a considered act that is
meant to confront the status quo.
And it’s been used as a statement
about one’s own sexuality — a
way of making plain what once
could not be uttered aloud.
James Brown. Prince. Little
Richard. They all used feminine
style to their own ends.Harry Styles leans into
music’s fashion privileges
Robin
Givhan
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Wednesday, May 25 | Noon
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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)
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Miana Bryant, founder, the Mental
Elephant
Presenting Sponsor: National
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Wednesday, May 25 | 2 p.m.
Health Equity: Aging in America
Lisa Fitzpatrick, founder and CEO,
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Susanna Gallani, assistant
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Dan Buettner, author
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‘Capehart’ with Jeff Nussbaum
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Rewritten History”
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Thursday, May 26 | 1 p.m.
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Friday, May 27 | 9 a.m.
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Moderated by Jonathan CapehartUpcoming Washington
Post Live eventsBY ALEX HORTON
AND KAROUN DEMIRJIANThe panel established by Con-
gress to identify new names for
nine Army installations honoring
Confederate military officers pre-
sented its recommendations
Tuesday, bringing the Defense
Department one step closer to
stripping the rebel monikers from
some of its most prominent bases.
The nine installations, all built
during the first half of the 20th
century, are located in former
Confederate states and often
were named with input from re-
gional leaders and groups who
sympathized with the rebel cause.
The names recommended by
the commission include, for the
first time, women and m inorities,
a striking departure from the de-
cades-long practice of naming
military installations for White
men. The recommendations must
still be submitted to Congress,
where some Republicans remainopposed to renaming the bases, as
part of a formal report before they
can be approved by Defense Sec-
retary Lloyd Austin.
Efforts to rename the bases
intensified in 2020 after the mur-
der of George Floyd, which reig-
nited a fierce debate over the
nation’s identity and its history of
racism. The commission was es-
tablished in January 2021 as part
of the annual defense authoriza-
tion bill, which required the
names to be changed within three
years.
“Every name either originated
from or resonated with the local
communities,” Ty Seidule, a re-
tired one-star Army general who
serves as the naming commis-
sion’s v ice chair, said Tuesday dur-
ing a phone call with journalists
to announce the list. The panel
received more than 34,000 sug-
gestions from the public, Seidule
said, from it t hey selected a short-
list of 3,670 that was then nar-
rowed to fewer than 100 earlier
this year.
The panel, composed of former
military leaders, recommended
that Fort Hood in Te xas, honoring
Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood,
be renamed Fort Cavazos for
Richard Cavazos, the Army’s first
Hispanic brigadier general and a
Te xas native who later command-
ed III Corps, which is based there.
Fort Lee in Virginia, named for
Robert E. Lee, leader of the Con-
federate Army, w ould be renamed
Fort Gregg-Adams, after two
Black Army officers who broke
through racial barriers in the
service. When first stationed at
Fort Lee, Arthur J. Gregg, who
enlisted in the 1940s and rose to
become a three-star general and
the highest-ranking Black person
in the military, wasn’t even al-
lowed in the all-White officers’
club. It e ventually became the site
of his retirement ceremony. C har-
ity Adams, meanwhile, was the
first African American woman to
become an officer in the Women’s
Auxiliary Corps and commanded
a postal battalion overseas during
World War II.
William Henry Johnson, a
Black Army sergeant posthu-
mously recognized with a Medal
of Honor, the nation’s highest
combat valor award, for battle-
field exploits during World War I
would become the new namesake
of Fort Polk in Louisiana.
Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, alsonamed after a Confederate officer,
could become Fort Walker after
Mary Edwards Walker, a surgeon
during the Civil War and the only
woman to receive the Medal of
Honor. She served on battlefields
in the commonwealth and was
later imprisoned in Richmond
during the war.
The commission also took op-
portunities to recognize military
spouses, recommending that Fort
Benning in Georgia, named for an
enslaver and Confederate gener-
al, to be renamed Fort Moore for
Hal Moore and his wife, Julia. Hal
Moore received the Distinguished
Service Cross for valorous action
in Vietnam and later co-wrote the
book “We Were Soldiers Once ...
And Young.” Julia Moore played
an instrumental role in changing
the way the Army notified fami-
lies of soldiers killed in combat.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.),
chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, issued a
statement Tuesday heralding the
list as a “significant milestone”
and a “first step in addressing
Confederate symbolism in the
U.S. military.”
Rep. Anthony G. Brown
(D-Md.), an Army veteran who
campaigned for the changes,
struck a similar note of optimism.
“I learned to fly helicopters at
Fort Rucker. I deployed to Iraq
from Fort Bragg, and I earned my
jump wings at Fort Benning. All
these bases honored men who
wouldn’t want me or other Black
Americans serving in uniform, let
alone in Congress,” he said. “This
is about more than names and
symbolism; who our military
chooses to honor sets a path for-
ward for other necessary reforms
to make our armed services more
inclusive, diverse and just.”
Not every proposed name ele-
vates the stories of individual
service members whose heroism
has long lingered in relative ob-
scurity. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a
celebrated general during World
War II and the 34th U.S. presi-
dent, was the commission’s pick
to inherit Fort G ordon in Georgia,
near the Augusta National Golf
Club where he played. And for
Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the
commission selected “Liberty” to
be the new name.
Overall, of the nine bases for
which the commission suggested
new names, three were proposed
to be dedicated to women, inwhole or in part, two to Black
Americans, one to a Hispanic
American and one to a soldier of
Native American descent. Three
were recommended to honor
White men, and one — Liberty — a
concept.
“Do I think people will disagree
by some of our conclusions? I
don’t doubt that at all,” Seidule
said. He defended the choices,
though, saying, “We listened care-
fully to the communities in every
case and certainly in the case of
our recommendation of Fort Lib-
erty.”
Austin issued an statement of
thanks to the commission for its
work thus far. “Today’s announce-
ment highlights the commission’s
efforts to propose nine new in-
stallation names that reflect the
courage, values, sacrifices, and
diversity of our military men and
women,” he said. “... I look for-
ward to seeing their complete
report later this year.”
The other proposed names nod
to troops whose heritage has gone
overlooked.
Fort Rucker in Alabama, the
home of Army aviation, would be
named after Michael Novosel Sr.,
a pilot who volunteered in his 40s
to fight in Vietnam after serving
in World War II and Korea. He
later rescued his son from a heli-
copter that had been shot down,
who in turn saved his father in a
separate incident a week later.
The selection of Novosel, a Medal
of Honor recipient, was meant to
recognize “generational service, a
common trend in the modern
military,” the commission wrote.
Fort Pickett in Virginia would
be renamed for Van Barfoot, a
Choctaw Indian from Mississippi
whose gallantry in World War II
became legend. Barfoot, as part of
an assault on German positions in
Italy, broke off alone under heavy
fire to assault three machine-gun
nests, killing and capturing sev-
eral enemies. Later in the day,
again alone, he used a bazooka to
destroy a tank before escorting
two wounded soldiers nearly a
mile to medical care. He, too,
received the Medal of Honor.
The commission also was
tasked with identifying other mil-
itary assets with Confederate ties,
including street and building
names, to consider for renaming
as well. It found more than 750
items across military installa-
tions.Panel proposes slate of diverse names for bases
A lot of pain, both physical
and mental, has been endured by
many men and women over the
generations before we have
arrived here where folks like
Styles can reap the joys and
pleasures that others worked so
hard to make available. This isn’t
a matter of cultural
appropriation as much as it is
having the luxury of enjoying a
tremendous smorgasbord after a
long-suffering crew tended the
plants, harvested the crops and
did the cooking.
The cover of “Harry’s House”
features the singer standing in a
room that’s turned upside down.
A sofa, side table and lamp
dangle from the floor-now-
ceiling. Styles stands in the
corner with his body angled
slightly away from the camera.
His hair is mussed and he’s
wearing wide-leg denim trousers
and an ivory babydoll top with a
Peter Pan collar. It’s a shirt that
looks like the repurposed dress
of a toddler. Styles’s right hand is
perched on his chin as if he’s
trying to remember what’s on the
day’s to-do list.
There’s nothing particularly
sexy or tough about the image.
The sweetness of the shirt isn’t
juxtaposed with anything edgy
unless one counts the tattoos on
his arm and it’s been a long time
since a rock star’s illustratedbody made anyone gasp. Styles is
wearing the clothes with the
same nonchalant ease with
which someone might wear a T-
shirt. And while that might seem
like no big deal, that shrug is a
fairly recent victory.
It was 2020 when Styles
became the first man to appear
alone on the cover of Vogue
wearing a long, shirred gown by
Gucci. And it was only 2019
when Billie Porter wore a
Christian Siriano gown on the
Oscars red carpet. And it was
only in 2012 that Rio Uribe
founded Gypsy Sport, one of the
early brands to formally
highlight racial diversity and
gender fluidity.
It’s easy to look at Styles and
shrug off his quirky clothing
choices as the extravagances of a
performer. They are, of course.
But they’re also a small triumph
for those who understand not
only the complexities of gender
fluidity, but also the beauty of it.
As a culture, there’s so much
serious business to sort through
as people come to an
understanding of who they are
and how they want to be
understood. Everyone exists on a
public stage. The only difference
is the size of their audience. We
need to be more generous in
applauding everyone, not just
the pop stars.CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES
Harry Styles visits SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” on May
18 in New York Ci ty to promote his third album, “Harry’s House.”Styles presses on... being his singular self,
at a time when people from so many corners of
society are intent on telling less-advantaged folks
how to be and how to live.
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