In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: January 2009

Jon Stewart takes on Gaza

He’s braver than me, that’s for sure.

The best part, in my opinion (sorry, don’t have time for a full transcript, but hopefully one will surface somewhere):

Bloomberg: If you’re in your apartment and some emotionally disturbed person is banging on your door, screaming “I’m going to come through this door and kill you!” do you want us to respond with one police officer, which is proportional, or with all the resources at our command?

Stewart: I guess it depends if I forced that guy to live in my hallway… and go through checkpoints every time he has to take a shit! But then again, by removing him by force… I guess if you believe that there are no more crazy people in New York… oookay!

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WAM! 2009 Registration Now Open

Registration for the 2009 WAM! conference is now open.

WAM! stands for “Women, Action & the Media” and is a huge event in the feminist blogging/media community every year.  I’m thrilled to say that this will be my first year attending, and even happier to say that I will be presenting (in a session about rape culture and the media, with Marcella Chester, Ashley Burczak and Ashwini Hardikar)! Feministe is a proud sponsor of the event, and our own Jack will also be presenting in a different session. Looking over the list of absolutely amazing presenters and sessions, I’m already excited and think it’s going to be an all-around wonderful experience.

From the site:

If you care about amplifying progressive women’s voices in the media, WAM! is for you, whether you’re a media producer or a PR strategist, a journalist, an activist, an academic, a community organizer, a feminist, a funder or philanthropist, a “citizen” media watchdog, a media policy advocate, an alternative-network-builder, a blogger, writer, teacher, artist, technology trainer, cartoonist, deejay, or anything else!

The goal of WAM! is to bring together everyone who has a stake in achieving gender justice in media, in order to share facts and ideas, develop skills, build collaborations, bridge differences and create action plans. We’re bringing together more than 600 participants to exchange observations, ideas, experiences, opinions, and tools for change—and plan together for action.

In my attempt to convince you to attend, I have only two more words: Sarah Haskins.

The conference runs from March 27-March 29 in Cambridge, MA.  The schedule information is here. Registration is $145, or $45 for students and $80 for seniors; scholarships are also available.  Register ASAP, because the fees increase on February 14.

I hope to see a lot of you there!

[Note: For those who don’t know, I’m seeking financial assistance to help with my travel to WAM!  The registration fee is comped for presenters, but I still have to pay for travel, a hotel, and food.  I may seek financial assistance from WAM! directly if necessary, but would prefer that that funding goes to those who don’t have amazing resources like Feministe at their begging disposal.  For more info and to donate, check out this post.]

Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Conan tonight

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is going to be on the Conan O’Brien show tonight. Arpaio is the hugely anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has overseen the deaths of many inmates (including the baby of one inmate), and whose prison policies are stomach-turning. I wrote about him here, and I’d encourage you all to read that background and then call up NBC to complain.

Arpaio is a criminal,* and having him as the face of law enforcement is a joke. There’s no reason why someone with a documented history of abuse that nears torture should be given a spot to self-promote on TV. NBC can be reached at 212-664-4444.

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*Using this term colloquially to mean “a really bad person.” As far as I know, he has not been convicted of any crime (although he has faced a whole bunch of law suits).

Execution style

San Francisco BART Police watching one of their own shoot Oscar Grant

On New Year’s morning, the San Francisco BART police–yes, transit cops–dragged a bunch of young men off a train, including Oscar Grant. An officer then proceeded to execute Grant of them with a gunshot through the back, while he was restrained and lying face-down on the ground.

I think you should watch the videos, if you think you can handle it. They made me want to throw up, made me feel dizzy and aching, but they’re important. If bystanders hadn’t been leaning out of their trains with cellphone cameras, this incident might have passed largely unnoticed. According to witnesses, the BART police reacted immediately by confiscating cameras and phones in the name of “evidence.” The two videos that have surfaced were apparently taken by people who managed to keep their phones because the train started moving before the cops could get them. You have wonder why some city governments have been pushing in recent years to criminalize recording video in public without a license.

Oscar Grant left behind a 4-year-old daughter, along with the rest of his family. It’s not entirely clear yet what happened during the incident, and it may never be. He was apparently not one of the initial group dragged off the train–one of the videos shows him unrestrained and standing up, trying to intercede with the police. According to witnesses, he was trying to de-escalate the situation between the cops and his friends. This is not an isolated incident, not by a long shot. This kind of thing happens all the time: out-of-control police violence in response to non-violent communication. It happens to people of color, and to queer folks too. It happened to me and Jack a little more than a year ago, along with a group of colleagues and friends, for asking the police why they were making an arrest. An officer decided to pepper spray our group, without any real provocation. We’re lucky, and privileged, that it wasn’t a gun.

Who knows what’s going through these cops’ heads? Are they freaking out, paranoid, fearful, are they untrained, do they have no idea what to do? What really matters to me is that they’ve been given weapons to use, and they’re wiling to use them at the slightest provocation, up to and including lethal force. What matters is that any questioning of their authority, whether you’re holding a camera or trying to de-escalate a situation, is seen as a challenge that has to be put down, by taking your stuff away, or “crowd-controlling” you, or killing you. We should all be scared. Especially if you’re part of a frequently-profiled community.

I’m not even going to try and draw any connections to feminism this time around, like I did with Sean Bell. I don’t want to have that meaningless argument about what’s feminism and what’s not. Fuck that shit, really. It’s not even necessary–everyone should care about this kind of thing going down, regardless of who you are, as a matter of human rights and people being crushed by state power. People with deadly weapons, who are supposed to be protecting our communities, and who far too often end up as panicked bullies exacting deadly retribution on anyone who gets in their way. It doesn’t even have to be a feminist issue if that bothers you so much; decent human beings still ought to listen up and speak out, and we’ll still talk about it on this blog.

There is a protest planned for today (Wednesday) from 3-8 PM PST at the Fruitvale BART station. For those of us elsewhere, Racewire has a list of things you can do.

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Why are poor people poor? It’s not the reason you thought!

Right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham on poverty and welfare:

I cannot say it too often or too many times. Nothing FDR did in the 1930s stopped or alleviated the Great Depression. Almost everything FDR did in the 1930s exacerbated the Great Depression. There’s nothing LBJ did in ’64, ’65, and ’66 that helped the plight of African-Americans; in fact, it hurt them. Almost all their actions brought about the law of unintended consequences. The goal of model cities, Section 8 housing, and food stamps was to give the poor people money, not understanding that poor people were not and are not poor because they lack money. They’re poor because they lack values, ethics, and morals.

All that the mid-’60s and ’70s did to the black community was to pay black fathers money on condition that they not be involved in the lives of their children and that black mothers were told that if you married, it would have a painful consequence. If, on the other hand, you acted irresponsibly by producing children out of wedlock, you would have a positive consequence, because government would fund bad behavior.

So LBJ and the Democrats and Republicans had the best of intentions to solve poverty by giving to poor people money, acting as if that was the resolution of their problem, when just the opposite occurred. By giving poor people money by acting irresponsibly, they incentivized more irresponsible behavior.

Looking at that full quote, what do you say to so much old-school bigotry all in one place?  Yup, we’ve got the classic lineup, classism, racism, sexism trilogy all here.  Poor people deserve what they get (so let’s just let ’em starve), black people are lazy and immoral (which is why they’re all poor), and women (especially black women) are fucking up the world with their sluttiness.

Maybe “nice try, hate-monger, but be more original next time”?

Women, Power and Politics

I was originally coming to talk about the Ledbetter bill, which I see Cara’s already covered. I did a bunch of work on that bill last year at the ACLU, got to work with Lily Ledbetter and hear her testify in committee. I was amazed by her – she’s so no nonsense, kind, committed, tough as nails. I wanted to visit her in Alabama, drink bourbon on the porch and listen to the uncensored version of her story.

It’s worth mentioning again: if you haven’t already called your representative on this bill, do it today. You can email and that’s fine, but calling is better. Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representative. Tell them to vote YES on H.R. 11 and H.R. 12.

And while I’m on the subject of women in politics, I actually came on to tell you about this Women, Power and Politics online exhibit. I haven’t even gotten through the whole thing yet, because there’s a lot in there I want to check out. There are sections on the exercise of power, how women in politics use and are judged on appearance, voting patterns, organizing, women’s political relationship to environmentalism, religion – just a lot. There’s a lot.

The Mystical Negro and Self Flagellation

A guest-post by Renee at Womanist Musings.

Who or what is the Mystical Negro? She or he is the one who has been granted permission by whiteness to speak on behalf of blacks. As a mystical negro it is your job to inform whiteness when they are being prejudicial as long as it doesn’t challenge the current power structure. It is also your job to issue the equivalent of hall pass by declaring that certain people and or behavior is not racist. Ever wonder how people like Dog the Bounty Hunter can find a black person to come to their defence when they have been so obviously racist – meet the Mystical Negro.

The Mystical Negro is almost a superhero to whites. Able to ignore white sheets with a single glance, while still marshaling out just enough guilt and pseudo Yoda like wisdom to appear relevant, the Mystical Negro is a wonder to behold. He or she does not hold any real power but their inflated egos allows them to believe that the false accolades and Cheshire like cat grins of their white patrons means that somehow they are a person of value when every other POC is being ignored.

The Mystical Negro is also essential to the necessary self flagellation that every good white liberal must perform to keep their left leaning credentials in good working order. It’s the one that allows them to say I am white but….It’s the one that allows whiteness to engage superficially without demanding any sort of commitment.

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Creature Comforts, An Update

Rebecca Skloot notifies us via email that someone just leaked some government documents to her that include the previously unreleased wording of the new government regulations: They have banned all service animals other than dogs (initially they’d said they’d allow other commonly domesticated species like cats and birds). Specifically it says, “animal means dog,” which may effectively outlaw the use of other animals for service for people with disabililties.

“Crush” porn and free speech

Let it be said that there are officially sexual fetishes that, should you engage in them, make you a really really bad person: crushing. (h/t).

I’ve never heard of this before, but the New York Times describes it as follows (trigger warning):

A decade ago, Congress decided it was time to address what a House report called “a very specific sexual fetish.” There are people, it turns out, who take pleasure from watching videos of small animals being crushed.

“Much of the material featured women inflicting the torture with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes,” the report said. “In some video depictions, the woman’s voice can be heard talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter. The cries and squeals of the animals, obviously in great pain, can also be heard in the videos.”

Yes, folks, there are people out there who get off on women stomping puppies and kittens to death. I’m generally a live and let live kind of gal, and I don’t really care all that much what you do in your bedroom, but I’m willing to draw the line at stomping on small animals.

More interesting, though — or at least more interesting to nerds like me, who find Constitutional law more compelling than stories about naked chicks crushing kitties — are the First Amendment issues caught up in Congress’s outlawing of “crushing” videos. See, “crushing” itself was already illegal in all 50 states, but it was nearly impossible to prosecute anyone for it, because the videos rarely showed the woman’s face and were difficult to trace. So Congress went a step further and in 1999 outlawed the depiction of crushing, and most depictions of cruelty to animals, making crush-porn illegal.

Last month, the United States solicitor general asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. “Depictions of the intentional infliction of suffering on vulnerable creatures,” the brief said, “play no essential role in the expression of ideas.” The First Amendment, the brief went on, is therefore irrelevant to the case.

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