December 2009 – Page 2

Sexual Trafficking of Native American Women is Widespread

The Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center has recently done a study about the sexual trafficking of Native American women and girls, and the Circle News published an article about it earlier this month* (h/t Racialicious). Some of the descriptions of violence in the article are extremely triggering.

We already know that Native American women and girls are at a hugely disproportionate risk of rape compared to all other racial groups. They are more than 2.5 times as likely to be raped as the general U.S. female population — and considering the general rates of rape in the U.S., that’s truly terrifying. So, it should come as no real surprise to us that sexual violence is also taking the form of women and girls being forced or coerced into prostitution. It should go without saying that, since with force and/or coercion there is no consent, sexual trafficking is rape, and due to its repeated nature, it’s also one of the most heinous kinds.

There are many reasons why this type of sexual violence is committed so prevalently against Native women. They range from those issues faced by virtually all communities, like the culture of silence surrounding sexual violence, to those faced by many marginalized groups, such as widespread poverty, to those specific to Native American communities, like the legacy of colonization and horrific sexual violence committed by white men against Native women both historically and presently.

I have little else to add to the discussion myself, but I do think it’s important to draw greater attention to the issue. This report specifically focuses on Minnesota, but I highly doubt that it is a problem isolated to that state alone. Rather, I imagine that it’s being lived and grappled with in communities across the country.

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*Some readers will find some of the language used in the article to be problematic (I do). But while I understand, recognize, and respect that the conflation of sex work and sex trafficking can be very frustrating and damaging, I think it’s important to focus on the fact that in this instance, we are talking about very marginalized and vulnerable women and girls who are being trafficked, and to center them and their experiences in this particular post’s comments.

Lots of potential, but not sitting right with me.

Here’s an article from the BBC entitled “Police team up for rape campaign”. I am doubtless not the only one to have read enough articles with similar titles to now be approaching this one with trepidation.

One would hope that an article with such a title would be about police putting together an anti-sexual violence squad, educating police about treating survivors appropriately or something of that nature. (And, according to the West Mercia police website, they are improving services with dedicated specialist officers and such.) Instead, all we learn from the article is that several police forces (Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria) in England’s North East are running a campaign that ‘reminds people how alcohol can affect judgement’. Det Supt Steve Wade wants ‘men and women to think about how much they are drinking before they put themselves at risk’. Right, because it’s not rapists that put people at risk of rape, and it’s not problematic to put the focus on the actions of potential victims rather than that of rapists…?

The victim blaming vibe seems to be more intense in the article than in the campaign itself – that’s the dynamic in a couple of media reports I’ve found – which emphasises support and services for survivors as well as self-protection measures. The Short word, long sentence campaign website (the videos may be triggering) features an outline of police procedure and has ‘You did not ask to be raped. The blame is entirely the perpetrators’ right on the front page. That said, it would be nice to have a rape prevention campaign with a primary focus on changing the behaviour of rapists and potential rapists in conjunction with an excellent support system for survivors.

Moving back to the article, we get this: ‘Police also stress that rape is more likely to happen between people who know each other.’ As best I can tell, from taking a look at the Northumbria police website, that’s taken from a quote by Durham Detective Superintendent Andy Reddick: ‘it is much more likely to happen between people who know each other, either in a domestic situation or between people who’ve met socialising’. I’m hoping the former quote was just ambiguous reportage from BBC Writer Without a Byline rather than an indication that multiple people in these police forces term rape something that happens ‘between people’. Because that phrasing disturbs me. To me, it makes rape sound like something each participant has an active role in bringing about, some kind of equitability. Rape does not happen ‘between people,’ like an argument or a misunderstanding, something for which the blame might be shared; rape is violence committed by one person against another. And this just serves to take the focus off the substance of the sentence, which is knocking down the myth that stranger rape is the most common type of rape. It’s not so much the ‘clear message that if someone does not consent to sex then it is rape’ the campaign is aiming for.

The campaign is running for six weeks, over the holiday period. I hope it does a lot of good, even with the mixed messages as furthered by the BBC article and those like it. And campaigns against sexual violence, as well as the media getting the messages out there, ought to do better than mixed messages, as there’s enough of that in the world already.

So, health care reform.

This weekend, as we know, was a mess for health care reform. The reproductive rights restrictions are pretty terrible (not as bad as the restrictions passed in the House, but still not good). The fact that the public option was scrapped is incredibly disappointing. I can understand why liberals are upset (I’m upset!).

But I still support passing the bill, mostly for the reasons that Alex Pareene lays out. It would be great to scrap this bill and start over and get a better bill out there, but that isn’t a realistic possibility. That is just not going to happen. So we’re stuck with an unfortunate choice between this bill and the status quo. I think this bill is better.

This bill also isn’t the end-all be-all of health care reform. It can be tinkered with and adjusted and improved in the coming years — and liberals should certainly focus our efforts on that.

But our current heath care situation is just too dire to “kill the bill.” If you believe that this bill will make things worse, then by all means oppose it. But it seems to me that the bill is a net gain. It contains some really less-than-ideal provisions, and it’s not nearly as good as the bill that progressives envisioned. It’s a teeny tiny step forward. But it’s a step.

None of that is to say that liberals shouldn’t criticize the bill or hate on Joe Lieberman (seriously, fuck Joe Lieberman) or raise a big stinking fuss about the bad aspects of this legislation. We should! We absolutely should point out how Democrats are the worst negotiators on the planet, and they’re going to keep getting their asses handed to them if they continue to play their cards this way. And if you really believe that this bill will make things worse for Americans, then oppose away. But we should probably knock off the comments about how Obama is “Bush lite” (or “Bush same” or “Bush worse”). Because, well, that’s just not true, and it makes us sound totally divorced from reality and perspective when we say it.

The phrase “We can’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good” has been tossed around a lot lately. It’s not entirely appropriate, because I don’t think that most progressive opponents of the bill are demanding perfection — they’re just demanding that basic promises made by a Democratic president and Democratic leaders in Congress be met. There are legitimate concerns about cost and coverage. There are legitimate concerns (that I share) about restrictions on abortion access.

If we could all go back a few months and school the Dems in Negotiation 101, and figure out a way to counter a Republican noise machine that just flat-out lies and has effectively built intense opposition to any health care bill at all, that would be great. But we’re stuck here, now, with this bill and not many other viable options going forward. And this bill does extend health care coverage to tens of millions of people. Health care will actually be more affordable, especially for low-income people. This bill would significantly reduce the risk of lost income, again especially for low-income people.*

I would love to see a comprehensive health care bill as much as anyone. I love socialized medicine! And I am sadly aware that this bill is not at all what we wanted. But it helps more than it hurts. And I hope it passes.

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Yeah, I know I just linked to The New Republic. Believe me, it hurts me more than it hurts you.

Read, think, then talk.

Can someone please send Saxby Chambliss a copy of Roe v. Wade? Because it does not say what he thinks it says.

The Senate healthcare bill’s language on abortion “sets up a Supreme Court challenge,” one senator warned Saturday.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) asserted that the compromise on abortion contained within the bill, which would seek to segregate federal funds from subsidizing health plans covering abortion, is unconstitutional.

“What this provision does that Sen. Nelson negotiated sets up a Supreme Court challenge. Roe v. Wade’s pretty clear on federal funding for abortion,” Chambliss said at a Capitol Hill press conference early this afternoon.

The compromise was set up to win the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who had previously threatened to vote against the bill unless he was satisfied the bill wouldn’t provide federal support for abortion. Nelson announced on Saturday morning that he’d reached an agreement to his satisfaction, and would vote for the bill.

Pro-life groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have rejected the compromise language.

“And now, you’re seeing that law that was laid down years ago in Roe v. Wade thrown up in the air. It’s pretty obvious that votes have been bought,” said Chambliss, who didn’t signal whether or not he would lead a legal challenge to the bill.

Doesn’t this man have a staff to vet facts before he gives press conferences?

Roe v. Wade doesn’t talk about federal financing for abortion. And no Supreme Court case says that federal financing for abortion is unconstitutional. What the Court has said is that it’s constitutional for the government to limit federal (or state) funding of abortion through Medicaid (or other government programs). That is very, very different from saying that the government cannot fund abortion.

Of course, under the health care bill the government isn’t going to fund abortion, and is even going out of its way to limit private insurance companies’ funding of abortion. So not only is Chambliss ignorant, but he’s using his ignorance to pick a fight about a total non-issue. Gotta love Congress.

Court Martialed for Getting Pregnant

What the…?

A US Army general in northern Iraq has defended his decision to add pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier under his command could face court martial.

It is current army policy to send pregnant soldiers home, but Maj Gen Anthony Cucolo told the BBC he was losing people with critical skills.

That was why the added deterrent of a possible court martial was needed, he said.

The new policy applies both to female and male soldiers, even if married.

It is the first time the US Army has made pregnancy a punishable offence.

I understand not wanting soldiers to get pregnant while in combat zones. I don’t understand court martialing them.

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

You know what to do.

The abortion “compromise”

Democrats reportedly have the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster on health care reform. Those votes, though, came with 400 pages of “compromise,” which include everything from scaling back reproductive rights to a nice neat check written to the state of Nebraska to buy Ben Nelson’s vote. The women’s health compromise essentially kicks the issue to the states — it keeps the Hyde Amendment in tact across the board, and allows states to scale back abortion coverage even further if they choose. It’s better than Stupak, but it still really, really sucks.

I will certainly have more to say about this later, but for now I’ll go with what Ezra/David Waldman said:

The problem with leaving the decision up to the states, he says, is that it doesn’t go far enough. “I think states should leave the abortion question up to the counties,” he explains. “Then I think counties should leave the abortion question up to municipalities. Then the neighborhoods should leave the abortion question up to each block.” And each block, as you might have guessed, should leave the abortion question up to each household.

Red-Blooded Americans “Assaulted” by Dancing Gay Dude on TV

In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan contemplates the “decline in American optimism,” as evidenced by polls saying that 55% of Americans believe the country to be on the “wrong track,” and 66% don’t think life will be better for their children than it has been for them. Now, Noonan is not one to go with those boring old reasonable causes for pessimism everyone is talking about, like the fact that lots of us are unemployed, and uninsured, and people are losing their houses, and we’re at war and have been for a really long time, and so on and so forth and oh God let’s not list all the reasons right here. Oh, no! These, to Noonan, are mere distractions! She goes directly to the real reason: perhaps it is all because we are so upset about that Adam Lambert kissing a boy on the teevee, hmmmmm?

This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise [whereby all GLBT people and non-conservatives apparently agreed to move to New York where Peggy Noonan and her friends will never see or hear from them ever again? You can read the whole article, but it seriously makes no more sense than that and this may in fact be what she is literally saying – Ed.] was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on… People were offended, and they complained. Mr. Lambert seemed surprised and puzzled. With an idiot’s logic that was nonetheless logic, he suggested he was the focus of bigotry: They let women act perverse on TV all the time, so why can’t a gay man do it? Fifteen hundred callers didn’t see it as he did and complained to ABC, which was negligent but in the end responsive: They changed the West Coast feed and apparently kept Mr. Lambert off “Good Morning America.”

Mr. Lambert’s act left viewers feeling not just offended but assaulted. Again, “we don’t care what you do in New York,” but don’t include us in it, don’t bring it into our homes. Our children are here… increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.

Yes. A gay man kissed a man. And he did some sexy Gaga or Britney-worthy dance moves on television. Also, sang a song. And you, Noonan, suggested this was an “assault,” especially on The Children, who must never ever see this happen, and used the phrase – willfully, consciously, seemingly completely unaware that you might just have set yourself up by using the phrase – “idiot’s logic” to suggest that this reaction miiiiiight be a little bit bigoted. While suggesting that this – Adam Lambert, that is – is actually what is Wrong With America.

I. Just. No words.

Friday Random Ten – the Versace shades edition

I know it’s been approximately 17 years since I’ve done one of these, but I thought I might bring it back. Here’s the drill: Set your MP3 player to “shuffle” and post the first ten songs that come up. Here’s my ten, and a few videos:

Passion Pit, who I saw two weeks ago and who were just delightful:

1. Ted Leo – Timorous Me
2. Sufjan Stevens – Chicago
3. Girl Talk – Summer Smoke
4. The Mountain Goats – Pale Green Things
5. The Capstan Shafts – The Flowering Universe Confounds
6. Tom Waits – Baby Gonna Leave Me
7. Rufus Wainwright – Evil Angel
8. The Bad Plus – And Here We Test Our Powers of Observation
9. Grizzly Bear – All We Ask
10. Jans Lekman – Shirin

Girls, Lykke Li and Thao & the Get Down, Stay Down below the fold.

International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Red umbrella, overlaid with purple text reading "December 17th International Day to END Violence Against Sex Workers" Yesterday, December 17, was the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, a day that was created to draw attention to violent hate crimes committed against sex workers all over the world. Unfortunately in my hectic day, I missed blogging about it. No excuses, and my sincere apologies.

I would, however, like to take the belated opportunity now to highlight this epidemic of violence, and the work that activists are doing to combat it. Here is a remembrance list of known sex workers murdered in the past year (pdf). There are almost certainly unknown victims whose deaths have not been recorded. And while this is a list of those who have been killed, the number of those who have lived through physical and sexual assaults is infinitely longer.

For more about violence against sex workers, and the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, I recommend checking out this blog post about a MADRE event on Human Rights Day (thanks Robin), this article by Annie Sprinkle in On The Issues magazine, Audacia Ray’s post, the GRITtv video commentary on violence against sex workers (sorry, no known transcript yet), and lastly the new report from the Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network (SWAN), Arrest the Violence: Human Rights Violations Against Sex Workers in 11 Countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

This is just a tiny fraction of what actions have been taken, what information has been released, and what blog posts and articles that have been written. So if you’ve written a post yourself, or have something else you want to pass along, please feel free to leave links in the comments.