August 2011 – Page 2

So Long!

Well, it’s that time! Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I learned a lot in these conversations and had a blast doing it.

Now the furry despot is calling. See you in the comments!

What if Michael Vick sold beemers, and other stupid questions

Toure wrote an article titled “What if Michael Vick were white,” and he seems to think the Photoshopped White Michael Vick illustration was the worst part.

Toure found himself in a position of having to defend his original piece because… well, because he wrote it. He spun a tale of an alternate-reality Vick who grew up without the poverty, crime, drugs, and other negative influences he seems to assign to the experience of Being Black; he declares Vick “heroic” for overcoming the burdens of his childhood to live up to his “athletic promise” with only a brief detour into animal torture; and then he acts surprised that no one within the sound of his voice can figure out what the hell he’s talking about.

He explains that when ESPN asked him to write about Michael Vick, he knew they weren’t looking for a football piece (and if you read his description of Vick’s scramble outside the pocket and you’ll understand why). No, he wanted to write about “the Vick meme–the ideas around Vick, especially the social and/or racial ideas around him.” That week, there had been a Twitter debate about how successful Eminem would have been if he were black. Eminem’s success in the industry owes something to his race, Toure says, but outside of that, Black Eminem is unknowable, because “every moment of his life would be different, so who would that man be?”

… [T]he real point is that this test, the thought experiment so many people like to do these days, where we switch someone’s race to test whether a given situation is racist without changing any other aspect of that person’s life, is too naive and simplistic to be taken seriously. The character, the mind and the rhyming ability of a black Eminem is simply unknowable and the test itself fails to take into account that race impacts every moment and every aspect of your life, thus making the racial switch test silly and moot and unable to truly tell us anything.

And he has a point. Every individual aspect of every individual person has an impact on who we are and how we experience life. Black Caperton would have had a different life than White Caperton. Massachusetts Caperton would have had a different upbringing than Georgia Caperton. No-Braces Caperton would have had different interpersonal interactions than Post-Braces Caperton. So, yes, the racial-switch test is as unable to tell us anything about this hypothetical other person as the braces-switch test would be.

Fuck Gratitude

(Have you noticed I start nearly every post with an anecdote? I’m disturbed to discover I don’t know how to begin explaining something without sharing my context. I’m sure its a character flaw somehow. In any event, I wrote this post about a year ago to put up at my non-blog, but decided…eh…no one reads that shit anyway. But since I have the opportunity to inflict one last philosophical post on you guys…I’m going to share it here.)

To me, the concept of gratitude is inextricably linked with the Christian sect I abandoned years ago. As part of our religious practice, I was compelled to write a list each week of the things for which I was grateful. At the time we were poor, periodically homeless in a rural stretch of the bible belt. I was young living with untreated asthma and chronic bronchitis.

I was not grateful.

But, as I was taught, God required gratitude. He was God, we were pots…commence bowing and scraping, otherwise Remember Job! It wasn’t clear to me then what more the Head Sky Cheese could take away, but in an abundance of caution, I dutifully made a list every Saturday night. I practiced gratitude to appease those with power…to ensure power was aware that I knew my place.

***
Last Saturday, I met with a client over at McDs. The details are unimportant, but I had happy news. The orgs working on her case had been able to remove an impediment that was preventing her from obtaining emergency housing for herself and her daughter. In fact, Mr Kristen had twisted some arms and gotten the property manager to come out on a weekend to sign the necessary paperwork so they could move in immediately. While I drove my client and her daughter to pick up their belongings, Mr Kristen coordinated with the orgs to have linens, groceries, and even a few toys and videos delivered. For once, the process worked exactly as we envisioned.

I bring up the success of this effort because usually by the time we’ve reached this point in the process I’m pissed off and apologizing for the continual fuck ups. But this time, I was probably beaming with happiness.

After seeing them settled in Mr Kristen and I started heading for the door. My client moved to get up and I waived her back down and said I’d lock up on the way out. And then she said “I wouldn’t want you to think we were ungrateful.”

Wham…like a stack of bricks.

She’s exhausted, stressed, near to dropping with relief. She’s left her home, her belongings. She doesn’t have a job. Beyond the tiny cash envelop in her kitchen, she had real means to care for her self or her daughter.

And yet she felt the need to be grateful. To express gratitude in case we might somehow take offense if she failed to do so.

Penelope Trunk’s new “Blueprint for a Woman’s Life:” Same as the old blueprint. Sigh.

I think that Penelope Trunk sometimes gives great career advice. I like that she values being lost, being open and honest, and making interesting mistakes on the way to finding an interesting and happy life. And even when I strongly disagree with her she never bores me.

She really pisses me off sometimes, but she never bores me. Until last week, when she basically tried to pass off “make it your life’s ambition to find and keep a husband” as groundbreaking life advice for women.

I debated posting about her “Blueprint for a Woman’s Life,” which is a plan she wishes she had followed between 18 and 45 and now wants to give to young (straight, educated, wealthy) women (who want marriage and kids with a wealthy man), because I think she’d loooooooove to have the attention of pissed-off feminists. But then I started reading all the blog comments that were like “OMG, this is the best and wisest thing that you could ever have said!” and then I Feminist-Hulked out.

An appetite for moral panics

Anthony Bourdain has had freakouts over Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Alice Waters, Guy Fieri, and now Paula Deen. The most recent pissiness–the carping on Deen–was because (he said) she is beholden to corporate interests and she features foods (southern foods, by the way) on her show that are “fucking bad for you” (both true, by the way).

Now, I don’t give a shit about Bourdain per se, he’s known for talking smack about everyone (especially Food Network stars–dude, seriously, find another hobby) and I mean really, Deen’s grown and can take care of herself. But this does point to a particular strain of upper-class righteousness. Frank Bruni pointed out the hypocrisy of food personalities (I hesitate to call any of them chefs) who sniff in disdain at the likes of Deen using butter or cream but salivate over duck confit or pork rinds in the latest hot chef’s dish.

However, unlike Bruni, I call bullshit on all these jokers.

First, it’s nothing more that a bunch of wealthy, well-known White people getting into more dramz while the actual people they claim to champion (oh, please) are still coping with the grocery gap, working longer hours for less pay, or chronic unemployment. Organic, farm fresh food is not easily obtainable for many people, and getting the time (or the money–butter is really expensive) to make Paula Deen’s dishes is no cakewalk either. This is nothing more than two sets of elites with different audiences and PR strategies duking it out.

Second, people on both sides are engaging in the moral deathfat panic, and it’s not helping anyone. Foodies, the frugal, lefties and right-wingers all seem to agree that being fat is horrible and a shameful thing, indicative of self-indulgence and a lack of discipline, and then all sides engage in shaming people who point out that it’s not just a matter of making the correct and moral choices. They also seem to miss the point that if the only marker of health you use is thinness, people will do some really hazardous stuff to get thin, and they will be assumed to be healthy. Look–I was very underweight up until about 12 years ago when I finally hit a normal weight. I can guarantee you that when I was underweight, I snarfed down junk food and fried crap, eschewed vegetables, drank entirely too much caffiene (still do, actually) and never worked out. But no one gave me crap because hey! I was thin, therefore I was healthy.

Third, people on “both” sides of this argument suddenly discover the magic of the bootstrap and self-discipline-to the point where you wonder how they’re on different sides. They sure aren’t on my side, or the side of my neighbors, no matter what they may claim. You could eat better if you just tried! You’re choosing to not eat beans and rice (forget being underhoused or not being able to afford a freezer to store all those extra helpings of chili and lentil stew you could make). You’re making bad choices–just don’t listen to that elitist liberal on the Travel Channel/that elitist conservative on the Food Network! Parents today whine and make excuses instead of making fresh, healthy meals for their children. And I call BS on that garbage as well. I am single, I don’t have children, and after my commute home (which is long, by the way), I am often too tired to cook. Or I am so hungry that my hands are shaking and so I go for whatever I can make in under five minutes. I’m not sure how lecturing and shaming people about how You’re Doing it Wrong is actually going to get us anywhere, and I’ve seen that on all sides of this.

If I find this cumbersome at times (and I love to cook, and am often gratified when I can take the time to do so properly, and have been grateful to be able to do more of that this summer), how do you think other people find it? The working poor and the destitute? Overworked parents? People on food stamps? People with no easy access to grocery stores, let alone farmers markets (which are often really expensive)? People who don’t have sunny yars or balconies, who don’t have a plot in a community garden (unlike me) who don’t have the transportation to get to a grocery store?

So you know, this concern over elitism and health and corporate interests rings hollow when it comes from these folks. Access and money (yeah, I said it, call me a socialist, I don’t care) would go a long way to solve the problem of the food crisis. But you can’t solve the food crisis or the health crisis (no, I’m not going to call it the obesity crisis, FFS) without solving the poverty crisis and the unemployment crisis and the overwork crisis and the lack of access crisis. It isn’t always about making good choices when the choices you’ve got in front of you are crappy either way. And it isn’t about talking smack about a Food Network personality or a Travel Channel personality.

In Cameroon with UNITAID

I’ve been MIA from the blog for the past few days because I’m in Cameroon with a crack team of bloggers — Cheryl Contee, Baratunde Thurston and Mark Goldberg — to cover the work being done here to prevent and treat tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and mother-to-baby HIV transmission, funded by UNITAID. We’re on a tight schedule so I’ll post more detail when I’m back home (hurricane willing…), but for now check out this post by Mark about UNITAID’s mission:

The main way that UNITAID raises its funds is through a small levy on airline tickets in a few countries: France, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Mali, Niger and Cameroon. The “tax” ranges from 1 euro per ticket to as much as 40 euros per ticket (for a first class international ticket to France.) Over $2 billion has been raised through this ticket levy since 2006.

With those funds UNITAID does a few things. They are able to buy AIDS, TB, and Malaria medicines in bulk, which helps drive down the cost. They also help to create markets for medicines in which the market would otherwise not exist.

Pediatric HIV/AIDS medicines is a good example of how this works. In the western world the transmission of HIV from pregnant mother to child has virtually been eliminated. This means that in rich countries there is almost no demand for specialized pediatric HIV/AIDS treatment so no drug companies much bothered to develop affordable anti-retro viral medicines for children.

There’s more over at UN Dispatch.

The Rights of Children – Yeah, I Went There

The U.N Convention on the Rights of the Child is the latest in a line of international agreements on the human rights of children and has been ratified by every member of the United Nations with the exception of Somalia and the United States. Somalia hasn’t refused to ratify the treaty, they’ve just not had the institutions in place to make treaty ratification a reality. In the US, the Convention has met staunch opposition from the right where opponents argue that it strips away parental rights, conflicts with the US Constitution and is generally bad news. So what does the heinous piece of international law say?

What I mean when I talk about movies that bore the everloving shit out of me.

For some masochistic reason, I ended up watching the trailer for The Art of Getting By today.

Here’s the official synopsis:

THE ART OF GETTING BY stars Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who’s made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, who is befriended by Sally (Emma Roberts — Scream 4), a beautiful and complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.

Now, I didn’t read the synopsis before I watched the trailer, and here is a more or less liveblog of my thoughts.

George doesn’t do any work, because it’s stupid and pointless. He wears black and is alienated. He doodles in his notebook. Some older brother/friend/mentor decides these doodles are genius. Freddie ends up in an art class with a beardy old teacher. There is a problem, because Freddie doesn’t have anything to say. He needs to FIND something to say.

(I bet he will meet a lady)

(cue music)

Enter a lady! She is very pretty. We know she is cool, because she wears black and white stripes, like a French person. She will inspire Freddy! She will help him find something to say, as they have school-skipping (whoa, rebellious!) adventures in New York City (of course) and he will develop a huge NiceGuy crush on her but pretend to be just her friend until his older brother/mentor decides to put the moves on her (gross!) and then he will be angrysad and do some lonely cinematic walking and then he will dig down and be inspired and make some Real Art from his manpain. (P.S. The heroine is described as “complicated” in the movie synopsis, which is usually code for “has some kind of mental illness or emotional problem” and also sometimes code for “sleeps with older men” or “men other than our dweeby hero”- aka – Manic Pixie Dream Girl).

Chances that his Great Art project is a painting of her?

An Ode to Video Games – Well, Maybe Not an Ode

Oh, yes. My commodore 64. Circa 1989 you would have found me hunched over my C64 coding early video games and saving them on to a cassette tape. I loved video games from the beginning and I still own a working version of every console I ever played on. And I’m not picky either. I’ve played everything from Civ to Rainbow Six to Phoenix Wright.

But all is not right in video game land. Developers struggle to incorporate any diversity, to find compelling stories that don’t use tired tropes, and IMO to understand what it is that people enjoyable about gaming. A lot of these issues came up in Captain Awkward’s fascinating post on casting in the film industry where commentor Travis drew some interesting connections between how the film industry fucks up and how the video game industry fucks up.

In particular he noted a shifting trend:

Some publishers…are “sensing” a “audience shift”—more and more women and non-white PoC are playing video games (like they always have been, natch) and are considering catering to those audiences more.

All of which would be awesome, except *historically* appealing to women in the video game industry has taken the form of making things *pink* or *social*. Which, sure, I’ve rocked the pink xbox controller, but pink is not the way to my gaming dollars. Instead, I love games that are more flexible in gender presentation like Oblivion. I love games that are flexible in romantic interest like Fable. I hate games where the gender of the character is fixed (Call of Duty) or where they flub the gendered pronouns (Mass Effect)*. The reality is that women – *waives* – like a variety of different types of video games and a variety of different color game controllers.

Travis goes on to make an important observation:

Others [publishers] are a little higher-minded, and are beginning to see that video games aren’t just for people wanting to test their skills or fulfill some kind of fantasy—they’re for people who want to experience stories and narratives in a whole new way.

Which, first, is definitely true. But still I have concerns. Mainly, because a good number of women like playing video games for a whole host of reasons. And one of the things I’ve heard from developers is that women play RPGs, cooperative games, or social games and we don’t like shooters or competitive games. Fuck that noise. My KDR was on my resume when I was looking for a job. I’m writing this post between rounds of Team Deathmatch.

Female gamers are not a monolith and as publishers and developers begin to react to these demographic shifts I hope they will listen to the voices of actual women rather than relying on tired tropes about our likes and dislikes.

So my question to you dear gaming commentors is (1) what do love and love to hate about video games; and (2) why do you play? To the non-gamers among us, why the fuck not? Or said differently what would make you spend your entertainment dollars on a video game?

*Yeah, I’m looking at you Mass Effect…how could you be in development for so freaking long and still have male pronouns with female characters. Boooooo.

More on The Help and Romantic Hindsight

. . .though not by me. In the comments on Jill’s post about The Help, Angel H linked to an excellent, hard-hitting essay by Dr. Bernestine Singley that covered the reality of being a Black woman who worked as a maid. She also puts to rest the bullshit lines that a family’s maid loved them (no, they often didn’t, actually), and that the maid was like a member of the family (no, they really weren’t). (Seriously, can we shut that shit down? That’s about as patronizing as “My secretary really runs this company!” Oh yeah? Then sign over your fucking paycheck. Your maid is like family to you? Really? So I take it she’s in the will and you know her kids and you and she are in and out of each other’s houses and you go shopping together and hang out over Bellinis and go to family reunions, etc.? Come over for the holidays–and not to work? Yah. Didn’t think so.)