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

Month: November 2016

Godwin’s Law is hereby suspended until further notice

Lately, I’ve found myself dissociating just a little bit from time to time. Not in a scary way — just a noticeable one. The first time, I was driving, and someone on the radio said the words “President Elect Donald Trump,” and my brain stepped back a little bit and said, “No, that doesn’t sound like a real thing. It actually sounds like something out of some weird movie, so we’ll go with that,” and suddenly I was a character driving in a car, listening to the radio, in a movie wherein Donald Trump was the president elect. Pretty disconcerting, really. More recently, it happened when Mother Jones referred to Richard B. Spencer as a “dapper white nationalist.”

Trans Day of Remembrance

Today is the Trans Day of Remembrance.

I don’t have much to say, but I thought we should acknowledge the ongoing persecution and murder of trans people, particularly trans women of color.

And, being in the US, I want to acknowledge how dangerous the Trump regime will be to trans people, particularly trans people of color. I didn’t hold with contributing money to the NC GOP when their office was destroyed; that’s sad for them, but they do terrible things, and I won’t support that.

Protections for trans people can and no doubt will suffer huge blows under Trump and Pence. In 2010, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton implemented a policy making it much easier than previously for trans people to obtain passports with their correct gender listed. Previously, a person had to have undergone gender reassignment surgery to make this happen; since 2010, a person needs to have a note from a doctor affirming that they have undergone “clinical treatment for gender transition.” Obviously this is not ideal and still sets up doctors, not accessible to everybody for various reasons, insurance coverage being prime, as gatekeepers, but it is significantly better than what came before. With Pence setting domestic policy, that rule is obviously at risk.

The Republican desire to destroy ACA will also hit trans people, making it more difficult if not downright impossible for many to get access to the medical care. Currently, the ACA bans anti-trans discrimination in health care. That seems unlikely to make the cut under Trump and Pence. And if ACA is repealed altogether, that could leave any number of trans people (I can’t find stats on this) out in the cold, particularly because trans people face such severe discrimination in the workplace that they are more likely to work in industries that do not provide health insurance benefits.

The GOP platform supports electrocuting gay and trans kids to make them straight and cis. It also supports state amendments preventing trans people from using the correct bathrooms. And of course, the rise in hate crimes is not going to exempt trans people.

So on this TDoR, I say we mourn the dead and remember how terrifying what lies ahead is. Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living, I guess.

No Reconciliation. No Empathy. No Understanding.

I know it’s been over a year since I’ve been around. But, what the hell, I wrote this, I figured, I’d post it here. Just in case anybody wants to read it.

I’ve been seeing a lot of calls for people on the left (defined very broadly as “everyone who opposed Trump”) to have empathy for Trump voters. To listen and respond to their concerns. To reach out to the Trump voters they know and try to change their minds with gentle persuasion and calm talks. That, I’m being told everywhere, is the work in front of us, what we need to do.

And it’s been enraging me.

It’s taken me a while to figure out why it’s been enraging me. I’ve run through various reasons, but I think I’ve finally figured it out. Here are a few of the reasons, including the one that I think is the real issue for me. I know it’s real because thinking and writing about it is making me shake and feel sick.

1) It renders me unable to help. I don’t have family that voted Trump. I’ve had debates with many of my family members over various issues, including race and racism, but that “racist uncle” so many white people seem to have whose jokes they let slide for the sake of family peace? I don’t have one. I’m thrilled about that, by the way. Even the most conservative member of my family voted against Trump. I can think of one who may have voted third-party or write-in, but he did so in NYC, so it’s not like he threw the election. From what I’ve read, Jews in general went 70%-30% for Hillary, similar to Latino communities.

2) I didn’t think it worked, from the evidence of my own experience. Turns out I’m wrong about this. OK. That happens. I’ve been wrong before, sometimes quite publicly, and in the fullness of time, no doubt I’ll be wrong again.

3) It continues to put Trump voters in the spotlight, in the front and center of everybody’s mind. Remember before the election, how tired we all were of thinkpieces and essays detailing the fears, the worries, the values of Trump voters? How we all kept asking why nobody was writing articles about Hillary supporters like that? This is just more of the same. More centering of white people and their concerns. More taking black voters for granted.

4) Hillary didn’t lose because she didn’t appeal to Trump voters. Hillary lost because the VRA was gutted. And the VRA was gutted because we didn’t have the Supreme Court. There were over 800 fewer polling places this election. There were voter ID laws. There was voter intimidation and misinformation. There were people—usually black people—turned away at the polls for bullshit reasons. We on the left—particularly we white people on the left—have a duty not to abandon those whose votes were suppressed, part of a long US tradition of refusing suffrage to black people. Those are our people, our comrades-in-arms. Restoring their rights should be our priority, not yet more coddling of voters ready to line up behind a fascist.

All those are true (except #2, I’m wrong about that). But that’s not why I simply cannot bring myself to “reach out” to those motherfuckers who voted for Trump. Here’s why:

I’m a Jew.

I’m a Jew, and Trump ran an anti-Semitic campaign. He used anti-Semitic ads. He wouldn’t disavow David Duke. He’s been endorsed by the KKK and neo-Nazis across the country. Anti-Semites are his advisers and on his transition team. Since he’s been elected, swastika and “Sieg Heil” graffiti have appeared on storefronts in Philly, in middle and high schools. The KKK is holding a victory march in North Carolina. Neo-nazi threads on Reddit have been celebrating.

It’s no secret what the swastika stands for. It’s no secret how white supremacists feel about Jews.

If you voted for Trump, you gave aid, comfort, and support to those people. You threw in your lot with people who want me dead. Who want my 17-month-old son dead. Who want my best friend dead. Who want her small children dead. Who want my parents dead. Who want my grandfather, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my cousin’s two daughters dead dead dead dead DEAD.

Are you getting the picture yet? Are you getting the message that you sent to me if you voted for Trump?

So I don’t give a flying fuck whether you held your nose or felt reluctant when you voted for Trump or wept as you walked from the polling place after endorsing the candidate of people who want me and many of the people I love dead. I don’t give a fuck about your worries. I don’t give a fuck about your fears. I don’t give a fuck about your financial situation (bullshit argument anyway; people making under 50K a year broke for Hillary in the end). I don’t give a fuck about your soul or your psyche or your future.

You support people who want me and the people I love dead.

There is no compromise possible here. What is the compromise with people who are OK with killing me and my family? That you’ll only let half of us die?

No unifying. No empathy. No understanding. No calm and patient talks. No kindness. No compromise. No reconciliation. No common ground. No reaching out. No more chances. Not from me.

Trump voters supported and continue to lend cover to people who want the children I love dead. This is not an exaggeration. This is exactly what white supremacists did to Jews when they were in power in Germany. Every time I think about swastikas appearing on walls in this country and I think about the children I love my heart starts pounding. Fuck them for doing this to me.

If you can reach out and practice the art of gentle persuasion on Trump voters, good luck and Godspeed. I support you and what you are doing 100%. You are doing needed work.

I’ll focus my efforts elsewhere. On looking into doing volunteer work for the immigrants’ center down the block from me. On contributing to the Southern Poverty Law Center. On lobbying to restore VRA.

I have nothing for Trump voters but bile and vitriol. They scorched the earth with their vote. They can go to hell.

The guilt that comes with having no sympathy

A lot of attention has been paid to the mystery of why, God, why, and how, and why again, any marginally intelligent person could support. How has a man who is completely unsuited, in character, temperament, knowledge base, intellect, and home training, to be the president of the United States make it as far as he’s made it? The obvious answer is that there are a lot more bigoted, closed-minded, hateful, ignorant people in the electorate than we’d originally thought possible. But we, as a society, don’t generally like to think of people that way — for all the whining about “PC culture,” we give a lot of passes to be people who absolutely don’t deserve them — and so we’ve sought out other options.

That’s where we’ve gotten “>so many articles profiling the “real” Trump base — salt-of-the-earth, working-class white voters who are stumbling into a new world of multiculturalism, who are suffering from economic woes, and who just want some support for their very real problems. And yet, for all of that, I haven’t been able to escape the feeling that they need to cry themselves a river and canoe on home.

Halloween fun: A compendium of people who still, in 2016, insist on wearing racist costumes

[Content note for… racism. Pretty much any kind.]

You could be Deadpool. You could go with a classic witch or cat or Spider-Man or the dude from Scream. You could be Glenn from The Walking Dead. (Skip the yellowface; the dripping blood and gore is the most part anyway.) Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are topical this year. You could go as Wednesday Addams going as a serial killer — they look just like everyone else.

But dammit, you wanted to be Kanye West, and it’s a free country, and nobody’s going to stop you from covering yourself with brown makeup and exercising your right to show the Internet that you’re a racist idiot.