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Open Thread with Tagetes flower

tigtog

A close-up photo of a Marigold (Tagetes) flower features for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

A close photo of a marigold with petals that are rusty orange at the centre and golden yellow at the edges
By Tracy Ducasse from North Brookfield, Massachusetts, USA (flickr.com) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

108 thoughts on Open Thread with Tagetes flower

  1. From the last open thread, there is a discussion of yoga. This is the first comment by Broseidon King of the Brocean:

    Anyone here take yoga and find the whole thing to be preachy and religious?

    Religion, specifically Hinduism, is essential to Yoga practice.

    This commercialization is problematic in general, but it is of particular to concern to Hindus who see yoga being delinked from its roots. And though yoga is a means of spiritual attainment for any and all seekers, irrespective of faith or no faith, its underlying principles are those of Hindu thought. For Hindus in America, who are often faced with “caste, cow, and karma” stereotypes in public school textbooks and mass media, the acknowledgement of yoga as a tremendous contribution of ancient Hindus to the word is important. This acknowledgement is not to imply ownership of yoga. No one owns yoga. Rather, it is an appreciation of the richness and universality of Hindu teachings.
    http://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/yoga-hindu-origins

    From the Hindu American Foundation website.
    Take Back Yoga: Bringing to Light Yoga’s Hindu Roots

    1. What about people who find it to just be a useful form of stretching/exercise? Is the problem alleviated if they just call it something else?

      Personally, I enjoy yoga a lot as a physical exercise, and I have no interest in silly metaphysics- how would you suggest I reconcile those things (serious question, not snark).

    3. Okay, so, Indian-born Hindu chiming in, since nobody speaking on this is either, let alone both, so far. I’ve also been doing yoga since I was nine.

      1) Is Yoga Hindu? Depends. Which part? The asanas are universal; there’s nothing specifically Hindu about the downward dog, and I’m pretty sure that one can touch their toes without praying to Vishnu for flexibility. The purely physical part of yoga is entirely secular; the religious components come in when you start talking about a fully yogic lifestyle, which, lbr, I highly doubt 99% of Hindus even know how to do that, let alone actually give it a shot. Most of us have jobs and a life and shit.

      2) Am I annoyed by Hot Yoga, Bikram Yoga, Moderately Frigid Yoga, HathaCrossFit or whatever? Yeah. Just call it calisthenics and have done. But again, I don’t think that touching your toes is cultural appropriation; pretty sure Christians have put socks on for centuries.

      3) You’re quoting the Hindu American Foundation, which is a coalition of the particular kind of diasporic high-caste historically revisionist Hindu fundamentalists that make me most buggy. There are multiple errors in just the document you linked to (I won’t get into it unless someone’s actually curious).

      4) I don’t think the kind of “preachy and religious” Broseidon was encountering was Hindu anything at all. 99% of the preachy religiosity I have encountered about yoga was shitty New Age “beleeeeve in yourselllllf” crap.

      5) Okay, so let’s say yoga is inevitably and inextricably religious and that stretching exercises are just the tip of a cow-flavoured iceberg. I’d rather have someone learn how to touch their secular toes and leave than to say “just for one hour a week I’m going to pretend like you’re part of this huge sprawling tradition that encompasses literally every part of one’s life from cradle to grave. And then you can get your snazzy yoga mat and get back in your Prius and leave”. That second one sounds a hell of a lot more hypocritical and culturally violent to me than “hey, I have some breathing exercises that have helped me calm down and become healthier. I thought I’d share.”

      1. ” There are multiple errors in just the document you linked to (I won’t get into it unless someone’s actually curious).”

        I am!

      2. You’re quoting the Hindu American Foundation, which is a coalition of the particular kind of diasporic high-caste historically revisionist Hindu fundamentalists that make me most buggy.

        Super interested in this, too, if you’re willing to explain further. Not a phenomenon I know much about!

        1. Oh, I recall the controversy over textbooks a few years ago- is that what/part of what you’re referring to? I remember seriously side-eying the groups that wanted to (it seemed to me) whitewash the caste system and women’s rights issues in the depiction of historical India.

        2. Hindu revisionism is a huge fucking problem right now, in India more than anywhere, but I can’t do much about that FUCKING Modi govt, so at least I can angrily yell at casteist diaspora desis? :)?

          In the last year Indian politicians have declared: ancient India had airplanes and nukes, caste was introduced by Muslims and the British, casteism is because of Muslims, blah blah blah Islamophobia anti-Semitism perhaps we should support Hitler. (wish I was kidding.) Also ancient India was a feminist paradise – which is why women today don’t need rights because we HAD those, and what more could one want – and an egalitarian, futuristic Atlantis in which people lived for 200 years and probably received great head, like, constantly. (Okay maybe I’m kidding on that one a bit.) Sorry I’m incoherent and scattered, I’m struggling to write an essay but I don’t want to let this thread die.

          I have a long comment in mod answering other queries.

        3. Thanks for expanding. Actually in a lot of ways not too radically different (in tone, if not specific content) from the more extreme variety of Indonesian-nationalist-revisionism, which generally holds that modern humanity originated in Java.

          Also reminds me of some of the ancient Egyptian conspiracy theories/revisionism in black academia, which sucks because the people who promulgate it generally align pretty closely with my beliefs re: social justice and anti-colonialism, but are still full of shit historically speaking.*

          For those who are interested, the theory is (in order of increasing extremism):

          1) Ancient Egyptians were black (as if any scientists actually think race is a coherent concept divorced from social/cultural context, plus Ancient Egypt was relatively cosmopolitan and contained multiple ethnicities of people , at least some of which were redheads, so do with that what you will)

          2) There’s a vast conspiracy among scholars to cover up this fact, so as to deny modern black people any sense of pride or accomplishment, and prop up European feelings of superiority

          3) Ancient Egyptian engineering/science including aviation, immense longevity by way of advanced medical science, and spaceflight.

        4. I think you may be slightly harsh on black academia. Ancient Egyptians were North African. And I think it’s fair to say a large percentage if not the majority resembled Africans today aka black people.

          And most reasonable people don’t think it’s a conspiracy just garden variety racism. That historically led European scholars to reassign Egypt as middle eastern. They couldn’t believe Africans were capable of building a empire as awe inspiring as Egypt.

        5. To be fair, it should be ‘academia’ in scare quotes; it’s generally not actual black academics in relevant fields who believe this; black geographers/historians/ anthropologists, like everyone else in their field, are pretty unanimous the theory is spectacularly false. It’s really people in totally irrelevant critical-theory related disciplines who buy into it.

          And yeah, there really is a near-universal consensus among people with relevant expertise that the entire thing is absurd.

          Ancient Egyptians were North African. And I think it’s fair to say a large percentage if not the majority resembled Africans today aka black people.

          Nope! For one thing, they were ‘North African’ only in the same sense Europeans were ‘West Asian;’ it’s geographically accurate, but doesn’t convey anything about ethnicity. For another, since race is inherently a social construct (I realize that sounds soft-sciencey, but it’s basically the position of every modern anthropologist as well), you might be right in some context that African = black, but there’s actually tremendous internal range of skin tone and morphology within the African continent, and that range only expands if you’re comparing people along a 3,000-year-long timescale.

          In terms of which modern-day race, as conceived of by Americans in 2015, Ancient Egyptians physical features would most closely resemble, the position of most modern scholarship is that there was tremendous internal diversity, with much of the population being olive-skinned, some being quite fair-skinned (which is surprising, but borne out through forensic anthropological examination of preserved corpses), and some quite dark skinned. But even knowing that doesn’t tell us anything about morphology other than skin color, or what internal demographics were like. And again, applying the idea of race to ancient Egypt is totally anachronistic.

        6. On a TL;DR basis, most anthropologists think the primary peoples that made Ancient Egypt were indigenous to the Nile River basin, with subsequent waves of immigration from both Saharan populations and the Levant.

          Interestingly, there were at least some Celtic mercenaries in Egypt as of 300 B.C.E, which is irrelevant to this discussion but still kinda cool.

        7. Obviously, despite “race” being a social construct with different meanings at different times in history, the ancient Egyptians noticed skin color and other physical differences between people, because they portrayed different geographical/ethnic groups very differently in wall paintings — Nubians (who ruled Egypt during certain dynasties) as black, Middle Easterners (including Assyrians, Hittites, etc.) as a sort of yellow; Egyptians as reddish brown (with men having much darker skin than women).

          It’s not like they were the only ancient people to notice ethnic differences; when I recently saw the Assyrian Black Stele of Shalmeneser II, from the 9th century B.C.E., the first thing I noticed about the portrayal of the Israelite king (probably Jehu) bowing down to Shalmeneser was that he is depicted with a suspiciously large nose!

          But if a lot of ancient Egyptians were seen walking down the street today in New York City wearing modern clothing, people would probably perceive them as African-American. On the other hand, Ramsses II’s mummy has a beak nose and genetic studies show that he had red hair. I’m sure that as you say, there were people in ancient Egypt with all sorts of appearances.

          It seems that the most vociferous opponents of seeing any ancient Egyptians as “black” are the authorities in Egypt itself, who prefer to think of them as more middle-Eastern/Arabic in appearance. More Nasser and Mubarak, and less Sadat, in other words. Even though I don’t think the average Egyptian looks that much like the average person in Iraq or Syria.

        8. Obviously, despite “race” being a social construct with different meanings at different times in history, the ancient Egyptians noticed skin color and other physical differences between people, because they portrayed different geographical/ethnic groups very differently in wall paintings — Nubians (who ruled Egypt during certain dynasties) as black, Middle Easterners (including Assyrians, Hittites, etc.) as a sort of yellow; Egyptians as reddish brown (with men having much darker skin than women).

          Yep, which lines up pretty well with the theory that the ancient Egyptian people were the result of a mixing of peoples from the Levant, the Sahara, and ethnic groups indigenous to the Nile Basin like the Merimde (all of which had varying levels of political/economic/social power at various points in Egyptian history).

          It’s worth pointing out that the imagined clean break between ancient and modern Egypt just didn’t happen. Yes, the language changed, but the Arab world didn’t conduct a campaign of genocide in Egypt (contrary to the claims of some), and there’s no evidence of massive genetic displacement. The people of modern Egypt are extremely closely related to the people of ancient Egypt; most DNA studies have found that about 85-90% of modern Egyptians’ ancestry is from ancient Egypt, and only about 10-15% is the result of invasions and foreign admixture.

          I don’t think anyone in academia is saying “there weren’t any ancient Egyptians with very dark skin,” it’s more that the attempt to portray Ancient Egypt as a ‘black civilization’ is ahistorical and revisionist, both due to the aforementioned anachronistic issues re: race, and also because of the demonstrable internal ethnic diversity of the culture.

          I’m totally down with the idea that casting Cleopatra as a white woman in movies (or whatever example of whitewashing you pick) is racist and ahistorical, for all kinds of reasons. But the claims being made here generally go a lot farther than that, and end up being really psuedoscientific. Ironically, it actually is a lot like the claims and tools of Victorian-era scientific racism, just flipped around and repurposed.

          It seems that the most vociferous opponents of seeing any ancient Egyptians as “black” are the authorities in Egypt itself, who prefer to think of them as more middle-Eastern/Arabic in appearance.

          OK, I know this isn’t what you’re going for at all, but that paragraph kinda reads to me like “it seems like the most vociferous opponents of believing women have a mystical connection to life itself are misogynists.” I mean, bad scholarship is bad scholarship, even if some of the people who dislike it are nasty people themselves. Again, I know that’s not what you’re aiming for, but I just don’t think it’s super relevant.

        9. I believe Cleopatra was one of the Ptolemies, the Macedonian Greek dynasty the got Egypt as their share of the plunder when Alexander the great conquered the Persian Empire (which included Egypt as a province).

          1. Cleopatra was indeed a Ptolemy, but just like every other royal kingdom of the time and most of them still now, (a) you can’t tell very much about the ethnicity of a nation’s people’s by looking at their royal families, because royals breed with other royals, not with their own subjects; (b) in any case the pure Macedonian line of Ptolemies had been broken a few generations before she succeeded to the throne of Alexandria (because the Alexandrian mob kept on deposing Ptolemies at the drop of a hat, when they weren’t busy murdering each other, so they’d run out of purebreds) – her father Ptolemy Auletes was nicknamed The Bastard because his mother was a royal concubine rather than another Ptolemy, and Cleopatra was described by some sources as a grand-daughter of Mithridates the Great (intermarriage between the Ptolemies and other royal families descended from Alexander the Great’s Macedonian generals was resorted to when purebred Ptolemaic spouses were not available, and of course there was also royal concubinage alongside it to offer a wider range of heirs to all the royal houses, and this led to a constant infusion of non-Macedonian lineages into all the Macedonian-descended dynasties).

            BTW, Macedonian-Greek Alexandria kept itself very separate from the rest of Egypt and its Nilotic population. The throne of Alexandria and the Pharoahship of Egypt were utterly separate even when embodied in the same person – many Kings and Queens of Alexandria were not also Pharoahs of Egypt. The Ptolemies took on the Egyptian tradition of marrying brothers to sisters and aunts to nephews and nieces to aunts in order to maintain their entitlements to be recognised as Pharoah, because the revenues of Nilotic Egypt belonged to Pharoah, but not to the Kings of Alexandria. This led to some interesting twists in the political rivalries between various Ptolemies supported by the Macedonians in Alexandria and other Ptolemies supported by the priests in Memphis, and the priestly control of the Nilotic revenues is the reason why so many of the deposed Ptolemies scattered around the Mediterranean were notoriously penniless.

        10. Unless you are a Black Egyptian, can you please stop debating on what makes a person a “Black” Egyptian?

          ‘Preciate it.

        11. The problem with that argument is that the discussion isn’t about people living in Egypt today, and how they identify racially — something I don’t know much about (except that there’s a lot of opposition within Egypt to the idea that ancient Egyptians were different racially from Egyptians now), but which I agree is a subject that should be left to Egyptians.

          The discussion — which ludlow22 brought up as an analogy to the discussion about India — is about the opposing claims made about the race(s) of people who lived 3,000-5,000 years ago, using present-day categories that would have been meaningless in ancient Egypt. If the discussion were left to them, it wouldn’t take place at all. Which maybe would be for the best, since it’s been a subject of contentious debate for the last 300 years at least, and nobody is ever going to have a conclusive answer. Because it’s impossible to do so.

          The one thing that’s certain is that ancient Egyptians didn’t look like white Northern Europeans, and shouldn’t be portrayed as such in movies.

        12. using present-day categories that would have been meaningless in ancient Egypt.

          I think that’s pretty much the key point, and I don’t think there’s any disagreement by anyone here about it.

          (except that there’s a lot of opposition within Egypt to the idea that ancient Egyptians were different racially from Egyptians now)

          Not that it’s super duper important, but that’s scientifically accurate opposition, based on DNA studies.

          The one thing that’s certain is that ancient Egyptians didn’t look like white Northern Europeans, and shouldn’t be portrayed as such in movies.

          +1. Also see: Jesus, Moses, and so on

        13. I see non-Black people using some arbitrary definition of what makes Black people “Black” and discussing whether or not it should be used to a group of people. But apparently that’s totally okay because even they were Black like the Black people of today it’s totally cool to talk about them because they aren’t around anymore. And by “them” we mean the Ancient Egyptians and notthe modern Black people we’re comparing them to because they’re still around but it’s totally cool to talk about them because…..???

        14. I see non-Black people using some arbitrary definition of what makes Black people “Black” and discussing whether or not it should be used to a group of people.

          If that’s aimed at me, it’s literally the exact opposite. My point is that racial groups are social/cultural phenomenon, not objective ones, and so we shouldn’t adopt arbitrary definitions of ‘blackness.’

          But apparently that’s totally okay because even they were Black like the Black people of today it’s totally cool to talk about them because they aren’t around anymore. And by “them” we mean the Ancient Egyptians and notthe modern Black people we’re comparing them to because they’re still around but it’s totally cool to talk about them because…..???

          No offense intended (seriously), but I have a hard time following what you mean here. I get that you’re using sarcasm to illustrate a point you think is wrong, but I’m not sure exactly what that point is.

        15. To clarify, I’m totally prepared to take your complaints seriously, but it’d be helpful for me if you identified the comment(s) you thought attempted to impose arbitrary definitions of race (or were problematic for other reasons), because I’m not following at the moment.

        16. I see your point, and understand where you’re coming from. I have never liked the fact that Christians of all races appropriated the Hebrew Bible, and the characters it describes (whether they were historical or fictional or a mixture of the two), nearly 2000 years ago, without consent, calling it the “Old Testament” (in the sense of having been superseded) — blatantly rewriting its meaning and otherwise using it for their own purposes — and have persistently made claims about who the Hebrews/Israelites/Judeans/Jews of the Bible supposedly were, designed to deprive the Jews of any legitimate claim to their own spiritual, religious, and historic heritage. Not to mention the long history of killing Jews for rejecting the supposed predictions of Jesus that Christians read into the Hebrew Bible after the fact. I don’t like it, but it’s been going on a long time, and unfortunately nobody is going to stop it because I say so. Not Christians, and not Muslims who’ve done pretty much the same thing, although not as egregiously.

          The problem with what you’re saying, though, is that the argument you’re making is essentially circular, in that it assumes its own conclusion. I really have no opinion one way or the other, except that the answer isn’t simple. Someone could just as well say that the purported pseudo-scholarship which ludlow has criticized is a case of people applying their own arbitrary definitions to an ancient people who can’t speak for themselves in order to reach the opposite conclusion (that the ancient Egyptians were Black in the modern sense), so that in fact both “sides” are doing the exact same thing. If only people in Egypt should be discussing it, then none of us — Black or non-Black — outside Egypt should be talking about it. In which case, a lot of Black scholars, Afrocentric and otherwise, would be silenced.

        17. That said, I’m dropping the subject. I was a little uncomfortable getting involved in this hypothetical discussion of race in the first place — an issue of trying to apply modern-day racial categories to a group of people who aren’t around anymore, based on guesses about how they would be perceived today — and am happy to abandon it.

        18. an issue of trying to apply modern-day racial categories to a group of people who aren’t around anymore

          Just to be super clear, before I also abandon the discussion, that’s exactly what I was saying people shouldn’t do.

        19. To clarify, I’m totally prepared to take your complaints seriously, but it’d be helpful for me if you identified the comment(s) you thought attempted to impose arbitrary definitions of race (or were problematic for other reasons), because I’m not following at the moment.

          I won’t claim to speak for Angel H, so there’s my take on this discussion.

          the position of most modern scholarship is that there was tremendous internal diversity, with much of the population being olive-skinned, some being quite fair-skinned (which is surprising, but borne out through forensic anthropological examination of preserved corpses), and some quite dark skinned. But even knowing that doesn’t tell us anything about morphology other than skin color, or what internal demographics were like.

          This comment suggests that you’re coming at this with a very particular and narrow definition of “blackness” that may not much apply to the contemporary self-identities of communities internationally.

          My point is that racial groups are social/cultural phenomenon, not objective ones, and so we shouldn’t adopt arbitrary definitions of ‘blackness.’

          I couldn’t figure out who “we” includes, “black” and non-“black” people?

        20. I couldn’t figure out who “we” includes, “black” and non-“black” people?

          We includes everyone, ever. Race isn’t an objective phenomenon, and anyone trying to argue ancient Egyptians (or any other ancient culture) were a member of a racial group as construed in 2015 is wrong, full stop. Such an argument depends on ‘black’ having an objective biological meaning, which it doesn’t. There are more genetic differences between individuals within any given ethnic/racial category then between ethnic/racial groups.

          As social/cultural constructs they’re certainly real, but they don’t have a corresponding biological/genetic meaning. I know it sounds weird, because we’re so used to thinking of race as innate and clearly differentiated, but seriously, ask your local anthropologist.

          This comment suggests that you’re coming at this with a very particular and narrow definition of “blackness” that may not much apply to the contemporary self-identities of communities internationally.

          Only if taken wildly out of context. I opened by arguing that it made no sense to try to use skin color or morphology to assign ancient people to a specific race like ‘black’ or ‘white,’ since race only exists within specific cultural/social contexts, and Ancient Egyptians don’t share a social context with the context in which ‘blackness’ is a viable construct.

          I then went on to say that even leaving the first part of my argument aside, there was significant internal diversity in ancient Egypt, so even if you could assign ancient people to modern races based on skin tone, it still wouldn’t make sense to say ancient Egyptians were all a member of a specific race, because they had a wide range of different skin tones.

          Finally, I responded to the ahistorical and frankly Islamaphobic myth that the Muslim conquests in the 7th and 8th Centuries C.E. wiped out the ‘ancient Egyptian’ race and replaced them with ‘modern’ Egyptians. The genocide that would have required never happened, and as borne out by a number of studies, the people who live in Egypt today are almost entirely the same, genetically speaking, as the people who lived there in Ancient Egypt. The idea of a clean break is a myth.

        21. I’m not arguing that there is a biological basis for race. My undergrad is in archaeology/anthropology so I get it. I bet Angel H gets that too. I’m only talking about race as a social construct. And I’m most certainly not attempting to argue in support of the ancient/modern break.

        22. Trees gets it.

          I can’t say much more than that because I don’t have enough spoons right now.

        23. I’m only talking about race as a social construct. And I’m most certainly not attempting to argue in support of the ancient/modern break.

          Trees gets it.

          In that case it sounds to me like we’re all on the same page, but if you get the spoons, I’m open to hearing why we’re not.

        24. Well that conversation went interesting places. My original point to Ludlow was just stating that Egyptians would be counted African. And in the US the word African and black are interchangeable. Ever heard of African American. The reason black academia talks about this is because they identify with the Egyptians. Yes, in reality they were a trading empire that was really diverse.

          I don’t think most of you understand why black academia talks about this. The only people who understood are Angel’s and Tree’s point about the “contemporary self-identities of communities internationally”. I know its historically inaccurate for modern descendants of black slaves to identify with the entire continent of Africa and genetic tests would probably show a diverse range of common ancestors. And the fact is we’re called African-American.

      3. Thank you for explaining the problems with the above sources, mac. I admit that I should have examined them more closely, especially since I’m not Hindu or Indian-born (even though my dad’s from Bihar, which doesn’t really make a difference here).

        1. Hey, nah, you shouldn’t have to be familiar with the weasel words of another religion entirely. That’s a pretty unreasonable demand to put on yourself.

          I didn’t know your dad was from Bihar!

      4. Wow, thank you mac for sharing your perspective. I’ve never been much into yoga, and others have said, I too would really appreciate on a pure focus on the stretching. I didn’t know that that was even a possibility.

      5. Eep, sorry, life got away from me. Thanks for the interest, everyone 🙂

        So, basically, my thoughts on yaoi take on that whole ‘Hindu origins’ page:
        1) There is no unified Hinduism. Literally no universal aspect of Hinduism exists – not conversion procedures, beliefs, (pan)(poly)(mono)(a)theism, lifestyle, rituals, dress. The very idea of a quintessentially “Hindu” anything is a big load of bull. Therefore, if someone starts a sentence with “all Hindus believe” you can basically discard them as either ahistorical or ageographical depending on how the sentence ends.

        2) Second, “yoga” means a hell of a lot of things, as that document indicates. Technically teaching what people know as yoga should be called Yogasana. Otherwise, it’s like trying to define “discipline” as a single unified concept that definitely means THIS THING HERE – it could mean an academic discipline, self-discipline, putting a toddler in time-out, or some kinky fun with paddles. I don’t see academics charging into play parties to angrily declare that REAL disciplines should be restricted to post-secondary institutions. When I see people generalising about what yoga means as a concept, that’s about how hard I facepalm. But yoga is also not inherently not simple stretching exercises, you know? It’s a polythetic group of mental, physical and emotional and spiritual practices. Once you define yoga as “explicitly religious and aimed towards enlightenment” you actually strip away several other meanings. (Although yes, if everyone started talking about yogasana classes I’d be pretty happy.)

        3) BTW referring to the Vedas as ancient Indian texts is just fine. Hinduism didn’t exist back then. Hinduism is basically a construct that can be broken down into “uh, this is what this bunch of people who live here sorta collectively believe? lol?”. Trying to unify it is a) ahistorical, b) counter-intuitive, c) uncomfortably assimilationist. My Hinduism shares less with the Todas who live one state from where I grew up than it does with Buddhism. (Or for that matter, from what I can tell, with orthodox Judaism, if you just start ticking off squares on lifestyle.) It is often a method to whitewash India’s horrible casteist history, and to Brahminise the remains. They also tend to be the people who say that “real” Hindus are people of desi descent and all people of desi descent “just are” Hindus. (See also: communal violence in India, rabid Islamophobia, “ghar wapsi”.) Hopefully I don’t have to explain why that’s horrific.

        4) Yoga pants have fuck-all to do with Hinduism and anyone claiming them as an example of cultural appropriation can fight me.

        5) The idea of ‘owning’ practices is fucking alien to Hinduism. What the fuck is this branding of religious traditions? And really, yoga is the hill to die on there? Not pujas, or bindis, or actual gods (as icky as I find that concept)? Stretching exercises? I’ll agree that the Yoga Journal was a douche and that people who are too delicate to deal with the idea that Hindus invented stuff should probably grow up and get adult underthings of choice, but in the grand scheme of things, it really comes off as “some granola-crunching auntie got some help with her arthritis that once, and I am deeply offended that she didn’t convert to my religion (which btw I don’t allow) to do it”. And that’s just…petty.

        1. That whole “Ancient Indians invented everything” just makes me think of that “Invented in India” dad on ‘Goodness Gracious Me’.

        3. @Hugh *LOL* I wish I could deny how accurate that dude actually is, but ffs, my dad has friends who act and think (satirical over-the-top-ness aside) pretty much exactly like him. Down to the dress sense.

      6. This sort of response is ten times better than anything I hoped for, as is this whole discussion. Thanks

        2. I would be really interested in literally anything you wanted to say about yoga. I’ve spent so much time as a captive audience to young white american women (and two men) who say things about how you need to let go of your ego and not post on facebook too much, or say things like

          “A quotation: I always have to remember that worrying about things going wrong is not the way to make them go right. By… anonymous”

          or

          “If you are having trouble finding your intention today, let me offer you this mantra: ‘I am enough'”

          or

          “In honor of the oneness of the universe, we will now share one breath”

          and every single class ends with

          “The light, the love, the student and the teacher in me bow to the light, the love, the student, and the teacher in you. Namaste”

        3. WAHAHAHAHA all those quotes. Especially the last one. Okay, the last one could be a deeply, DEEPLY corrupted version of this one prayer I know – as in, ran it through google translate eighteen times, corrupted – but even if it were, why not just freakin’ say it in Sanksrit then? Oh I know why!

          This sounds like some hilariously new agey crap to me. “Find your intention” my ass. I’m sorry you’re having to listen to these fuckbucket. Seriously, even the yoga classes I had at a summer camp explicitly labeled “Yoga and Vedanta camp” was less glurge-inducing than this.

          Ooh, here’s a prayer you can claim you were given by a Hindu on the internet: “In honour of the oneness of the universe, I will now depart from one boring conversation.” -_-

        4. “In honour of the oneness of the universe, I will now depart from one boring conversation.”

          haaaahahahahahahaha

          To be honest, I understand where they are coming from, but the biggest issue is how it mixes with class instruction. At the same time as they are saying that stuff, they’re also giving practical instruction which is stuff I want to hear and understand. So I’m concentrating very hard to process their instructions and I’m listening very closely and it’s like “okay down dog. Press through my fingers, yes. lengthen the back of my neck. What? Choose adventure over commitment? Love over hate? Okay move into tabletop. Now… let go of everything I have to do today? Don’t think about taxes? What’s going on? Now that’s ALL I can think about. Okay lift my right leg and… don’t worry about being perfect, it’s called yoga practice not yoga perfect. *sigh* dammit.”

          It’s a frustrating variance.

  2. I wish there was a secular yoga website where people could find yoga studios/teachers who would just present it as a series of exercises. I’d love to do yoga but I don’t want any preaching with it.

    1. 100% of the yoga classes I attended in India, which were taught and almost exclusively learned by Hindus, presented it as a series of exercises. Some had prayers at the end but no one was invited to join in unless they wanted to, and you could get up and leave before that if you wanted (several people did). Honestly, if you want to learn yoga from Hindus and you don’t want preaching, go find classes by Indian Hindus for Indian Hindus where a woman is teaching, and you’ll be quite fine, since the preachy fuckmooks don’t think the wimminz get to, like, instruct and shit.

      1. And for the love of god avoid anything that talks about “sanatana dharma” on its webpage. That’s the equivalent of the Christian “traditional values”.

  3. I’ve been having a nightmare pretty much every night now, and my sleep schedule is like…non-existent, unless one counts “staring at my laptop until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore” as anything like a schedule. On top of that, I’m dealing with anxiety that’s so bad that I’m sometimes afraid to even go to sleep because of the possibility of that anxiety triggering a nightmare (which has happened more times than I can count). And then I wake up to pain in my stomach, which makes it impossible to rest in bed for a while to calm myself down because I have to rush to the bathroom instead.

    So yeah…not a nice week.

    1. Hey, sounds like my life recently! (Though I have full-blown IBS, not sure if that’s your issue). Stare at laptop until I fall asleep sitting up, awaken in a jolt a few hours later, rush to bathroom, rinse, repeat.

      Uh, that said, I have no advise, only sympathy.

      1. I may have some form of IBS, but I can’t say for sure because it seems that the IBS-related symptoms I get come and go, not really like a persistent bodily disorder.

        2. Lol, I know what you mean. >_> But I feel like I was doing a lot better stomach-wise when I was getting stoned frequently (although that’s probably just because I no longer gorge on food when I’m high, as incredibly tempting as it is). Weed does wonders for my indigestion problems, and I don’t really ever have to smoke a whole lot because I seem to have a stubbornly low tolerance.

    2. Recent studies suggest that something about computer screens & phones makes it very difficult to fall asleep; you might want to try swapping out a book. I was surprised what a difference it made for me.

    3. Erg, I hate to be the one to suggest the thing, but…have you tried breathing exercises? Or even singing? I have the same issue with accelerated sleep-time anxiety leading to nightmares, and I sometimes use singing (or Vedic chanting) to regulate my breath and get myself breathing deeply and evenly right before I fall asleep. (Although this shit flies a lot less once marriage happens, lol.) The indigestion could well be another anxiety symptom (which is prolly why you weren’t having it so bad when you were getting stoned more). Anxiety disorders and PTSD often come with a side of massive bowel weirdness up to and including near-incontinence, especially if you already have a weak gut to begin with. The connection has been established but be fucked if I can remember where or what it is right now.

      1. Your suggestion is fine, and I appreciate the reminder. My girlfriend has offered to guide me through breathing exercises. Since it’s difficult to comfort myself during an anxiety attack, it helps to be supported by someone else when I’m trying to manage the anxiety. When I try to do those exercises on my own, my mind just goes “This isn’t going to help you” and I just feel worse somehow.

        I think the anxiety-induced nightmares and indigestion are coming from the anticipation of coming out to extended family. I’m going to send them an email before the end of this month, and I’ll have to respond to any angry or horrified replies sent my way. The potential for an overwhelmingly negative response is so high that I’m basically preparing to be torn apart and excommunicated by most of my family. So the way I see it, those exercises probably won’t help me until I’m at least

        I’m trying to comfort myself with the idea that this experience will help me mature in some ways, but that’s not enough, which is why my girlfriend wants to help out. In order to not burden her too much, I’m also going to follow her suggestions of watching nostalgic animes and eating properly.

        1. Just a thought preparatory to sending your emails – you can set up email filters that will redirect mail from those extended family members who make you most anxious into a “deal with later” folder (call it what you want), so that you don’t feel ambushed by your inbox. The folder will be highlighted when it has unread mail sitting there, so you’ll still know it’s lurking in wait, but it won’t be front and center and that makes it easier for you to wait until you’re absolutely ready to read them.

        2. Please consider following tigtog’s advice here. It’s really good advice.

    4. I have to stay away from computer/photo/tablet screens if I want to get any sleep.
      Also, colouring really helps with my anxiety – I find things on google images and just colour and zone out.

  4. I just had to cancel drinks with a friend because they found an unexploded world war II bomb in her area.

    Not a fascinating anecdote, but one I feel I may never have the opportunity to say again…

    …there’s a chance she made it up to get out of seeing me, but there are better excuses than ‘Bloody world war 2 unexploded bomb not too far from ME they have found. All fucking roads closed off (***ts)’

  5. TW: CSA

    After I sent the coming-out email to most of my extended family, my dad immediately responded with an email that can be summarized as “[Aaliyah] is mentally ill and denies the psychological trauma [she] experienced when [she] was molested by her uncles, which is why [she’s] trans.”

    He just went straight to pathologizing me. Aside from the fact that it’s incredibly inappropriate to openly claim to know something about my history of abuse without asking me, he’s way off. My uncles did use to jokingly tell me that I would grow up to be a “transsexual model” somehow, but their behavior never went beyond that. They didn’t sexually abuse me.

    Nor was their transmisogynist humor the catalyst for realizing my transness. I’m trans because that’s how I’ve experienced socialization as a DMAB person, not because of abuse. Perhaps abuse has shaped my own understanding of being female, but that’s true of cis female survivors as well – their abuse can affect their relations to womanhood. I find it so disrespectful of him to say this, it’s like he’s trying to turn the whole email thread into a pity party for me. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I can only imagine it getting worse, when I check my email again tomorrow…

    2. Oh, fuck. i’m so sorry, Aaliyah. You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit, and I’m so pissed your dad’s still fucking things up for you even long-distance.

      Can someone else go through your email and prepare a “digest” of what happens, for you, so you’re in the loop on who’s saying what, but you don’t have to read the exact words? That might help…

      1. I think I’m getting better at reading the emails – I just kinda need to do so with someone else present. I probably haven’t received the worst of responses yet, though, so I’ll consider your suggestion.

        Fortunately I’ve received one nice response so far. It was from my uncle who’s really devoted to a conservative strain of Islam. I expected him to condemn me, but he told me that he will make an effort to gender me correctly and that being a Muslim is more important than being a man or a woman.

        As expected, it had some flaws, such as him saying that my parents are also going through a lot as a result of the news (as if their reaction to me being trans is somehow equivalent to me brooding over the fear of losing loved ones forever). But overall, it was positive and I’m glad he accepts me as my actual gender. An aunt of mine also responded nicely, making most of her email about how she liked my name and its meaning.

        There was also another negative response, from my step-mom. She said that Santa Cruz’s culture is what made me trans because the people are a bunch of “freaks” over there. That couldn’t be further from the truth: I hate that place. And not for her classist, racist, homophobic reasons. She also said that no kids under 18 should know about my transness.

  6. I accidentally listened to this debate on gender (i’m ill and wasn’t up to even switching it off when the TERF-y woman was on) but it’s a great podcast on other topics and guests. Iadmit I slept thru most of it but i thought might b interesting for some. (TERF warning, though i didnt hear anything offensive per se)

    http://feeds.feedburner.com/PodDelusionExtra

    1. Instead of opening the field for actors of any race to compete for any role in a color-blind manner, there has been a significant number of parts designated as ethnic this year, making them off-limits for Caucasian actors, some agents signal.

      Christ.

    2. When did “ethnic” become a euphemism for people of color, especially black people? And why is a euphemism necessary? When I was young, “ethnic” meant non-WASPy white people like Italians and Poles and Hungarians, etc., and occasionally Jewish people.

      1. I kind of think “ethnic” = “non-white” is strictly a Hollywood thing. People ask me all the time about my ethnicity (most often people from the same approximate region), and I’m Polish (and look it).

      2. I don’t really know, I guess it’s just a weasel word. I prefer people of color. My experience with the word “ethnic” is that it emphasizes from perceptible difference. I am ambiguous looking, I am Chicana, Native American, and white, but people will read all sorts of things into me and I am used to questions about my ethnicity, sometimes people try to beat around the bush a little by asking thinks like what country my surname is from (I tell people that the immediate answer is England but it’s more complicated than that because my male ancestors after the 1750’s are the product of a trader and a Native woman), other times they are very very blunt.

        When I was a child I had a substitute teacher humiliate me in front of those who’d bullied me because she sounded almost offended she couldn’t tell my ethnicity.

        And then there are the guesses, most people are right to a certain degree, and doing genealogy and having DNA testing done, some of the more seemingly off the wall guesses are turning out to be a teensy bit true. One person guessed I was Jewish, at the time that seemed off the wall, but as it turns out my mother is a descendant of Sephardic conquistators who came from Spain to Northern Mexico and that her great-great grandfather who was raised as a Mexican and lived his life as a Mexican, was probably Polish in origin and probably was part Jewish.

        Anyway, ethnic to me seems like a weasel word for differences, maybe it needs to go by the wayside…

      1. It’s like the way certain white people will refer to non-whites as ‘minorities’, even if there are fewer whites than non-whites in the room. (E.g, ‘Man that bus stop was full of minorities. I was, like, the only majority in there’)

        1. I’ve always been OK with that- I mean, what’s the preferred term for members of racial groups that aren’t in power/majority in a given political context? Never been offended to be referred to as a member of a racial minority, even if sometimes in some neighborhoods my folk outnumber the white people by a bit.

          YMMV, of course.

  8. Speaking of racism, am I being oversensitive to think that this “humor” piece by Lena Dunham is more than vaguely anti-Semitic? http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/dog-or-jewish-boyfriend-a-quiz

    This kind of thing can (sometimes) be funny when someone Jewish writes it, but it makes me seriously uncomfortable when it comes from someone non-Jewish. Plus there’s nothing funny about asking whether it’s your dog or your “Jewish boyfriend” who “never brings his wallet anywhere” and “doesn’t tip,” and “comes from a culture in which mothers focus every ounce of their attention on their offspring and don’t acknowledge their own need for independence as women. They are sucked dry by their children,” and so on.

    I can’t believe that The New Yorker published this.

    1. OK; I just realized that she identifies as Jewish herself (her mother is Jewish). It’s still not funny, and it still plays on anti-Semitic stereotypes.

    2. I think this list is literally about her Jewish boyfriend though. It’s not a hypothetical Jewish boyfriend. it’s Jack Antonoff.

      Anyway, I laughed. It seems to me like the piece is making fun of Lena twice as much as her boyfriend.

    1. I am not an expert on Canadian law. Team Harpy appears to be waving the white flag, but why? Is the suit going badly for them? Did they run out of money? Are they just tired of the fight?

      And does a statement like this mean the issue is closed?

      1. And does a statement like this mean the issue is closed?

        Almost certainly, since the only reason I can imagine they posted that is as part of a settlement.

        Is the suit going badly for them? Did they run out of money? Are they just tired of the fight?

        Or they’re telling the truth. Obviously there’s really no way to know.

      2. Why?

        well, in order from best to worst:

        They could be wrong, and they’re admitting it to stop further damages. That is a good outcome: we want people to admit wrongdoing.

        They could be unsure about the parties’ ability to prove their case either way, and therefore they could have rationally decided to concede defeat and limit their risk. That is also a good outcome; we want people to make rational decisions.

        They could be entirely right (i.e. the accusations could be provably correct) but they might not have the money to continue. That is a bad outcome which is sort of built into the system and which we treat as “acceptable” in the same way that we have other, acceptable, systemic errors.

        Usually it’s #1 or #2–actually, #2 is very common. Rarely is it #3, though that happens sometimes.

        1. I think it’s unlikely they ran out of money- it’d be shocking if they did. Litigation is expensive, but this isn’t some massive corporate lawsuit; costs shouldn’t be running into the scores of thousands of dollars.

    2. Wow, some of the discussion on that earlier thread is terrifyingly Kafka-esque. Disputing accusations of harassment is evidence you’re a harasser? Christ.

      I’m generally inclined to believe people, in particular women, who make public accusations of sexual harassment, assault, or discrimination, mostly as a matter of personal policy; I’m not on a jury, and I’d rather believe someone who turns out to be untrustworthy than disbelieve a survivor. Also, as a matter of statistics, false accusations of all kinds are pretty rare.

      That said, the people arguing against anyone defending themselves from accusations, ever, are utterly morally incoherent. It reminds me of the people who said Conor Oberst was wrong to sue his accuser, even after it turned out that she’d completely fabricated the story, in the interests of not intimidating genuine survivors.

      Nobody should be expected to ‘take one for the team,’ or stay silent ‘for the good of the community.’ Actually, those demands sound suspiciously familiar.

      1. Actually, now that I dug into it a little further, I’m entirely convinced you’re right and that this apology was genuine/accurate/needed. The linchpin was when it turned out they’d never actually met the man they libeled, and were just repeating gossip from an anonymous whisper network.

        I think what’s more broadly important, though, is how much harder this is going to make it for the next librarian whose boss actually does sexually harass her, to speak out and be believed.

        Fuck #Teamharpy.

        1. Eh, I spent some time reading both of their blogs yesterday.

          Regardless of the merit of their accusations or the wisdom of their actions, its quite obvious that both of them have had a miserable time of it the last year. Their careers are shattered, their emotional selves battered, and at least one of them saw her marriage fail. Whatever their sins, they’ve suffered enough. Hopefully, with this apology, everyone – including Joe Murphy, can begin to move on.

        2. Regardless of the merit of their accusations or the wisdom of their actions, its quite obvious that both of them have had a miserable time of it the last year. Their careers are shattered, their emotional selves battered, and at least one of them saw her marriage fail. Whatever their sins, they’ve suffered enough. Hopefully, with this apology, everyone – including Joe Murphy, can begin to move on.

          Sure, I’m basically on board with that. If I was a female librarian getting hit on by my boss every day, though, I would probably be feeling quite a bit more vindictive.

          1. From what’s being reported on various mailing lists I follow, most female librarians appreciate that Team Harpy was trying to support women whose complaints about Murphy they totally believed, and they understand the legal position that because it’s not their own experiences and they’re not willing to namedrop anybody else into the hell they’re already in, that Team Harpy have no place else to go with this other than to make these retractions. Sure, it sucks that Murphy is doing a vindication dance as a result, but that doesn’t mean that many or even most of the people who donated to Team Harpy are blaming Team Harpy for trying to fight the lawsuit in the first place.

        3. I don’t think that fairly represents the degree of damage making unsubstantiated accusations does. I *don’t* respect their decision to try to publicize the output of an anonymous whisper network.

          If someone wanted to say “this guy harassed me” publically, I would be the first to back them. But saying “this guy is a predator,” based on rumors of behavior that you’ve never witnessed… It’s really predictable that it’ll end badly for everyone. Support survivors, and signal boost them. Don’t put yourself at the center of a story you have nothing to do with, and don’t know anything about.

        4. Also worth noting- they didn’t run out of money (they posted they would donate most of what they revised to charity). So I pretty much feel like I have to take their decision to post a full retraction and apology at face value.

          I mean, if they genuinely believed they were right, and had the money to continue the case, and *still* decided to post an apology that fed straight into the false accusation narrative? Well, that’s even more despicable, in that they threw other women straight under the bus.

          I think this is a pretty clear case of two people trying to place themselves at the center of a story, damn the consequences to anyone else.

          1. There is a vast difference between what one can genuinely believe is true and what one pragmatically concludes can be proven in court. The wording of their apology will not have been “chosen” by them at all, it will have been dictated to them by the complainant’s lawyers as the only wording which was acceptable as settlement, otherwise the court case would have continued.

            This display of total submission to the complainant’s narrative is sadly what happens whenever a complainant forces a settlement in a defamation suit – that grants them pretty much free rein to oblige the defendants to paint themselves as malicious and mendacious dimwits, and if the defendants want the case to finally go away then they just have to suck such unfair calumnies up. Should they have continued to fight it until they finally did run out of money just to end up being obliged to post a retraction with exactly the same wording in a year or two years time? Who would benefit from that exactly?

            That “anonymous whisper network” wording is for sure dictated by Murphy’s lawyers. Just because Team Harpy have refused to disclose the names of the persons who complained about Murphy doesn’t mean that they don’t know them. Or are you arguing that they should have disclosed the accusers’ names to Murphy without those persons’ permission? Wouldn’t you despise them even more if that’s what they had done?

            Somehow I doubt you and I are ever going to persuade each other here, but I couldn’t not challenge the way you are being extremely judgemental without knowing all the facts (because none of us here know all the facts), and given that Team Harpy are almost certainly gagged by a non-disclosure agreement regarding details of the settlement? The rest of us are never going to know all the facts. Thus reserving some judgement here as to their degree of despicability strikes me as the most reasonable course of action, and I think we’ve heard enough repetitions of your opinion that they are despicable by this point. How about you let some other readers express their possibly differing opinions without shouting them down?

        5. How about you let some other readers express their possibly differing opinions without shouting them down?

          I resent that, and I challenge you to show me where I shouted anyone down.

          Or are you arguing that they should have disclosed the accusers’ names to Murphy without those persons’ permission? Wouldn’t you despise them even more if that’s what they had done?

          Of course not. I’m arguing that this outcome is so utterly predictable that everything they’ve done gives the strong impression they care more about being the hero of their own narrative than about the impact they’ll have on vulnerable people.

          As a matter of policy, I just don’t respect the decision to publicize other people’s stories of harassment or abuse. If there was any reason to believe they’d been asked to do this by the anonymous accusers, I might feel differently.

          Anyways, I’ll take a step back from this thread now.

        6. Just because Team Harpy have refused to disclose the names of the persons who complained about Murphy doesn’t mean that they don’t know them. Or are you arguing that they should have disclosed the accusers’ names to Murphy without those persons’ permission?

          They don’t have a choice, which they knew from Day 1 of the lawsuit.

          It’s the first set of questions in the deposition or discovery:

          Q: Why did you say he was a predator?
          A: Someone told me.
          Q: Really? Who told you and what did they say?
          A: ….I’m not going to tell you.
          Q: What? Is that a joke?
          A: Nope. Not going to tell you.
          Q: But how is anyone supposed to believe you didn’t just pull this accusation out of your ass if you refuse to provide any evidence which we can look at to verify it?
          A: Dunno. that’s your problem. Just trust me?

          Which… well…. Surely you can see the problem here. There’s no way to distinguish lying from reticence.

          That’s why they deserved to lose. Even if you knew something secret, you can’t go take those secrets AND then write publicly defamatory posts AND then refuse to back them up.

          1. Perhaps they thought that it would play out for them more how it played out for PZ Myers, who published a post a few years ago now saying “someone I know and trust to be telling me the truth has told me that [celebrity in skeptic circles] did [XYZ] to her, this is important for other women to know so they can keep themselves safe around him, and I am protecting her anonymity here”. The named celebrity fulminated about defamation lawsuits, but in that case the woman eventually stepped forward to drop her anonymity, and once that happened the defamation lawsuit never materialised.

            Lawsuits can be very scary things that most of us don’t know nearly enough about before becoming embroiled in them. Team Harpy may well have been naive and unwise in the extreme to persist with defending this lawsuit as long as they did if their anonymous witnesses were never going to come forward in court, but again this is a situation where none of us knows exactly what was going on between the parties behind the scenes, and assuming (as ludlow22 has expressed) that this must have actually then been down to TH seeking some sort of fame for themselves and throwing other women under the bus while doing so seems to play squarely into yet another negative trope about lying women who lie, and that’s what I’m challenging.

        7. I resent that, and I challenge you to show me where I shouted anyone down.

          I’ll take the fact you ignored this as an apology.

          1. Obviously I cannot stop you making that interpretation. To me the elements of any apology seem to be conspicuously absent.

            Past time for this particular exchange between us to shift to #spillover rather than continuing here.

        8. Obviously I cannot stop you making that interpretation. To me the elements of any apology seem to be conspicuously absent.

          Points for style 🙂

        9. a_lawyer wrote:

          That’s why they deserved to lose. Even if you knew something secret, you can’t go take those secrets AND then write publicly defamatory posts AND then refuse to back them up.

          Would that still apply if:
          (a) they were in the USA and
          (b) the (allegedly) defamed person were a “public figure” (so the “actual malice” standard would apply)?

          US News media publish arguably defamatory stuff about public figures all the time that’s based on anonymous sources.

        10. Tigtog’s response here is a great example of a community being unable to listen to admissions of culpability from central community figures.

          These two women make a very public and straightforward statement admitting that their claims had no factual basis, and tigtog is running around looking for any and every reason not to believe them, talking about how “the rest of us are never going to know all the facts”, yet making wild factual claims of her own:

          “From what’s being reported on various mailing lists I follow, most female librarians appreciate that Team Harpy was trying to support women whose complaints about Murphy they totally believed”

          Most female librarians have no clue what Team Harpy is.

          Or inventing idealized theories to excuse any wrongdoing:

          Perhaps they thought that it would play out for them more how it played out for PZ Myers

          Or saying that because this plot point supports a trope she doesn’t like, she won’t accept it:

          seems to play squarely into yet another negative trope about lying women who lie, and that’s what I’m challenging.

          Obviously the concern here is not for the facts. It’s for the optics.

          Yet…

          I apologize for the false and damaging statements that I have made about Joe Murphy. I ask you to please read the following statement for details from my perspective.

          On May 3, 2014, I posted a post on my blog entitled “Time to Talk About Community Accountability,” which made certain negative statements regarding librarian Joe Murphy, even suggesting that he had sexually harassed women at librarian conferences. My comments had no factual basis at all.

          1. Broseidon, I challenged Team Harpy being labelled as “despicable” and otherwise being extremely negatively characterised for allegedly knowingly/deliberately undermining all past and future harassed librarians via publishing the claims about Murphy in the first place and defending the lawsuit in the second place. I countered speculation such as “just wanted to put themselves at the centre of somebody else’s story” with further speculation, I’ll grant you that.

            I totally accept that Team Harpy relied on word of mouth about Murphy rather than acts they had witnessed themselves, and have not in anything I’ve said above said otherwise. I’ve even said they seem to have been naive/misguided to do so.

            I just don’t agree that it somehow now makes Team Harpy obviously “despicable” or that Team Harpy have in principle done “bad things” by believing stories they heard about Murphy from other women, and deciding to mount a defence when they were challenged on it, just because they’ve submitted to a form of words constrained by the circumstances of settling the case out of court.

      2. tigtog
        March 28, 2015 at 8:02 pm | Permalink *
        Perhaps they thought that it would play out for them more how it played out for PZ Myers, who published a post a few years ago now saying “someone I know and trust to be telling me the truth has told me that [celebrity in skeptic circles] did [XYZ] to her, this is important for other women to know so they can keep themselves safe around him, and I am protecting her anonymity here”.

        I don’t know the cases well enough. Sometimes it really depends on whether you have to prove
        “Joe harassed Mary”

        or whether you have to prove

        “Mary told me that Joe harassed her”

        Also, Canada is much stricter than the US when it comes to defamation and I am not actually sure that truth is always a defense.

  10. Perhaps they thought that it would play out for them more how it played out for PZ Myers

    Invoking PZ Myers name doesn’t help at all. He’s guilty of accusing a group of feminists and our allies of being Slymepitters and MRAs remember?

    1. I really hope you’re being facetious here, Sharon. You must be aware that this is a highly contentious characterisation which has spawned dozens of Threads of Doom on way too many blogs already.

      p.s. on the offchance that you’re not, this thread is now in full moderation due to past history of how this discussion tends to go – comments will still be published if they pass the Giraffe test.

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