Ego and Ambition: Privileges That Only White Men Are Allowed To Enjoy (Even the Liberal Edition)
by matttbastard
“Uppity. N*gger.”
For fuck’s sake, Dana–stop wasting our time (and Katherine Graham’s money), cut the crap and just say what you really fucking mean (and, um, next time, try to get your facts straight, asshole).
Previously:
Related: ZOMG MISCEGENATION DOGWHISTLE:
There’s no reason to include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in this ad. None. It hangs on the word “celebrity” being included, which means it could have just as well been Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Anyway, all the footage is from Obama’s Berlin speech, not the red carpet. This is absolutely meant to juxtapose images of white women with images of a black man.
First he takes teh White House, then he’ll take teh white wimmins…
(image originally uploaded by Barack Obama, posted under a Creative Commons license.)
More on the Representation of White Perfection
by matttbastard
professor what if has posted part two of the series Consuming Whiteness, which, as noted in the first installment, sets out to explore the all-encompassing notion “that whiteness (in food, bodies, clothing, etc) is ideal”:
Despite the fact that for the majority of people of color milk is a ‘health disaster,’ the Got Milk ads, (which, for the most part, feature famous white people) set up an erroneous equation between milk consumption and health (not to mention weight loss, athletic ability, beauty, success, fame, wealth, etc). The milk moustache ads, which feature supermodels, actors, musicians, famous athletes, and politicians, imply that drinking milk is the key to opportunity, fame, and fortune. Although the ads portrayed some diversity in terms of race, class, and social background, the people of color that do appear are, ironically, often lactose intolerant. Whoopi Goldberg, for example, appears in a milk print ad- although she has to take lactose intolerance medication to consume milk.
The ads, through their continued focus on milk as a white drink, also often refer to the superiority of whiteness. While some may argue that this is a merely a marketing tactic with no racial undertones, it is problematic to ally whiteness with perfection in a country with a long, ugly past (and present) of racism. Take, for example, the milk ad featuring a young white woman with copy reading “the milk white look.” Not only is the ad equating consuming milk with ‘consuming’ this white woman (and thus sexually objectifying her), it is also claiming that ‘the milk white look’ is desirable, sexy, beautiful, etc. This message that white is better is conveyed in a number of ads. For example, in a milk moustache ad that features country singer Clint Black, the copy reads: “My favorite color? White of course”. Or, as the ad suggests, even those who are named ‘Black,’ really prefer white.
Please, go read the whole thing.
h/t Kevin
Update: Part Three is also up.
This usage of the term white as something that is good, something that is so powerful it can palliate flaws or conceal crimes, reveals the high esteem ‘white’ holds in the western cultural imagination. As a color it is seen as pure, clean, refreshing. When it refers to people, the same positive associations also apply. White people are seen as ‘purely human’ and not animalized or denigrated in the way people of color are. Or, as Chris Matthews would term it, white people are ‘regular people.’ These associations between whiteness and what is better/normal certainly are readily apparent in advertising.
Again, go.
Memo to CNN
by matttbastard
When embarking on a Landmark Multimedia Event™ called ‘Black in America’, it’s best not to risk your black-people-love-us-cred by, er, credulously citing avowed racists as experts on teh Negroes. Just a thought.
Next up on CNN’s 2008 Ethnic Anthropology US Tour: Jewish in America, where we find noted WWII historian David Irving waxing poetic about picturesque Polish vacation spots for the Judenreich set.
Related: More commentary on Black in America from Jack and Jill Politics (and here), Kevin, elle and Renee.
PSA: Canadian Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Events
by matttbastard
There are 8 cities planning events for Hiroshima/Nagasaki Days this week. Please check the listings and join events calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide.
Any new event postings can be sent to cpa@web.ca to be posted on the website at http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/HiroshimaDay.htm
Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Events
BRANDON
The First Annual Japanese Lantern Ceremony for World Peace
Where: Keystone Centre YMCA Pool on 13th Street
When: Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Time: 7:30 PM
CALGARY
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial
Thursday, August 7, 2008, 7pm – 9pm
Calgary Area Outdoor Council, Large Room on 2nd floor
(wheelchair access to 2nd floor, 1111 Memorial Drive NW)
- We may watch movie with colour footage of the devastation.
- Speeches
- Lantern ceremony with glow in the dark non-flame, non-flammable
lanterns.
CASTLEGAR, BC
This year we gather on Zuckerberg Island, Wednesday, August 6 at 6:00 pm to both commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also to listen to our minstrels of peace and hear from the Mayor of Hiroshima and other voices of reason in our troubled world.
Kootenay Region Branch of the United Nations Association in Canada (KRUNA)
2600 Columbia Avenue
Castlegar, B.C., V1N 2X6
250-365-7180
GRAND FORKS
Grand Forks City Park at 1 pm on Saturday, August 9th to commemorate the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and mourn today’s victims from ‘Depleted Uranium’ radiological weapons, tanks, vests, bullets and bombs.
We urge you to join us on August 9th at 1 pm in City Park for speakers, entertainment and a Auction. The auction is to raise funds to support our work and encourage all to donate items and then make generous bids.
We thank all who have given of their time, energy and funds in the past and look forward to your continued participation at events and regular meetings in Selkirk College on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month.
For inquiries please phone Laura at 250-442-0430.
On behalf of the Boundary Peace Initiative: member of B.C. Southern Interior Peace Coalition, Canadian Peace Alliance, Uranium Free Kootenay Boundary, Uranium Free B.C., Abolition 2000, Lawyers Against the War, and an affiliate of Fellowship of Reconciliation.
OTTAWA
EVENT DETAILS (SATURDAY, AUGUST 9th):
6:30pm: meet at Friends House (91 A Fourth St in The Glebe) to decorate laterns
7:30pm: film screening and discussion @ Friends House on the threat posed by nuclear weapons
8:30pm: march to float and light the laterns (location to be announced shortly)
The Ottawa Peace Assembly
SASKATOON
Commemorate Hiroshima Day, Wednesday August 6 at Rotary Park Peace Pole, 12-1 pm
Program includes Mayor Don Atchison, Mayors for Peace • Reverend Hiraku Iwai • Jillian Cyca, Artist • John Crawford, Project Ploughshares
ELIMINATE NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOREVER
For more information, call (306) 384-4134
Building peace in our families, communities, and world. www.saskatoonpeace.tk
TORONTO
See Hiroshima Day Coalition for more information
The Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition (THDC) cordially invites you to attend the unveiling of the powerful exhibition of photographs from the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Rotunda inside Toronto City Hall on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 5:30 pm.
The exhibit runs from August 6th -11th, 2008 in conjunction with the “Paths to Hope” Peace Commemoration and Lantern Ceremony on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at the Toronto Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square beginning at 6:30 pm.
To RSVP for the August 6th, 2008 unveiling of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki Photo Exhibition at the Rotunda, Toronto City Hall, please contact Helen Chilas, National Coordinator of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, via email h-chilas@rogers.com or cell at 416-473-8238
Note: If you would like to reserve a table at the Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Annual Peace Commemoration and Lantern Ceremony (August 9th at the Toronto Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square), please contact Dr. Barbara Birkett with Physicians for Global Survival at bbirkett@interlog.com.
WINNIPEG
Where: Memorial Park, Winnipeg
When: Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Time: 7:30 PM
China’s Olympics Best-Case Scenario – James Miles
by matttbastard
China correspondent for The Economist James Miles outlines what would be the best possible scenario for China during the 2008 summer Olympics.
Related: Kerry Brown on China, the Olympics and ‘the globalisation of sentiment’; Amnesty International report: People’s Republic of China: The Olympics countdown – broken promises (PDF); more from AFP on how “China is using the Beijing Olympics as a pretext to pursue — and in some cases tighten — a crackdown on human rights”.
A Father’s Right to Make Shit Up
by matttbastard
Via Jill @ Feministe, the following trailer absolutely screams ‘coming to a church basement near you’:
The William Fain Productions website has more on the motivations behind this, um, fact-esque-based project (straight outta Dickson, TN, aka Hollywood South, homie!):
“A Father’s Rights” is based upon a real life story. It depicts the situation of an unwed father and his child’s struggle with the legal system predominant in American society today.
“A Father’s Rights” is hard hitting, factual, and potentially embarrassing to some in high places. It is meant to expose the system that treats children differently across this country and the world: a system that needs to change. We should all be looking at and working for one thing, getting equal rights for our children. It should not matter if a child is born out of wedlock. It’s not the child’s fault, and that child should have the same rights as a child from a happily married couple. Stop the fighting over who gets custody and what he/she receives for the privilege of raising that child.
The system that all of us face as parents, and/or grandparents is broken. No matter if you are mother, father, or grandparent, we all must acknowledge this basic fact. Thousands of emails have been received over the past year about this project asking for help, or parents telling their own horror stories with the system. One major problem is that fathers, mothers, and grandparents all seem to be fighting for their own rights. We should all be able to come together and fight for our children’s rights. The right to be treated equally, no matter if their parents are married, were married, or never married. If that goal is obtained, then a lot of the problems in the system will go away.
This movie was made to bring attention to and educate the public about a corrupt system that is not taking care of the future: making sure children are well taken care of.
Lawd, yes! Won’t somebody puh-leeze think about the children (as opposed to the horrible writing/acting/direction, dubious rationale and sub-par production values)? Look, no offense to whoever came up with the dick-swinging altruist spin, but I think the folks @ WFP should instead use Jill’s take in the press-kit:
It goes like this: Bitches (especially super whore-y bitches who seem so cute at first but then arch their drawn-on eyebrows and wear belly-shirts like BIG WHORES) will probably trick you by telling you that they’re on birth control and then getting themselves pregnant. When they do that, you should have the right to demand that they either have an abortion or that they give birth (because you’ll take care of it!), or that they give birth and “take responsibility” for their actions, whereupon you will argue that you have no obligation to pay child support. You, however, have a right to have a picture of your kid on the dashboard of your car and talk proudly about your son/daughter, and if you see them at your convenience you are being an awesome parent and shouldn’t have to pay a dime. If your ex tells you that they don’t want anything from you, they are trying to take away your child. If they tell you that they want financial support, they are gold-digging whores.
Get it? Basically, the rule is Bitches Be Stealin’ My Shit.
Now, if that kinda straight-talkin’ marketing initiative doesn’t secure this flick a national distribution deal…
Ego and Ambition: Privileges That Only White Men Are Allowed To Enjoy (Pajama Pissing Edition)
by matttbastard
Shorter Rick “best surname EVAR” Moran:
“Uppity. N*gger.”
The real number one thing about Barack Obama that apparently creeps out Rick Moran?
Obama’s black.
For fuck’s sake, Rick–stop wasting our time (and the beer money Roger L. Simon and Charles Johnson occasionally toss in your direction), cut the crap and just say what you really fucking mean.
(image originally uploaded by Barack Obama, posted under a Creative Commons license.)
Quote of the Day: With Eyes Wide Open
by matttbastard
I know that we use media to anaesthetize our selves from the daily strain of this mortal coil however, a release should not be achieved by watching or listening to someone else be degraded. The media is not the benign lifeless force that we construct it to be. It helps to frame morals, and is a reflection of our social discourse. When we sit there blindly consuming these images without giving pause to understand that some of these images are a reflection of the ugliest parts of humanity, indeed we are embracing the darkness. There are just some things that will never be funny. When we sit there and laugh at things like rape, domestic violence, or the sexual objectification of women we are colluding with patriarchy in our own marginalization. This has real world effects because it normalizes this behaviour therefore reducing the possibility that such crimes will be taken seriously. Just because it is not happening to you does not give you the right to assert privilege, and demean the life experiences of others.
- Renee, Feminists Have No Sense Of Humour
On Misogyny, Racism, and the US MSM
by matttbastard
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said, in the course of covering the Obama candidacy, and I’m paraphrasing,
” He (Barack Obama) brings none of the ‘ bad stuff’, you know?”By ‘Bad Stuff’, he meant the legacy of enslaving Africans in this country and then keeping them as second-class citizens until 1965, a mere 11 years before this country celebrated its 200th anniversary. So, for 189 years from its official founding as a country, and tack on another 150 years pre-Revolutionary War, and you’ve got the ‘ Bad Stuff’ done to people of African descent. You know, ‘the original sin’, or ‘ the birth defect’, as Condi Rice called it.
But, guess what…..despite being ‘ oh so smart’ by supporting Barack Obama, the ‘Bad Stuff’ smacked White America in the face.
First, with the revelation that his White Side was still involved in ‘the bad stuff’ (slavery), only as SLAVEOWNERS.
I had a good chuckle on that.
But, also, he comes home every chance he can, to ‘the bad stuff’.
To the ‘ Bad stuff’ wife and ‘ Bad stuff’ children he had with said wife.
And there it is: the 400 years of ‘ Bad stuff’, wrapped up in Michelle Obama.
When that came to me on the elliptical machine this morning, it all made sense.
Michelle Obama is a direct threat and lightening bolt against White Superiority.
Because, she’s Black…
VISIBLY BLACK…
But, does not, in any way, shape, or form, contour to the acceptable Black Pathologies that enable White Supremacy to sigh with relief.
- Rikyrah, Update: Michelle Obama As Racial Rorschach Test (h/t Michelle Obama Watch)
Thanks to Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying for the video (by way of MOW)
PSA: Day of Blogs 2008
by matttbastard
Cara of The Curvature and Feministe is participating in today’s Day of Blogs blogathon. RAINN is the very worthy organization that is benefiting from her tireless efforts. Go check it out–Cara will be updating every 30 minutes until 9am EDT Sunday morning.
(Full list of participants here.)
The Beltway as Bret Michaels
by matttbastard
In 17 words, Gabriel Sherman unwittingly sums up precisely what is wrong with American campaign journalism:
[T]he press wants to put its love somewhere, and, right now, that love is up for grabs.
Fuck the public interest–it’s all about who’s ready to rock Adam Nagourney’s world!
h/t Atrios
On John Edwards ‘Love Child’
by matttbastard
“Double standard!” cries Slate media critic Jack Shafer. “An elaborate cover up!” whines hacktacular OG ‘even the liberal’ blogger Mickey Kaus. ‘Liberal bias!’ wails the wingnutosphere (surprise, surprise).
All that self-righteous sturm und drang simply because the MSM hasn’t dove on recent reports from that bastion of responsible journalism, The National Enquirer, alleging that former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards cheated on his wife, Elizabeth, with a woman named Reille Hunter.
Oooh. Shocking. A liberal Democrat with no moral values–way to conform to years of movement conservative propaganda, John Boy.
Sorry, kiddies; as John Cole aptly notes, the Grand Old Party has upped the ante on sex scandals to the point where a mere (yes, heterosexual) extramarital affair (and illegitimate child) is now small beer, not worthy of the print expenditure:
The reason no one is paying attention to the alleged affair and love-child is simple. You guys have made standard affairs boring (I know, I know. You claim to be a Democrat.). No one is claiming Edwards was seen in two wetsuits hanging from the ceiling with a dildo lodged in his rectum. There is no DC madam with a black book involved. No one has transcripts of him instant messaging teen-age congressional pages or crashing their dorms in a drunken stupor. There is no arrest record for soliciting oral sex in an airport bathroom, complete with feisty confrontations with the arresting officer on video tape. There is no religious hypocrisy and gay prostitution and meth-fueled sodomy binge to talk about.
In short, aside from the fact that all there is to the story is an Enquirer report, it is just boring. You all have made standard affairs pedestrian and dull. Even when you use the phrase “love child,” what it boils down to is a guy allegedly sleeping with a woman. Pretty tame stuff, given what the GOP has provided us for the past few years.
Now maybe if he got caught engaging in oral sex with goats. That would probably get some attention.
I think there’s something to be said about the innate homophobia contained within media coverage of the aforementioned events. But the hook that made them ‘newsworthy’ by mainstream press standards is the fact that, in most instances, the principals were all on record as being militantly homophobic Christian conservatives; their moral (and, in many cases, legal) transgressions were thus in direct opposition to their images and records as public officials. Even former NY governor Elliot Spitzer was a grandstanding anti-prostitution crusader, so when he was caught in the middle of a prostitution ring, the immensity of the hypocrisy was too much for the jackals in the MSM to ignore (even as the puritanical response once again served as a revealing Rorschach Test of the collective American unconscious).
So, unless there’s more blood to this latest (alleged) ‘scandal’, one shouldn’t be surprised (nor shocked and outraged!!11one) at the underwhelmed non-response from the press.
Of course, as David Corn notes, even if this story never makes the 24 hour cable news cycle, the allegations have effectively removed Edwards from VP consideration:
[W]hether you read about this matter in the Times or not, the veep-vetters of the Obama campaign have probably paid the story notice. If Edwards is still in contention, he better have for them a rather convincing denial to allay suspicions that this time the scandalmongers of the Enquirer might have actually gotten it right.
Regardless, one wonders if the McCain campaign really wants the media to be talking about political figures running around behind the backs of their sick wives.
Ahem.
George H.W. Bush at the CIA – Tim Weiner
by matttbastard
Journalist Tim Weiner discusses future President George H.W. Bush’s appointment to Director of Central Intelligence under Gerald Ford.
JewsOnFirst.org Pwns Pastor John Hagee; Greenwald Nails Joe Lieberman
by matttbastard
(Christian) Zionism: yr doin it wrong:
I’m with Glenn: Serious Centrist™ Joe Lieberman is totally getting a whiteboy pass from the media for appearing at an event sponsored by this anti-Semitic extremist.
Background: More on double-standards and Pastor Hagee:
Yes, Virginia, People Actually Get Paid For This Horseshit
The Rules: John Hagee on an Anti-Semitic Remix Tip
CNN: McCain Officially Rejects Hagee Endorsement
Pastor John Hagee: “The Antichrist is a dispatch deep from the recesses of my id!” and other NOOZ!
Gordon Robertson Warns of Outlaw of Christmas
by matttbastard
The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This “argument” has the following form:
Event X has occurred (or will or might occur). Therefore event Y will inevitably happen. This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another.
Homeland Insecurity in the US Dividing Refugee Families
by matttbastard
Steve Lannen of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports on the unintended consequences of so-called ‘material support’ provisions contained within the Patriot Act:
Losi Grodya works two jobs, has a driver’s license, is working on a community college degree and is readying to take her U.S. citizenship exam.
Despite all she has accomplished since settling in Lexington as a refugee from her native Democratic Republic of Congo nearly six years ago, she feels helpless when she talks on the phone with her daughters. Their home has been a Rwandan refugee camp for the past four years.
”They ask me when they are coming. Why is it taking so long? They tell me since I am in America, I must be able to do something to get them to come, but I’ve tried everything I can,“ Grodya said. ”I just want them to come here so we can all be together again. … But I can’t even do that.“
Her daughters, who as of late January were approved by U.S. officials to join her in Lexington as refugees, have seen their cases caught up in a post-9/11 provision in the Patriot Act that bars people from entering the United States if suspected of aiding a terrorist group.
[...]
After months of delay, Grodya learned last week that her daughters are suspected of providing material support to a terrorist group. But she doesn’t know precisely what they are suspected of doing.
Grodya’s five daughters have shared stories not of complicity, but of kidnapping and rape in a country torn apart by decadelong conflict, she said. She fears they have not told her the worst, but that what they have said ”is now being turned against them.“
Unfortunately, because it wasn’t published in the New York Times or the Washington Post, the story of Losi Grodya–and the broader issue underlying her plight–likely won’t get the attention it deserves. But hopefully a little blogospheric momentum will help broaden its impact. So, please, read the whole thing, blog about it, pass it along to your friends, your colleagues, and (if you’re one of our American readers) your Congresscritters.
Stockholm Represent
by matttbastard
On Kangaroo Courts and Dry Runs: Hamdan is Ready For His Close-Up
by matttbastard
Tomorrow marks an historic occasion: the first military commission trial of a so-called ‘enemy combatant’ in the War on Terror is scheduled to take place at beautiful, sunny Guantanamo. And Osama Bin Laden’s chauffeur–a prime example of “the worst of the worst”, IMO–is the lucky duck who’s been given the opportunity to see post-9/11 justice in action:
When Salim Ahmed Hamdan, accused of ferrying weapons for al-Qaeda, enters courtroom 01-A in a former aircraft operations center, he will face court proceedings unlike any the United States has seen in decades. They will unfold before a military commission — the first since the end of World War II — with a jury of uniformed officers and rules that give great deference to the prosecution. Evidence obtained from “cruel” and “inhuman” interrogation methods is admissible in certain circumstances, as is hearsay evidence.
Unlike a civilian trial, even if the defendant is acquitted of conspiracy and material support of terrorism charges, he probably will not be released. Hamdan has been designated an “enemy combatant” by the military, a status that prosecutors said would be unchanged by an acquittal even if international pressure mounts for his release.
Kangaroo courts are judicial proceedings that deny due process in the name of expediency. Such rights include the right to summon witnesses, the right of cross-examination, the right not to incriminate oneself, the right not to be tried on secret evidence, the right to control one’s own defense, the right to exclude evidence that is improperly obtained, irrelevant or inherently inadmissible (e.g. hearsay), the right to exclude judges or jurors on the grounds of partiality or conflict of interest, and the right of appeal. The outcome of a trial by “kangaroo court” is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of providing a conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.
Ok, so if “justice” (such a September 10th concept, that) isn’t the end result that is being sought by going the military commission route, then why waste precious time (and taxpayer dollars)?
[T]he proceedings are…something of a dry run, a way to test the long-delayed military system on an alleged low-level al-Qaeda foot soldier so it is primed for the self-confessed terrorist leaders to come. In line behind Hamdan at Guantanamo is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other accused planners.
“It’s the first contested war crimes trial since World War II, so it’s important,” Col. Lawrence Morris, the military commissions’ chief prosecutor, said recently. “You’re looking at it primarily and appropriately as bringing Mr. Hamdan to justice, but we’re also well aware that . . . it provides the first opportunity to test and validate this mechanism.”
Ah, so, in essence, Mr. Hamdan is, in fact, a pioneer, blazing a trail for future generations to come! Well, that more-than-pertinent fact certainly kills any unpatriotic misgivings that whole predetermined outcome thing might engender. Huh–wonder how he feels about serving such a prominent role in world history?
“There is no such thing as justice here… . America tells the world about freedom and justice… . Give me a just court … give me my human rights.”
Geez, bloodthirsty America-hatin’ terrorists sure are a hard lot to please, eh?
Obey: Black, Gay, and Female? Talk About a Prime Target For Protection and Service.
by matttbastard
What I noticed about the video (aside from the cops jerking a young woman off a public bus and injuring her for a damned finger sign) was how police brutality has led us to be always ready to assume the defense. Her mother stated over and over that her daughter was “good” and wasn’t a “criminal.” She’d never been in any trouble. She theorized that the police officers’ actions were a manifestation of the problem” LBPD has with young, black lesbians.
[...]
What do you say when we are still at the point where we assume the defensive, have to proclaim our status as “good” and “like everyone else,” otherwise mistreating us is okay?
Renee also has it exactly right:
If the people who are supposed to be upholding the law, daily violate the law, then we have no law. What we have is a masquerade of justice wherein certain bodies matter, and others are only considered to the extent that can be exploited, and marginalized.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, “assaulting a police officer” is an Orwellian synonym for ‘disobedience’, as manifested in this specific instance by Ms. Patton not showing appropriate fealty towards, as Elle puts it, “the power of the uniform.” And, these days, that’s a hollow, impotent power, devoid of any earned respect or authority to bolster the legitimacy of those who wear the uniform. I mean, really, would a goddamn bird-flip warrant such a horrifyingly disproportionate response unless the officers who got dissed didn’t feel obligated to subsequently assert and affirm their dominance–to demand obedience–by force?
Invisibility and the ‘Double Burden’
by matttbastard
(image originally uploaded by My Hobo Soul, posted under a Creative Commons License)
Attorney Sophia A. Nelson on Michelle Obama and being an accomplished black woman in contemporary American society:
Sad to say, but what [Michelle] Obama has undergone, though it’s on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We’re endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting — being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle — as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother — can change that.
“Ain’t I a woman?” Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren’t accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman’s dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?
“Thanks to the hip-hop industry,” one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are “deemed ‘sexually promiscuous video vixens’ not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we’re considered angry black women who complain. This society can’t even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes.“
Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they’ve been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal,” ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from “Gone With the Wind” or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.
Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies “Norbit” or “Big Momma’s House,” or of the only two black female characters in “Enchanted,” an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.
The reality is that in just a generation, many black women — who were mostly domestics, schoolteachers or nurses in the post-slavery Jim Crow era — have become astronauts, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers and PhDs. You name it, and black women have achieved it. The most popular woman on daytime television is Oprah Winfrey. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state.
And yet my generation of African American women — we’re called, in fact, the Claire Huxtable generation — hasn’t managed to become successfully integrated into American popular culture. We’re still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible. It’s a term that comes up again and again. “In my profession, white men mentor young whites on how to succeed,” a financial executive told me, but “they’re either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we’re invisible.”
As they say, read the whole damn thing.
Put Me Out of Misery
by matttbastard
The Representation of White Perfection
by matttbastard
Professor, What If has embarked on a series of posts exploring how a consumption-obsessed culture in the US has continued to perpetuate the all-encompassing notion “that whiteness (in food, bodies, clothing, etc) is ideal”:
What if we woke up to the fact that white is not right, that brown bread is healthier, that teeth naturally yellow, that white t-shirts are boring, that, for god/dess sake, a white anus is darn right unnatural and unnecessary? Whiteness doesn’t do a body good-what it does is confer white skin privilege-a privilege that allows those with white skin to walk through the world with many advantages through no actions of their own. But [these] privileges are not good in the entire scheme of things for white skinned people either because what they perpetuate is a racist, colorist world that harms everyone-white people included.
As they say, read the whole damn thing.
h/t Renee
Salman Rushdie – Great Art about 9/11?
by matttbastard
Bestselling Author Salman Rushdie discusses what he feels is a lack of great literature or other creative works about September 11, 2001.
Bill O’Reilly: Boner Pills > Birth Control
by matttbastard
[Insert clever one-liner about the impotence of contemporary American conservative discourse here.]
Ego and Ambition: Privileges That Only White Men Are Allowed To Enjoy (Beltway Edition)
by matttbastard
“Uppity. N*gger.”
For fuck’s sake, Chuck–stop wasting our time (and Katherine Graham’s money), cut the crap and just say what you really fucking mean.
Attaturk has more on ‘Operation U-P-P-I-T-Y’.
(image originally uploaded by Barack Obama, posted under a Creative Commons license.)
Insufficient Evidence to Prove a Negative
by matttbastard
Via Polly Jones, the ultimate judicial Catch-22–drunk teen rape “sex” not a crime: Justice Peter McIntyre claims victim was too drunk to prove she didn’t consent:
Having sex with a drunken 14-year-old he had plied with alcohol was not a criminal offence by former Calgary man, a judge ruled yesterday.
Justice Peter McIntyre said there was insufficient evidence the girl didn’t consent to having sex with Trevor Byron Niebergall.
But McIntyre did find Niebergall guilty of sexual assault for placing his genitals on the girl’s face after she passed out — an act the offender captured on his cellphone camera and showed to co-workers.
McIntyre said the fact the teenage complainant didn’t remember her sexual encounter with Niebergall at a December 2005 New Year’s Eve party did not mean she hadn’t consented.
He noted one witness said she appeared to have the capacity to consent when she and Niebergall went to a washroom in his brother’s apartment, where they had sex. And the Queen’s Bench judge said the girl willingly consumed large amounts of alcohol supplied by Niebergall even after he made lewd sexual comments.
[...]
“The accused’s lewd comments towards her did not compel her to leave,” the judge said. “The complainant was not forced to consume alcohol — she drank … beer willingly and then switched to alcohol. It is not at all clear why she drank so heavily.”
[...]
McIntyre said because the girl drank so heavily and had little recollection of events at the party, he could not accept her claim she didn’t agree to have sex.
“Her evidence was not reliable after she started drinking,” he said
I have much more to say about this at Shakesville.
Hemispheric Dualism
by matttbastard
Sara Miller Llana of the Christian Science Monitor reports that a most unlikely passenger may be jumping aboard the Straight Talk Express:
At a recent summit in Argentina, Venezuela’s leftist president Hugo Chávez said that if he were a United States citizen, he’d vote for Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona.
The comment was passed off as a joke – but many observers say Mr. Chávez might not be laughing at the prospect of victory by democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois.
Mr. Chávez has made an art out of insulting President Bush and his “imperialist” foreign policy. His anti-Bush diatribes resonate in Venezuela and have helped insulate him from growing criticism that he neglects domestic affairs. And every time he launches into his famous oratory, he impresses a slew of left-leaning international admirers who wonder at his defiance of the world’s sole superpower – which they say has taken an arrogant and aggressive tack.
A McCain victory would allow him to sustain that message: Mr. McCain, after all, hails from the same party and shares many of the same policies as Bush. But Senator Obama is a different story. It remains to be seen how Obama, who has never visited Latin America, would actually shape his policies here, but many in the region identify with his mixed-race heritage, share more similar politics, and would welcome what they consider a newcomer to the Washington beltway.
“It’s hard seeing Chávez calling Obama ‘Satan’ and the likes,” says Ray Walser, a Latin America expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “He won’t get as much traction.”
[...]
Policies aside, the people of Venezuela seem much more drawn to Obama than McCain. “I would say that traditionally here in Venezuela, most Venezuelans support a Democratic Party candidate,” says Steve Ellner, Venezuelan-based author of the recently published book “Rethinking Venezuelan Politics.” “And that cuts across political and ideological differences.”
That affinity is reflected worldwide in a recent survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which showed that respondents in most all countries surveyed say they have more confidence in Obama than McCain. The survey included 24,717 responses across 24 countries, including Brazil and Mexico in Latin America.
But in Venezuela, Obama, who would be the first African-American president of the US, inspires because he represents a world changing – the same transformation that so many Venezuelans believe in with Chávez, who they say is governing for the poor for the first time. “To have a black president in the US? That has to be a good thing,” says Nancy Lam, a housewife from Caracas.
[...]
What may be historic for some might backfire for Chávez, however, as he has thrived on confrontation.
Probably his most audacious move was calling Bush the “devil” at a UN General Assembly meeting in September 2006. In another particularly virulent speech Chávez called Bush everything from a donkey to a drunkard – not to mention a coward and an assassin, ignorant and genocidal – in the span of three minutes.
“I think that if Obama were elected, that would certainly take a lot of wind out of [Chávez's] sails,” says Nikolas Kozloff, author of the recently published book “Revolution! South America and The Rise of The New Left.”
What is it that The Joker says to Batman in Nolan’s The Dark Knight?
“I don’t want to kill you. You complete me.”
matttbastard at Muslimah Media Watch
by matttbastard
My thanks to the fine folks at Muslimah Media Watch for crossposting my post on Faiza M:
Muslimah Media Watch is a forum where we, as Muslim women, can critique how our images appear in the media and popular culture. Although we are of different nationalities, sects, races, etc., we have something important in common: we’re tired of seeing ourselves portrayed by the media in ways that are one-dimensional and misleading. This is a space where, from a Muslim feminist perspective, we can speak up for ourselves.
As Muslim feminists we aim to locate and critique misogyny, sexism, patriarchy, Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia as they affect Muslim women. Furthermore, we believe in equality — regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and ability.
This blog is meant to be inclusive to all people, with a special focus on Muslim women. MMW strives to create an environment in which our writers and readers feel safe and welcome. We ask that you be considerate towards others and their opinions. This is a respectful forum for dialogue, not argument or personal attacks.
Add MMW to your bookmarks/blogroll/subscriptions (assuming you haven’t already done so)
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (Med School Edition)
by matttbastard
Star-Tribune columnist Charles Quimby on how access to abortion in the US isn’t just being threatened by anti-choice legislative measures:
I don’t have firm statistics, but I would say most of the physicians providing abortion services in Minnesota today are my contemporaries or older. That is, people who experienced the days of illegal abortion and the complications that ensued. That is, doctors within a decade of retirement. The late Dr. Jane Hodgson, who tested Minnesota’s law by deliberately performing an illegal abortion in 1970, continued to perform abortions until age 76, traveling from St. Paul to Duluth, because doctors there would not. She was born in 1915 and reached reproductive maturity about the year nearly 2,700 women in America died from reported self-induced or illegal abortions.
Most of the subsequent generations of doctors, including those who completed OB-GYN residencies in the early ’80s who will soon be leaving practice, received no training in terminating pregnancies, and the attitude in medical schools still seems to be “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Residents who want to learn about the full range of women’s health issues are free to arrange their own training, if they can find someone to provide it. The barriers don’t just involve learning medical procedures that are not mentioned in class; there are also issues about malpractice coverage and getting institutional approval.
Today’s medical residents were born in post-Reagan America, went to college in during the Rehnquist/Scalia era and have only known a post-Roe existence. Faced with roadblocks in their already stressful training regimens, even strongly prochoice residents may not pursue this on their own.
Meanwhile, practicing physicians who believe in choice may advise patients about all their options in handling a pregnancy, but they aren’t going to provide all the options — especially without having the training. But also because of outright harassment, fear of bad publicity or concern for their family’s safety, they have quietly decided to let reproductive freedom become not just the patient’s decision, but the patient’s problem.
As they say, read the whole goddamn thing.
Related: Via Vicky Saporta, Pamela Pizarro examines how the “lack of trained abortion providers in Canada is huge problem and is keeping women in our country from accessing adequate sexual and reproductive health services”:
When you consider that up to 40% of women will have an abortion during their life time, it is astonishing that the abortion procedure is not required to be taught in any medical school curricula. In fact in a study conducted by Medical Students for Choice, 40% of 50 schools that they surveyed “do not teach any aspect of abortion in the pre-clinical years.”
Ego and Ambition: Privileges That Only White Men Are Allowed To Enjoy
by matttbastard
“Uppity. N*gger.”
For fuck’s sake, Jonah–stop wasting our time (and Murdoch’s money), cut the crap and just say what you really fucking mean.
(image originally uploaded by Barack Obama, posted under a Creative Commons license.)
“Constraint is Intolerable”
by matttbastard
Andrew Bacevich, reviewing Jane Mayer’s new book The Dark Side:
That fear should trump concern for due process and indeed justice qualifies as a recurring phenomenon in American history. In 1919, government-stoked paranoia about radicalism produced the Red Scare. After Pearl Harbor, hysteria mixed with racism led to the confinement of some 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps. The onset of the Cold War triggered another panic, anxieties about a new communist threat giving rise to McCarthyism. In this sense, the response evoked by 9/11 looks a bit like déjà vu all over again: Frightened Americans, more worried about their own safety than someone else’s civil liberties, allowed senior government officials to exploit a climate of fear.
Although Mayer does not dwell on this historical context, her account suggests implicitly that the present period differs in at least one crucial respect. Whereas the earlier departures from the rule of law represented momentary if egregious lapses in democratic practice, the abuses orchestrated from within the Bush administration suggest that democracy itself is fast becoming something of a sham. From Mayer, we learn that in George W. Bush’s Washington, the decisions that matter are made in secret by a handful of presidential appointees committed to the proposition that nothing should inhibit the exercise of executive power. The Congress, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the “interagency process” — all of these constitute impediments that threaten to constrain the president. In a national security crisis, constraint is intolerable. Much the same applies to the media and, by extension, to the American people: The public’s right to know extends no further than whatever the White House wishes to make known.
h/t Laura Rozen
#rebelleft
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WorldBridge: Refugees International’s Blog
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LabourStart
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