Commentary and criticism from a social justice standpoint.
Reporters Without Borders released the Press Freedom Index this week.
Regarding the United State’s drop to #47 on their list, the report states that the US “owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests.”
Which puts us behind my homeland the Czech Republic (#14), Niger (#29), Papua New Guinea (#35), and El Salvador (#37), among others. Hey, at least we beat Haiti, Timor, and Iran!
I just finished Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. I can’t recommend it enough. For everyone. READ IT NOW!
Here are some quotes that struck me:
“One in three young African American men is currently under the control of the criminal justice system – in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole – yet mass incarceration tends to be categorized as a criminal justice issue as opposed to a racial justice or civil rights issue (or crisis).” Pg.9
“What is key to America’s understanding of class is the persistent belief – despite all evidence to the contrary – that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class.” Pg.13
The rest are here:
Read the rest of this entry »
Interesting things happen when local Tea Party affiliates infiltrate your school board:
You may recall that we have former Tuscon School District Superintendent Tom Horne (supported by his local Tea Party) to thank for this mess. His legacy is being dutifully carried forward by current Superintendent John Huppenthal, “who threatened to withhold millions of dollars if TUSD didn’t terminate the nationally acclaimed [Mexican-American studies] program immediately.”
Then Tuscon school administrator Lupita Garcia comes out and actually says: “This country is called America, okay? And they study US history. If you were to go back to Mexico… you would study Mexican history.”
Here is some of their actual curriculum criteria:
“No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”
Also:
Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the [coalition of Tennessee Tea Party's] lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.
Guess what! You can watch this awesome documentary on youtube for free: Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity.
IMDB has this to say about this 1999 film:
Tough Guise systematically examines the relationship between pop-cultural imagery and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century.
Here is Part 1:
Thanks to Johnny and a shadowy figure known as Shenanigans for tipping me off.
“Behind every great fortune is a crime.”
-Honore de Balzac, 1799-1850
Should I make this a regular sort of column?
Here’s a real question a real White Dude posted, of all places, to my Facebook page:
Why should illegal immigrants have rights?
Thanks for making it easy for me, White Dude! Because all human beings have rights. Done!
You can discover this mysterious concept in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The word “universal” is a helpful hint, confused White Dude!
For further clarification, let us examine the issue. Permission to stay and work in America indefinitely is extremely hard to come by, and will take years, possibly more than a decade, to come by, if ever. But usually, one’s status as an American national or a national of another country is arrived at by dumb luck: whose womb we happened to pop out of. Official permission to stay in America is not granted on a basis of merit. It is granted by luck of birth, and sometimes it is granted to people with enough money and influence to get around the rules.
There are many, many legitimate reasons why someone not born in America would like to live and work here. These reasons are amply examined in many places on the interweb, and I do not feel like reinventing that wheel here.
So, White Dude, unless you believe that dumb luck is a good method for determining who gets human rights and who is treated less than human, let’s play it safe and remember that all humans have rights.
Also, White Dude, never call a human being “illegal” in my presence again, mmmkay?
Interesting…
From Barclays Capital via Rawstory:
“Our Skyscraper Index continues to show an unhealthy correlation between construction of the next world’s tallest building and an impending financial crisis — New York 1930; Chicago 1974; Kuala Lumpur 1997 and Dubai 2010.
“Yet often the world’s tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction.”
Just so that we’re clear:
Being PRO-CHOICE means that you believe individual women should be free to make their own reproductive choices, which may include birth control or abortion or having any number of children. You believe each woman should make her own choices, even if you do not personally think abortion is right, and/or you would never make that choice for yourself.
Being PRO-LIFE means you believe women should NOT have certain reproductive options (abortion, perhaps emergency contraception, sometimes even all forms of birth control). You do not believe individual women should be able to make their own choices based on their beliefs, instead you wish to outlaw abortion and/or certain other reproductive options.
If a politician says they are “pro-life”, they are clearly communicating that they wish to end abortion rights, and maybe some or all birth control rights as well.
Or, for example, a devout Catholic could be completely against abortion, but yet still be pro-choice because they do not want to prevent all women from making their own decisions based on their own beliefs.
One position is about increasing freedom, and another is about reducing it. Just so’s we’re all clear on that
“I think Mitt Romney is a nice man, but I’m afraid of his Mormon faith. [At least] it’s better than a Muslim.”
Just as in the Sandusky case, everybody knew Philadelphia sports writer Bill Conlin was a child molester.
And nobody stopped him or called the police.
Speaking of Women’s Rights has crossposted my I am the 51% piece. Thanks guys!
Note the white lady who posts some racist shit in her comment. WTF is up with racist white “feminists” and their tired predictability? Boooorrring.
I recently read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. I pulled out some interesting quotes that seem relevant to America’s current political situation.
“The picture of American society has, if I may so speak, a surface covering of democracy, beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep out.” Pg.47
“But beneath this artificial enthusiasm and these obsequious attentions to the preponderating power [the interests of the middle & working classes], it is easy to perceive that the rich have a a hearty dislike of the democratic institutions of their country.” Pg.187
” “The will of the nation” is one of those phrases that have been most largely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age. Some have seen the expression of it in the purchased suffrages of a few of the satellites of power; others, in the votes of a timid or an interested minority; and some have even discovered it in the silence of a people, on the supposition that the fact of submission established the right to command.” Pg.57
“Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion.” Pg.270
“Patriotism… is frequently a mere extension of individual selfishness.” Pg.402
“In the United States… all parties are willing to recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope at some time to be able to exercise them to their own advantage. The majority in that country, therefore, exercise a prodigious actual authority, and a power of opinion which is nearly as great; no obstacles exist which can impede or even retard its progress, so as to make it heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. This state of things is harmful in itself and dangerous for the future.” Pg.266
“…Washington makes this admirable and just remark: “The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” ” Pg.242
Perhaps you have already had the good/bad fortune to come upon an article at Forbes.com called If I Were a Poor Black Kid. This article is written by a “middle class” white accountant, consulting firm owner, business technology columnist, and former senior manager at KPMG named Gene Marks. Sounds totally “middle class”. Probably an income of $60k a year, you think?
You can see where this is going. My personal additional annoyance beyond the many more obvious ones is: does he really expect to be reaching poor black kids by publishing a blog post on Forbes.com? Obviously not. He never intended for this “advice” to reach a real world poor black kid. He is writing for wealthy white people, at the expense of poor black kids, in an attempt to unearth a dead horse and beat it some more: i.e. the myth that blacks wouldn’t be so poor if they just worked harder. Note of hilarity: This column was originally titled “If I Was a Poor Black Kid”, but so many people were amused by his poor grammar that someone corrected it.
So read it for yourself if you enjoy bathing in a rich froth of righteous privilege and oblivion as to how the real world works.
OR, read one of these amazing and insightful rebuttals, which attempt to relieve Mr. Marks of his embarrassing ignorance.
If I Were a Rich White Dude by Jeff Yang
Trolling The Internet With ‘If I Were A Poor Black Kid’ by Kashmir Hill
A Muscular Empathy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
If I Were the Middle Class White Guy Gene Marks by Kelly Virella
An Ode to a ‘Poor Black Kid’ I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong by Cord Jefferson
If I Were Gene Marks by Carolyn Edgar
If I were a wealthy white suburbanite by DN Lee
If Gene Marks Were a Poor Black Kid Who Went to Ballou In 2003 by Shani Hilton
If I Was A Poor Black Kid, I’d Key Gene Marks’s Car by Peter Vidani
H/t ES
Newt Gingrich helpfully informed the confused world that there need be no more concern about the Palestinians displaced and mistreated by the Israeli state, because Palestinians don’t exist.
Remember, there was no Palestine existing as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places.
He went ahead and renamed these 11 million non-people, “a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day.”
Somebody go tell all those confused fake Palestinians with their totally fake grievances! My Palestinian friends are going to be pretty surprised to hear that they don’t exist, but that they nevertheless spend their days firing missiles!
Fun fact: Israel as a state didn’t exist until 1948. Does this mean that Israelis are an “invented people” too?
In related news, The Learning Channel (TLC) is running a reality show about 5 Muslim families in Michigan called “All-American Muslim”. EVERYBODY PANIC!
The Florida Family Association, for one, is panicking.
The Learning Channel’s new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.
Wow. They don’t even address how many of the people featured on the show don’t even exist, because of their fake Palestinian roots.
The FFA has started a boycott campaign to erase this threat of tolerance and diversity from television. Lowe’s has enthusiastically jumped on board, saying that “there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines, including the show you [the FFA] brought to our attention.”
I would love to hear a more thorough explanation of exactly why that is. No really. I’m sure it would be fascinating.
The FFA kindly provides a list of companies that have dared to continue advertising, even after they were warned that the show depicts MUSLIMS. I recommend taking time out of your day to support those companies or send them a note of thanks.
Assess the danger level yourself:
Hobson’s Bay has elected a new mayor, Tony Briffa. This interests me because Briffa is open about being intersex.
He tells his story in depth on his website. In part, he writes:
I feel very comfortable having accepted my true nature. I am not male or female, but both. I am grateful for the years I lived as a woman and the insight and experiences it gave me. I am still “Antoinette” and have now also incorporated and accepted my male (“Anthony” or “Tony”) side. I feel whole. I’ll continue to live as Tony but I feel I am now at a point in my life where I can celebrate being different.
He also provides a long list of links relating to media surrounding his journey. He discusses the mistreatment that the medical status quo visited upon him as an infant:
They diagnosed me with an intersex condition called “Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome” and the treatment paradigm – likely elsewhere in the world – dictated that I was to be raised as a girl, any male physical attributes had to be surgically removed if possible, and I was not to be told the truth about my condition.
Doctors castrated him, told his parents to raise him as a girl, and to never reveal the truth to him. Some doctoring.
[I] lived as a woman until I learned the truth about my condition and sought to find out who I would have been had the medical profession not sought to “normalise” me.
This (mis)treatment is common for babies born intersex. Western medicine has a pathological need to force cultural beliefs about gender onto non-conforming infants’ bodies. THE GENDER BINARY MUST BE MAINTAINED AT ALL COSTS! Even if that cost is medically-unnecessary infant genital mutilation.
To learn more about what happens to intersex babies and children, I recommend the website of the Intersex Society of North America. Their definition of intersex is quite good.
Did you know the NAACP is going to petition the UN about the USA restricting the right to vote for voters of color? Year check: 2011.
Fourteen states have passed a total of 25 measures that will unfairly restrict the right to vote, among black and Hispanic voters in particular.
In addition, the lawmakers of Texas would like to demonstrate their priorities, once again, to the world at large:
In Texas, a law has been passed that prevents students from voting on the basis of their college ID cards, while allowing anyone to cast their ballot if they can show a permit to carry a concealed handgun.
From July to September, a period of time that covers summer break for New York City students, the police arrested 63 students in schools. 59 of those students were Black or Latino.
And for some reason the police department was reluctant to release the demographic breakdown of their in-school arrests. They have not provided similar information regarding the 182 summonses they issued during this period, though the Student Safety Act requires it.
“Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash, unless it is illegal.”
On this day (give or take) in 2008, the doors opened on a feisty little blog called The Czech. Three years later, I am still here, battling misogynists, privileged assholes, and the many ways the world fails to do justice to all.
As a reward, I give myself this Angry Turtle Cookie!
Photo by kittycakesbakery on Flickr.
Watch a surprisingly fast and hostile turtle attack fluffy kitties:
You can watch another angry turtle attacking cats here.
Or if angry turtles aren’t your thing, here is a nice tortoise giving a ride to an adorable kitten:
Occupiers all viscerally sense the problem: extreme economic inequality. They all cite a lack of fairness — a lack of opportunity. They also agree that the status quo is failing.
But when it comes to women, Occupy is really a microcosm of the greater culture at large. This should … greatly embarrass those in the movement who see themselves as revolutionaries.
Just as when misogynists claimed the women accusing Julian Assange of rape were in fact part of a CIA-planned “honey trap”, there are misogynists calling the acknowledgment of gender inequality in the “Occupations” a plot by the powers-that-be to delegitimize the movement. Little do they know that any participant’s disregard for the concerns of women in the movement, and their lack of willingness to acknowledge that women face sexism in society, will do plenty more to delegitimize Occupy than anything these alleged powers-that-be could do with their sudden, uncharacteristic feminism. (Society’s power networks have never been known for being particularly woman-friendly, so claims that this is a government or corporate plot seem specious.)
How about this: to pre-empt these nefarious powers attempting to delegitimize the Occupy movement by pointing out how it reproduces society’s inequalities, why doesn’t Occupy instead model what an equal society should look like by being actively feminist, anti-racist, and welcoming to all other marginalized identities?
The argument that we must ignore all inequality except for class inequality is a surefire way to create an all white male movement that benefits white males. The American Socialist Party in the early 20th century did the same thing, and we can see how powerful they are now. Quote:
[The Socialist Party's] female members were not encouraged to join other women’s organizations in the fight for women’s rights ans suffrage. The class struggle was to have priority over matters of gender equality.
Not only does an equal class, unequal gender vision of the future serve to benefit men and turn off women, but it is impossible. How is it possible for unequal people to maintain equal wealth or wages or standards of living?
No one is a single identity. Each of us is a whole person with many different identities around race, ethnicity, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, religion, age, etc. An individual’s class is heavily affected by their other identities. Black and brown people have considerably less wealth than white people, women still earn less than men for equivalent work, trans people are more likely to be homeless than cisgendered people, etc. If you can’t bring that into your class analysis, you are doing some shitty class analysis.
To call women, or people of color, or other marginalized groups abettors of the oppressors for raising their particular concerns is to be willfully blind to the real way class works, and to silence those who experience the preponderance of its negative effects… i.e. the best and most motivated potential activists.
Here is some information about wealth disparities for the skeptical.
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