You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2011.
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.
This is amazing! Look at all these people out in the snow at night to protect one woman’s home. Her bank would make her homeless on a night like that.
Notice toward the end that at the top of the house is a big sign that says “Housing is a Human Right.” Hell yeah!
The best possible way to respond to police violence:
(Watch the whole thing, it’s worth it.)
The money shot:
UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike pepper sprays students on campus. Wayne Tilcock/Enterprise photo
What does this look like to you? “Drawing contact from a police officer” or “getting beat down by a cop with a weapon”?
The caption on this photo accompanying a Reuters article:
An Occupy Wall Street protestor draws contact from a police officer near Zuccotti Park after being ordered to leave the longtime encampment in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011, in New York, after police ordered demonstrators to leave their encampment in Zuccotti Park. At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, police handed out notices from the park’s owner, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. Protesters were told they could return, but without sleeping bags, tarps or tents. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Note how whoever wrote this takes the agency away from the cop (making him the object of the sentence instead of the subject) and insinuates, without explanation, the protester did something to deserve the beating. Why do you think Reuters is afraid to accurately describe what is happening in this picture?
“If there are anarchists, if there are weapons, if there is an intention to engage in violence and confrontation, that obviously raises our concerns,” Portland police Lt. Robert King said.
See what he did there? The very presence of people with a political opinion the police dislike is a reason to increase their aggression. Anarchists = weapons = intent to engage in violence. Is this based on actual knowledge, or convenient assumptions and stereotypes, do ya think?
I haven’t seen too much media coverage about the latest aid boats trying to reach Gaza, but check this out. Two boats, the Canadian boat Tahrir and the Irish boat Saoirse left from a harbor in Turkey to bring medical aid to Gaza as part of an action called ‘Freedom Waves‘. They were, of course, violently intercepted by Israeli ships.
The violent nature of Israel’s takeover of the Tahrir and Saoirse became more apparent with a statement released mid-Sunday by Fintan Lane, the National Coordinator of the Irish Ship Saoirse, in a hurried phone call made from an Israeli prison. “The whole takeover [of the Saoirse by Israeli naval authorities] took about three hours”, claims Lane. “It began with Israeli forces hosing down the boats with high pressure hoses and pointing guns at the passengers through the windows. I was hosed down the stairs of the boat. Windows were smashed and the bridge of the boat nearly caught fire. The boats were corralled to such an extent that the two boats, the Saoirse and the Tahrir, collided with each other and were damaged, with most of the damage happening to the MV Saoirse. The boats nearly sank. The method used in the takeover was dangerous to human life.”
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