Dear Alternet: Slut-shaming Brazilian women won't help beat McCain

Let there be no doubt that Brazil is much less burdened with worries of political correctness than the United States. It is a nation that had a federal judge issue a hate-filled decree that homosexuals have no business playing in the Brazilian soccer league and should find their own league, after all.

But even Brazilians take offense when you call Brazilian women "whores" for affairs they had a half-century earlier, as BoRev.net did:

Meet John McCain's Sexy Brazilian Whore!

Fifty years ago, back before John McCain was a bomb-happy war Senator with deep seated anger issues, he was just a spoiled rich kid with a temper. But the young McCain quickly distinguished himself with his legendary hobbies: heavy drinking, crashing airplanes, and fucking Brazilian chicks. Recently, a former hoochie coochie girlfriend lady has come forward to tell her side of the story, and the shocking tale of their forbidden love threatens to jeopardize his White House bid underscore his Latin American policy experience.

BoRev goes on to call Maria Gracinda Teixeira de Jesus (the Brasileira in question, who is never actually named in the post) a "spicy tomato" and then jokes that McCain could "expand his foreign policy portfolio by screwing old pensioner ladies from Paraguay, South Ossetia and perhaps one of the Emirates."

Now, we have learned that the Internet is chock full of fauxgressives that have very little problem with being wildly sexist if they're writing about someone they dislike. What makes the BoRev post stand out in that regard is that Alternet decided that the post was worthy of being reprinted verbatim on its site. Well, not verbatim. You see, even BoRev (real name: Eric Wingerter) decided that calling her a whore in the headline was probably a bit much for Alternet, and titled the post "Meet McCain's sexy Brazilian 'Foreign Policy Experience'" (which, as you can see from the first comment comes loaded with its own ableist attack).

The comment made by McCain advisor Richard Fontaine was both sexist and ludicrous enough on its own. Living in Brazil, I was aware of Teixera but didn't consider it a story until Fontaine made it one. Nonetheless, it didn't really take much in the way of political correctness to avoid libeling and slut-shaming Teixera. Because the story was about McCain and his miserable campaign. Calling a 73-year-old former ballerina and model a "whore" for extra emphasis not only goes against progressive thinking, it's flat-out mean and hateful just for the sake of being mean and hateful.

Simply put, it's truly distressing that such a prominent site supports slut-shaming a Brazilian woman as a way to help Barack Obama beat John McCain.

--WKW

Full disclosure: I have had a few Shakesville blog run at Alternet.