Look! I'm using women as objects! Ain't I CUTTING-EDGE? Ain't I EDGY? Amirite, guyz? EDGY?
*crickets*
Oooh! EDGY!
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
Quote of the Day
"I've always been a Republican, uh, for, um, the traditional principles that have been associated with the Republican Party since I, you know, became a Republican, uh, when I registered to vote. And that is, uh, limited, you know, limited government, individual opportunity, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense. Uh, so I think that those principles have always been, uh, part of the Republican Party heritage, and I believe that I, you know, reflect those views. And I haven't changed as a Republican, I think more that my party has changed."—Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
My friend Steve contextualizes this comment well; it's unlikely Snowe's going to change parties anytime soon.
The reason I'm posting it is because it underlines so pointedly that the Democratic Party is now essentially what the Republican Party used to be; "limited government, individual opportunity, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense" sounds like the platform Obama actually ran on (and Clinton, too). The Republican Party is now just a palatable, regionally-electable version of rightwing extremism, and the American left is functionally unrepresented by either political party. (No disrespect to Senator Bernie Sanders, heh.)
Actual Headline
Actual Headline: "'Racist' claims defuse once powerful word."
Actual Subhead: "With the word being used so often, it's harder to define its meaning."
Actual Article Opening of Story from the AP:
Everybody's racist, it seems.OMFG. How many straw-arguments can be fit into five paragraphs?! Well, at least 10.
Republican Rep. Joe Wilson? Racist, because he shouted "You lie!" at the first black president. Health care protesters, affirmative action supporters? Racist. And Barack Obama? He's the "Racist in Chief," wrote a leader of the recent conservative protest in Washington.
But if everybody's racist, is anyone?
The word is being sprayed in all directions, creating a hall of mirrors that is draining the scarlet R of its meaning and its power, turning it into more of a spitball than a stigma.
"It gets to the point where we don't have a word that we use to call people racist who actually are," said John McWhorter, who studies race and language at the conservative Manhattan Institute.
1. "Everybody's racist, it seems."—This, of course, doesn't mean what I said here, which is that everyone raised in this culture is de facto racist because the culture is so steeped in racism. What it means is: Every person ever ZOMG! is being totes accused of racism! Racist claims everywhere! Willy-nilly! Racism! Racism! Racism! Everyone's a racist according to people who are totally stupid! And that is a straw-argument. Not "everybody" is being wantonly and randomly accused of racism.
2. "Republican Rep. Joe Wilson? Racist, because he shouted "You lie!" at the first black president."—No, Wilson has been accused of being motivated by racism because he has a demonstrable history of associating himself with racist organizations and symbols, and because it seems like a mighty strong coincidence that a white Congressman who unapologetically affiliates with racist organizations and symbols would have a wildly disrespectful—and unprecedented—outburst during the speech of a black president. "He's white and he yelled at the first black president" is absurdly reductive of the complex argument underlying the charge of racism against Wilson.
3. "Health care protesters, affirmative action supporters? Racist."—I've not seen anyone anywhere actually accuse all healthcare protesters of being racist. Certainly, plenty of people have quite rightly noted that the protests have had incidents of overt racism, and that the intensity of the protests, the violent hatred of the president, is disproportionate, quite obviously because of his race. To deny that evident reality is to deny a 200+ year national history of white mob violence against "uppity" blacks. Of course there are people who object to Obama's policies for reasons other than his being black; but there are also people who object to Obama's policies because he is black, or object to them in a manner they would not if he weren't black. The only people saying, "All healthcare protesters are racists!" are rightwingers who are deliberately misconstruing a legitimate argument about the relationship between incendiary/violent rhetoric and racial animosity.
4. "Racist. And Barack Obama? He's the 'Racist in Chief,' wrote a leader of the recent conservative protest in Washington."—That's just the unqualified recounting of a straw-argument.
5. "But if everybody's racist, is anyone?"—Ah, the old "if racism is that ubiquitous, it must not even be real" canard. Straw-argument.
6. "The word is being sprayed in all directions"—Another straw-argument. It is not "being sprayed," which connotes nonspecific targets, in all directions. There are people who "spray" accusations of racism all over the place, like throwing shit at a wall just to see what sticks. But responsible commentators, especially among social justice progressives, are not "spraying" accusations of racism, but painstakingly demonstrating patterns of historical racism and teasing out the cultural memes and narratives that underlie the rhetoric and actions they've identified as racially-motivated. That ain't spray; that's scholarship.
7. "creating a hall of mirrors"—The "spray" doesn't create the hall of mirrors. The media's refusal to distinguish between "spray" and scholarship does.
8. "that is draining the scarlet R of its meaning and its power"—There are about half a dozen different straw-arguments at play here, but the one on which I'll focus is the assertion that charges of racism only work if racism is a dirty word; it can only be effective as "the scarlet R," or a badge of shame. That is a straw-argument. In fact, the more that people internalize the idea that all of us are socialized to be racists, and can express that racism (against and within multiple ethnic/racial minority groups) even without realizing it, the more likely they are to be not defensive and open to accepting criticism on that basis, which makes them more likely in turn to examine their internalized prejudices and let go of them. Which is ultimately a much more effective way of tackling racism, meaning that we should be making racism a word we all use matter-of-factly, instead of treating it like "the scarlet R."
9. "turning it into more of a spitball than a stigma"—Same straw-argument, different clause.
10. "'It gets to the point where we don't have a word that we use to call people racist who actually are,' said John McWhorter, who studies race and language at the conservative Manhattan Institute"—Well, aside from the fact that I'd argue it's more useful to talk about actions as racist, rather than people as racist, yeah, we do still have a word we can use to call people racist: Racist. But the word isn't supposed to be used as an insult. It's supposed to be used as an opening salvo for a discussion on how someone is engaging in disordered and irrational thinking, rooted in fear/hatred/bias.
The problem isn't that "racism/racist" are being used too much; it's that they're being used wrongly. And generally being received wrongly, too. It's not a silencing technique; it's the start of a conversation. Or, at least, it ought to be.
But this entire article is, instead, one long complaint that "racism/racist" just can't be used to embarrass the hell out of anyone anymore. And if it can't, what good is it?
Sigh.
Radio Shakesville
Pop Quiz
What's wrong with this headline: Senior Democrat turns healthcare debate into fight over immigration?
It's a story about Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) raising concerns that the healthcare reform bill drafted by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) "does not allow illegal immigrants to purchase health coverage over an exchange set up to create competition within the insurance industry and reduce costs. Menendez is troubled by that language and has joined Hispanic advocacy groups in criticizing the bill for placing too heavy a burden on legal and illegal immigrants."
(Legal immigrants, too? Yes.*)
If you answered: A more appropriate headline might be "Senior Democrat turns healthcare debate into fight over decency," or "Senior Democrat questions whether administration really believes healthcare is a right, not a privilege," or "Senior Democrat has heart; actually regards all humans as equal," or "Senior Democrat has brain; recognizes excluding immigrants is bad politics," or "Senior Democrat has conscience; acknowledges that allowing our economy to depend on the work of illegal immigrants but shutting them out of American services is unbelievably fucking shitty," give yourself 1,000 points.
----------------
* When Iain immigrated, for example, a big part of the process was "proving" he would be financially independent. I had to submit back tax returns, bank account statements, proof of savings, and, because I was not working in America at the time (since I was living in Scotland), my parents had to effectively co-sign by submitting the same junk to say they'd pay for him if I didn't. Iain had to submit his own financial records, and he had to sign a waiver saying he would not be eligible for Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, or any other government services while a resident alien, even though he was required to pay taxes.
Also: Legal immigrants who don't come over on a work visa can't apply for one until they arrive, and it takes about three months for the application to be approved. So most legal immigrants can't work, can't even look for work, for a few months after arriving, and ergo have no income and no healthcare (unless they can be covered under a working spouse's plan).
The rules are set up so that's an inevitable circumstance of legal immigration, which is why the government is so insistent upon receiving proof they'll be draining their own or someone else's resources during that can't-work holding pattern immediately upon arrival.
Welcome to America! Fuck you.
What the Hell?
Deeky, circa 1985
Friday bonus blonde Deeky:
Put on a shirt there, rough trade!
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, Mama Shakes, Mustang Bobby, RedSonja, MomTFH, Portly Dyke, SteffaB, Icca, Christina, Orangelion03, Car, Siobhan, InfamousQBert, Maud, Rikibeth, MishaRN, CLD, Cheezwiz, MamaCarrie, Temeraire, somebodyoranother, goldengirl, Liss (again), summerwing, yeomanpip, Susan811, bbl, Deeky (Part II), A Daily Shakesville Fan, Sami_J, liberalandproud Temeraire: Redux, Mama Shakes II, Bonus Deeky, OuyangDan, J.Goff, Iain, Talonas, The Great Indoors, gogo, kiwi_a, em_and_ink, Tik_bev, phdintraining, Deeky Freakhands, busydani, Jenny Anne, rowmyboat, DesertRose, Steve/Pido, Anne Onymous, and phredrika.]
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
"100% PURE ADRENALINE!"
That movie would have been 100% LESS SHITTY if Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves had made out a few times.
Question of the Day
So, I'm riding my scooter home from work; it's a beautiful evening. I've actually been able to ride my scoot for the past couple of weeks every day; the weather has been beautiful, and I'm a happy spud. I was sitting at a stop light at a pretty crowded intersection waiting for the light to change, and I heard a guy yell something at me. I know it was directed at me, because the one word I caught out of the arglebargle was "scooter." I took a look to my left, looking to see who it might be, because my friends and co-workers are the types that would yell and hoot at me from a car. Couldn't see anyone I recognized or trying to get my attention, so I gave a mental shrug and went back to waiting.
Then, I realized what this guy had shouted was, "Nice scooter, you tool."
How do I know this? Because he yelled it again.
"Holy shit," I thought, "how pathetic can you get?" This idiot was obviously very invested in his insult and making sure I heard it, because he yelled it a third time. To be clear, it was obvious by his voice that this douche was some dudebro roughly my age, and I'm certainly old enough to know better than to yell insults from cars.
When I still didn't pay attention, he changed tactics. "Nice plane bag, you tool!" (I use a vintage-ish airline bag for a briefcase, and it is quite nice, actually.) This guy REALLY wanted to make sure I was WOUNDED. By him insulting my accessories. Ahem. When he still didn't get a response, he went back to his original insult again. Then the light changed and I sped away, laughing my ass off. The only thing that would have made this encounter more hilarious would be if he yelled "Heyyy! Everybody! Nicescootertool! Woooo!"
Seriously, how pathetic and shallow do you have to be to yell insults at a complete stranger from a car, and then repeat it several times when you don't get a response? And you know, when I got my scooter, the first thought in my head was, "But will douchebags think I look cool when I'm riding?"
So Shakers, what's the last douchariffic thing some bozo yelled at you in public? (Recognizing, of course, that yours may not be funny and/or pathetic, and that's fine.)
WTF, Onion?
Did the Onion fire its entire staff of writers and replace them with an automatic misogyny-generating machine? Because this:
—isn't funny. And I don't mean "It isn't funny" in the way that conveys something is too cruel or offensive to be considered funny by thoughtful people; I mean "It isn't funny" in the sense that there's no fucking joke there.
Vagina + Strength = Broken Dildo isn't a joke. It's observable trace evidence of a sad person who can't look at the photograph of any woman anywhere in the world doing anything without immediately sexualizing her.
[H/T to Shaker Angiecita. Previously.]
Beer in Hell CTA Ads Update
The ads for Tucker Max's cinematic hatefest about which Shaker Elena wrote earlier today, are being removed from Chicago buses.
CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said Thursday afternoon that the transit agency agrees that this sign along with a similar sign referencing "blind girls" violates CTA guidelines, and that the private company to which the CTA outsources its advertising program has agreed to remove them.Awesome. o.oP!
Earlier, I received word that CBS News Chicago was planning a news story about this for tonight's broadcast. I hope they will still do the story, asking why it is that the ads ever made their way to buses in the first place. What kind of shitty vetting process is in place that it didn't filter something so obviously inappropriate, and what changes are being made to ensure it doesn't happen again?
Also: I'd love to how if/how the CTA plans to make amends for all the free advertising their fuck-up has now given Tucker Max. I suggest a sizable donation to a women's shelter.
[Thanks to Shaker Trifling in comments.]
...Starring Deeky!
In which Liss re-imagines landmark pieces of modern cinema, making them all the more brilliant by adding me (Deeky: the love child of Tab Hunter and Anthony Perkins) to their iconic posters. Today, a movie that somehow got made:
Ernest Goes To Jail
And still I have freakishly large hands. Of course.
This week's top Netflix rentals: Braveheart, The Shining, Cinema Paradiso, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Jaws, Mamma Mia!, Home Alone, Anchorman.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
Duh of the Day
Teen birth rates highest in most religious states.
It feels like I've posted about various studies with the same findings about eighty kajillion times in the last five years. And it's not going to change, because, to opponents of contraception and abortion, a high teen birth rate is not a bug of their philosophy, but a feature.
It's not that they actively want or hope teens will have sex and get pregnant, but they are resigned to that reality (whether they'll publicly admit it or not) and regard a high teen birth rate as solid evidence that their discouragement of contraceptive use and abortion is working.
Babies born to young, unwed parents are proof of their success.
OFFS
From the third paragraph of Time's expansive "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?" comes this gem:
[Deanna Frankowski, 49, of Leeds, Alabama] has been hit hard by the economic turmoil of the past year. Short of funds to make the trip [to protest in D.C. last weekend], she painted an American flag on a pane of glass and asked people at her church to chip in toward her expenses, with one of them taking home the flag. She would like to share a house with her soon-to-be husband, but first she must figure out how to get free of the house she has — the one with the underwater mortgage. Some left-leaning writers argue that people in her boat must be deluded to oppose Barack Obama, but Frankowski is skeptical that her interests are being served by trillions in new government interventions. So she said, "I've paid my mortgage every month. And I'm getting no help. I'm just saying, Let capitalism work."LET CAPITALISM WORK?!?!?!?!
I'm not sure if she's saying that the Bush and Obama administrations shouldn't have bailed out the banks, and should have "let capitalism work," or if she's saying that they should have and now the banks should be using that government money to help her with her mortgage, but, in the former case, letting capitalism work wouldn't have changed her financial situation at all and arguably would have made our collective situation worse, and in the latter case, what she really means is "let pseudo-socialism work."
Either way, "let capitalism work" is an absurd and totally asinine thing to say.
Especially, frankly, following immediately on the heels of: "And I'm getting no help." Who the fuck does she expect to help her? Capitalism?
The truth is that she expects her government to be helping her, as well she should. But the rightwing media machine has played three dirty tricks on people like Ms. Frankowski:
1. They've convinced them that the government is helping people other than them.
2. They've convinced them those other people are undeserving of that help, by virtue of their alleged laziness, entitlement, desire for "special rights," immigration status, or some other bigoted bullshit.
3. They've convinced them, by concealing the reality that the only "people" the government helps anymore are corporations, that "capitalism" is the answer, which creates more demand for the government to capitulate to free marketeering and abandon industry regulations that protect consumers.
In other words, they've convinced people like Ms. Frankowski to demand that the government help them less, even as she desperately wonders why, despite playing by the rules and paying her mortgage every month, she's still hurting and no one's helping her out.
It would be hilarious, if it weren't so fucking tragic.
Class and Academia
by Shaker mouthyb
I have read, various places, that the actual percentage of people who manage to class-climb is very small. I believe it. I am a graduate student at a state university in NM, one of the poorest states in the US, and a teacher of intro English comp classes. I see that slim percentage echoed daily in my classes. The vast majority of the students in my classes are the children of the middle class, which they make evident in the assertions they make in our argument exercises: if the poor weren't so lazy, they wouldn't be poor; the poor ruin the health care system and take advantage of it. They also make it evident in spurious claims of equality of access to everything from education to jobs, even in this climate. I try to play devil's advocate for those kids, because many of them have never heard any other perspective on class and race and wealth. I tell myself that I make them better arguers by exposing them to the oppositions to their arguments, and I hope I have made them better people.
Some of them tell me, at the end of the semester, that I have made a difference to them. I have been told that this was the first time they actually had to work. I had a *headdesk* moment when I read the following in a student's end of the semester memo: he told me he's finally writing, instead of pasting content from google and re-phrasing it to avoid plagiarism. As a tall, good looking white boy from a wealthy family, he'd never had anyone check up on his work, and he was contemptuous of the whole system because of it. He spent the entire semester trying to flirt with me, because, as far as I could tell, education was not about learning for him; it was about being forced to sit in a classroom and entertain himself using others, typically women. I can only hope feeling like he had to work is a sensation which sticks with him.
The poor kids, the first-time college attendees and the kids from bad school districts, are also obvious to me, even though there are not many of them in my classes. They are understandably hesitant to participate in discussions. Many of them have problems with the kinds of work I'm asking them to do because they have not, in their K-12 experiences, been asked to do these kinds of things before. I often hear, in meetings, my fellow TAs give up on them because they are 'stupid.' Because it's 'not our job to re-do their K-12 education.' I am afraid for those students, that they will get the message and leave.
In the last three semesters of teaching at the university, I've had first year students describe to me, in regular papers and personal narratives, having their teachers show them movies all semester instead of teach in an AP English course, being sent to year-long suspension in high school for talking back to a teacher who was, at least by their explanations, treating them as if they were stupid. I've had students describe being pushed by athletics coaches to nearly collapsing of heat exhaustion or watching other students collapse and be sent to the hospital in the name of sports success—sports was the only thing which was going to propel them out of their neighborhoods. That is what they were told at school, when they failed at tasks they were not prepared to accomplish, what they saw on TV, what some of them were told at home. I read those personal essays and cry. I rage and pace my house.
I scrabble to help those kids, with the visible and invisible social requirements of education. I tell them that these things are just a part of their lives, that they are only a role which can be put aside when it is not needed, so that they are not swallowed up by the life they are supposed to have had. I ache for them and try over and over to encourage them to write about those moments in their education, to tell them that these things are worthy of being given voice. I am afraid for them because I know what is waiting for them in academia.
I am afraid for them because I am a poor kid, myself.
This spring, I sat in my dissertation director's office. He was looking over a nonfiction piece I wrote for my dissertation about how it is I came to be in college. In the piece, I write about child abuse, about being homeless, about running from a pimp in the neighborhoods I couch-surfed around, and about being one of 'those girls' and 'those people' in the classroom. I write about listening to students from middle class homes unwittingly characterize me as stupid, defective, lazy as they talk about the characters in literature, or about politics, and about pushing on past the terrible burden of self-doubt those comments put on my shoulders. He put my story down and looked at me.
Then he told me it would be easier on me if I'd just stop talking about all that stuff. He compared me to another student he knew from his involvement in the BA/MD program, a student who had learned not to talk about it. He told me she got on much better for not talking about it. I spent the rest of the meeting trying very hard not to start screaming. This man is the only person who is willing to look at my dissertation, and so far he has told me not to write about nearly everything I've turned into him.
He accused me of trying to perform a literary hatchet job on my parents, when I talk about the abuse. He wants me to talk about what's good about my parents, because no one is that bad.
My fellow students have told me that I am inventing the contents of my dissertation, because no one's life is that way. Because bad things only happen to people who invite them, or because everyone knows that the police always respond to calls on time, because men don't really beat women that often and everyone's family loves them, without question. Admitting my mental illness elicits charges that my account of events is irretrievably unreliable.
A few of the male students in graduate school, after reading one of my essays on trying to construct a sexual ethos after being abused, have gone on to lecture me on what's wrong with girls like me—or made a pass at me, as if talking about sexuality is my attempt to make them notice me. I talk about being used; they want to use me. I am damaged, and they want to get a piece of what's left.
I have chosen to keep talking and writing about it, to wear my identity every single damn day in an open fashion, which I am often told is obnoxious, mean, and asking for trouble. I wear it for my poor students, I wear it for all 'those girls' and 'those people.' And I tell myself that I am breaking ground for all the other women in academia who I have talked to, who have chosen to be lacquered over because the harassment is so very bad, and because you are dependent on the people around you for professional contacts and referrals.
I am risking my future jobs to do this because I have few friends among my fellow students, and getting a job in academia is often about networking. I comment about class, about gender, about the assumptions in other students' work because they need to know what they are doing. They're teaching here, and I need them to know what they're doing to their students because I'm afraid they don't see it. They view me as a trouble-maker in return.
The comments I have received from faculty have run the negative gamut as well. I have been told that I like to piss people off and that I lied about my experiences. I've lost count of how many times my critiques of my parents, of society, and of the behavior of privilege have been dismissed as motivated by revenge, not concern and fear for others. One of my professors suggested that I drop out and save everyone the trouble, and another told me that I shouldn't have had my children if I wanted to have fun as a graduate student, if I wanted to go be social.
My experience with academia is primarily one of being viewed as troubling and obnoxious.
If only I'd stop bringing in things like gender, or class, or my experiences, and allow myself to be lacquered over with a veneer of the apathy masquerading as middle-class civility, I'd get on just fine in my classes. And in that way I'm lucky. If I keep my mouth shut, cover my tattoos and smile more (I've lost count of how many times I've been told to smile, or been told to be grateful I, the kind of person I am, made it to grad school), I'd pass for what I'm not.
I'd pass for another homogenously successful college graduate. If it wasn't possible for me to do that, I'd never have made it through the beauty contest of getting into grad school. I am grateful for my ability to understand esoteric literature theory, for the terrible toughness which is the legacy of being a homeless kid, and for the privilege that my pale skin and my cis gender afford me, even as I challenge the system that privileges those things. Without them, I would never have made it this far.
My director refers to me as the biggest cat person he's ever met. By this, he means he doesn't understand why I don't seem to care, why I don't bend with that pressure to conform. I've written him several defenses of my choices, disguised as personal essays. What he doesn't understand, what the faculty and many of my fellow students don't seem to understand is that I do care. God, do I care. I care for those poor kids, for my fellow academics who are dying under that lacquer. I care for everyone who has come to an education and been told they had to have a makeover first.
I care enough to be myself in the face of pressure not to be.
Doing so means risking poor job contacts, possibly talking my way out of a letter of recommendation, no less a good job; it means listening to a lot of insulting and aggravating commentary. The pressure to suppress my true self is always there, hovering alongside my resentment that I am expected to choose, that my poor students are expected to choose, between success and self.
Bring Him the One Ring
Eric Kleefeld reports that they're growing a strange crop of voters in New Jersey.
This is ridiculous. Everyone knows that Obama is really the son of Sauron.Dave Weigel points out that one out of every three New Jersey conservatives think that Obama could be the anti-Christ. To be precise, 18% of self-identified conservatives affirmatively say that Obama is the anti-Christ, with 17% not sure. Among the self-identified Republican label, it's 14% who say Obama has the number 666 hidden underneath his hair, plus 15% who aren't sure.
An Open Letter To Mayor Daley
Dear Mayor Daley:
While I was going to work this morning, I was shocked to see on the side of a CTA bus an advertisement stating "Deaf Girls Can't Hear You Coming." The ad contained no other information that I could see, just this statement that appears to appeal to stalkers, rapists or would-be rapists, in addition to containing a rather blunt sexual double entendre as well as mocking the disabled. Upon getting to my office, I looked up this quote and found out it was advertising the film "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," a film created by Tucker Max whose treatment of women can be called problematic, to say the least.
I find it appalling that the CTA would accept such an advertisement to be placed on the side of public transportation. Does the CTA really think it is acceptable to force their customers to be confronted with an ad making light of rape on a daily basis? Does the CTA think it is acceptable to make light of the hearing-impaired?
I am a social worker who is working on putting together a counseling intervention for people who have survived sexual assault as children or adolescents. I find it infuriating that one of my clients, people working on coping mechanisms for dealing with their assault, could have all of their work shattered after being triggered by a CTA advertisement. I find it equally appalling that the CTA finds it acceptable to potentially trigger victims of sexual assault all over the city with this advertisement.
In the middle of a campaign to bring the Olympics to Chicago, does it make the slightest bit of sense to have pro-rape advertising on the city's official public transportation?
I will also be contacting the CTA about this advertisement. I certainly hope you will look into having these advertisements removed from our public transportation, and encourage the CTA to be more selective about their ads in the future. I recognize that CTA ad revenue is important to the continuation of our public transportation system, but this ad is simply unacceptable.
Thank you,
[Paul the Spud]
USA: Beacon of Stupid - Interference vs. Inconvenience
The 2,000,000 handful of people who came to our nation's capital on 9/12 to protest the government's involvement in everything are actually upset that the government didn't do enough with DC's public transit system to accommodate the influx of people. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) had this to say about it:
"These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation's capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them."So, government involvement is okay when protesters are inconvenienced, but not when they can't afford medical treatment.
Asshats, the lot of them.
An Open Letter to Mayor Daley
Dear Mayor Daley:
I am deeply concerned about the ads currently running on CTA buses for the new film I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, which read: "Deaf Girls Can't Hear You Coming." Clearly, this ad makes light of attacks on women (no less disabled women), and I cannot believe that's something considered appropriate messaging on the side of city property.
Combined with the other ad, which reads: "Strippers will not tolerate disrespect ... HAHA, just kidding!" the campaign makes Chicago look not like the progressive and welcoming city it purports to be, but a city that condones sexual assault and misogyny.
Given your campaign to bring the Olympics to Chicago, one hopes your office will consider whether that's the message it wants to send to the international community.
I would also hope your office would consider that many women who have survived sexual assault are dependent on public transportation to get to and from jobs, school, the grocery store, etc. They don't have an alternative option if they prefer not to be greeted by rape jokes on the side of their bus.
Surely you and your staff are aware that public transportation is itself a prime location for groping, frottage, and other sexual assaults, which makes the CTA's decision to run these ads bitterly ironic, and profoundly hostile toward the women who have been victimized in this way.
Best regards,
Melissa McEwan
