The rightwing homobigot brigade is already going totes apeshit about the possibility? rumors? fact?—I don't claim to know, and frankly it's none of my business—that SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan is a lesbian.
Kyle over at Right Wing Watch is doing an awesome job keeping up with all the nonsense:
* The American Family Association: "No Lesbian is Qualified to Sit on the Supreme Court"
* Americans for Truth: LaBarbera Demands to Know if Kagan "Has a Personal Interest in Lesbianism"
* Focus on The Family Opposes Kagan Due To Her "Commitment to the LGBT Agenda"
Honestly, these people are almost incomprehensibly absurd.
OFFS
Shaker Help Request
Shaker koach emails:
I teach a graduate-level course focusing on censorship and freedom of speech. I endeavor to place several different viewpoints before my students and to challenge their thinking; many come to the class with an unexamined anti-censorship stance, which I would like to challenge with compelling arguments for some limitations on speech/expression. There are some classic examples of problematic speech, types of speech that people have, or want to, restrict:Have at it, Shakers!
* hate speech (particularly sexist and racist/ethnic slurs)
* corporate speech (rules about marketing, truthfulness, etc.)
* symbolic speech (such as burning the flag)
* anonymous speech
This is where I need help! As you may remember from various comment threads, I'm personally in favor of wide-open speech with practically no restrictions. But I know many Shakers are not. So, do you have any go-to sources for the "limit some speech for practical reasons" sort of argument? Any ideas would be most appreciated.
I know there are—there must be—good sources out there explaining why we should ban hate speech or regulate advertising or other such actions. That's what I'm looking for. Ideally, these sources would be academic, peer-reviewed, 5-35 pages (an article, a book chapter or two, etc.). I'd ideally like to include philosophical/ theoretical arguments, as well as some practical examples/ issues. Less academic sources, such as newspaper articles or blogs, would work in a pinch. I have looked through many databases offered by my university and haven't found much that's useful; I assume I'm not searching well.
Thanks in advance for any help!
[Related Reading: On Hate Speech; On Hate Crimes.]
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Underoos for Grown-Ass Men.
Recommended Reading:
Bri: Don't Be Love-Handling Me Thankyou Very Much
Mar: Damned Homeless People and Their Hunger
Chris: The Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling
Michael: Kristin Chenoweth Lays Into Homophobic Article in Newsweek
Marti: Weekly Transadvocate Twitter Digest
Melissa: Cannes: 18 Male Directors and NO FEMALE DIRECTORS!
Leave your links in comments...
Yay, Hugh Jackman! Yay, Lipton!
So, everyone already knows I love Hugh Jackman, right? (As do some other people around here.) Okay, well, if you didn't before, you do now!
So you can only imagine my love for this effervescent advert he did for Lipton Ice Tea:
[Jackman takes a sip of Lipton Ice Tea while sitting in a hotel lobby in Asia, then jumps up and dances his way through the hotel, shimmying with staff and guests along the way, a journey which culminates in an elaborate group dance number in the lobby back where he started. He comes out of one spin only for all the others to be gone, and we realize he's been in one spot, dancing alone, imagining the whole thing. He composes himself and sits back down, waving down a staff member for another tea. A voiceover says: "Enjoy the natural effect of tea. Lipton Ice Tea. Drink positive."]
The hat tip goes to Andy, who notes: "The folks over at Lipton chose Jackman to be their spokesperson because, according to them, 'he is a true entertainer who can dance, sing and act. We will use all of his skills.' I can't disagree one bit."
Nor can I.
With all the times I've got to write about some advert playing on stereotypes and prejudices and oppressive narratives, it quite genuinely feels awesome to be able to share an ad that made me grin from ear to ear.
Contact Lipton here to thank them.
PSA Update
The Illinois Department of Public Health has abruptly yanked the PSA site connected to their "He's the 1" ad which caused quite a stir in Chicago last week.
The ads, of course, can still be seen in the papers and posted outside. It will be interesting to see if they run in the gay magazines again this week.
Also, the topic of HIV reinfection (or "superinfection") was discussed in last week's post quite a bit. There is a lot of good information on this very important topic at The Body.
Thanks for the teaspooning, Shakers!
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to Lifelube. Caution: may be NSFW.)
Dancing with the Victim-Blamers
by Shaker QLH
[Trigger warning for stalking, victim-blaming.]
In July of 2009, someone posted footage on-line of a naked woman videotaped through a hotel's peephole. The footage was of Erin Andrews, a sports reporter for ESPN, who swiftly acted to remove the video and press charges.
In her sole interview on the matter, Andrews "described the situation as a 'nightmare,' and stated that at the time she discovered the video she believed her career would end."
A suspect was arrested in October of 2009 and convicted in March of 2010. The very next month, "it was revealed that Andrews had been receiving email death threats since September 2009. The FBI was notified and security around her was tightened."
Stalked in 2009, with a conviction this March. Sent death threats since (not simply in, but since) September, to the point that the FBI became involved this April.
Erin Andrews' birthday is May 4th. I imagine that after the stalking conviction in March and having to deal with the FBI in April, she'd have liked May to go considerably better.
On Tuesday, May 4th, Elisabeth Hasselback used some time on "The View" to discuss Erin Andrews' ongoing appearances on "Dancing with the Stars.""For the past three weeks, she's been wearing next to nothing," Hasselbeck said, mounting her soapbox. "I think in light of what happened and as illegal and as inexcusable as it was for that guy to peep on her in her hotel room, in some ways, if I'm that guy, I'm like, 'Man, I just could've waited 12 weeks and seen this—a little bit less—without the prison time.'"
The victim-blaming burns, and it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what stalking and peeping are really about. The point isn't simply to see naked flesh; the Internet and local video store can supply plenty of that. The perpetrator wouldn't get the same rush from bumping into her in a bikini on a beach. The point is for it to be against her will, without her knowledge, something she doesn't know about and wouldn't consent to. Erin Andrews walks onto the dance floor in front of cameras, fully aware that she's being broadcast. In her hotel room, fixing her hair, alone behind a locked door, she thinks that she's alone. She thinks that she's safe. He knows that she's not.
The next day, Hasselback returned with an apology. Apparently she'd called Andrews for a private apology, at the suggestion of her five-year-old daughter, and here's what she told viewers:"I went home and wasn't feeling that great about it, and I went home and I'm sitting with Grace, my 5-year-old, and she said, 'Mommy, why do you look so sad?' And I said, 'Well, Grace, today Mommy hurt someone's feelings," she said, tearing up.
Hasselback's framing of having been "focused on the detestable human being" and having accidentally "ended up hurting" Andrews is a bizarre twist on reality, since she was clearly focused on Andrews' behavior and was plainly slut-shaming her for her appearance. This apology doesn't demonstrate that Hasselback genuinely understands where she went wrong. If she had a radical breakthrough about her deeply-entrenched victim-blaming attitude within twenty-four hours, the wording of her apology clearly doesn't reflect that.
"Yesterday when we were talking about Erin, even though I'm focused on the detestable human being who's behind bars thankfully, who's really made her life a living hell, I ended up hurting her…I told her and I promised her I would use my words more mindfully like I try to do to build people up and not break them down."
What I also found interesting was the mix of reactions to what Hasselback said. People, reporters included, seem to have trouble supporting Andrews without taking specifically misogynist digs at Hasselback.
Many people from "Dancing with the Stars" tweeted their support for Andrews. But while Niecy Nash called Hasselback's comments, "Insensitive, in poor taste and remedial and foolish," Andrews' dance partner on the show (also her costume designer) called Hasselback jealous and stupid, playing on a popular misogynist theme that women only speak negatively about each other because they're jealous.
At the Miami Herald, in an article titled "Elisabeth Hasselbeck: stiletto in mouth" (because "foot in mouth" isn't nearly as evocative, right?), the reporter made sure to tell us that while Hasselback "yapped" about Andrews' outfit, she herself was "in a chest- and arm-baring sundress). Then, "Elisabeth tearfully apologized."
While E! directly called Hasselback's words "some creative victim-blaming," they also called Hasselback "teary" and said that she "not only turned on the waterworks, but somehow found a way to make it all about herself."
They also created a "Daily 10 Battle of the Blondes Poll," because the fact that both women are blonde is somehow hugely relevant to the story. The poll question: "Should Erin forgive Elisabeth for slamming her outfit?" Because, obviously, that's all it boils down to: one blonde chick said something nasty about another blonde chick's clothes, because women are catty like that, amirite? I'll bet her shoes were out of season, too!
By far, the best commentary I saw was from the L.A. Times, which, in comparison to everything else I read, sounded downright feminist.The man, Michael Barrett, was sentenced to prison shortly before Andrews began her Dancing With The Stars competition and Andrews was emotional in speaking about the sentencing which she believed wasn't severe enough.
Note: If you click through to the linked articles, please do not read comments. I ran into the usual cesspool of misogyny and victim-blaming. The fact that it's a blonde-on-blonde catfight, starring a broad who's dared to enter the men's world of sports reporting, has excited a lot of fucknecks.
Hasselbeck's opinion here was that Barrett should have not bothered with hotel room peepholes and just waited to see DWTS. Hasselbeck also seemed to be suggesting that Andrews, because she was a victim of a man who committed a crime, should have altered her own behavior, maybe not dressed the same as all the other women competitors on the show.
Whether you believe Andrews is hurting her job credibility by appearing on the show (an argument that doesn't seem to be made for athletes like Chad Ochocinco and Evan Lysacek who are also still in the competition), it is patently unfair to think that Andrews needed to change her plans because she was the victim of a crime. It's a ballroom dance competition for goodness sakes. Gauze, sequins, short skirts, plunging necklines (boys and girls)? That's the deal. And the deal doesn't include an Erin Andrews exception because, well, you know, boys will be boys.
RIP Lena Horne
Lena Horne, "who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer," has died at age 92.
Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin... Ms. Horne was stuffed into one "all-star" musical after another — "Thousands Cheer" (1943), "Broadway Rhythm" (1944), "Two Girls and a Sailor" (1944), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946), "Words and Music" (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.I know the exact moment I saw Lena Horne for the first time. I was 11, and she made a guest appearance on "The Cosby Show," as herself, in an episode where Claire (Phylicia Rashad) took Cliff (Bill Cosby) to see her perform for his birthday. I remember thinking how beautiful and glamorous she was, and falling utterly in love with her voice, which has remained to this day one of my absolute favorites—totally recognizable, totally unmistakable, totally butter.
"The only time I ever said a word to another actor who was white was Kathryn Grayson in a little segment of 'Show Boat'" included in "Till the Clouds Roll By" (1946), a movie about the life of Jerome Kern, Ms. Horne said in an interview in 1990.
...Looking back at the age of 80, Ms. Horne said: "My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I'm free. I no longer have to be a 'credit.' I don't have to be a symbol to anybody; I don't have to be a first to anybody. I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else."
RIP Ms. Horne.
[Note: If there are less flattering things to be said about Ms. Horne, they have been excluded because I am unaware of them, not as the result of any deliberate intent to whitewash her life. Please feel welcome to comment on the entirety of her work and life in this thread.]
Elena Kagan Is Obama's SCOTUS Nominee
Elena Kagan, currently serving as Obama's Solicitor General, will reportedly be nominated today as retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy John Paul Stevens' replacement.
In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, but the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience.Because Kagan's got no bench experience, her nomination is being compared to Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers, which is not totally fair given Kagan's depth of experience and much more impressive résumé, but is not totally unfair, either, given Kagan's position in the administration.
To be totally honest, I'm personally more concerned about Kagan's lack of experience on the bench not because I feel it's universally inappropriate (or even necessarily a bad idea) to nominate someone with a more nontraditional background to SCOTUS, but because it doesn't provide an easy way to assess her judicial philosophy.
Paul Campos notes that Kagan is a blank slate, and LeMew notes: "When you're reduced to noting that a prospective nominee for the highest court in the land is a 'brilliant conversationalist' and that other Harvardites think she's good people, one has pretty much conceded that the pick is Ivy League nepotism of the worst sort."
Indeed so. Which leaves everyone guessing.
There are clues, hints, suggestions, whiffs that she might be a good progressive:
Kagan's professional biography reveals that she has spent the last several decades working closely with some of the country's best known left and center-left figures. ... [She] clerked for Thurgood Marshall, another liberal icon, whom Kagan has called her legal hero and the greatest lawyer of the 20th Century.Which sounds pretty good. But.
...Kagan's (admittedly scant) writings on the subject suggest that she might instead embrace Marshall's view that the Constitution should be interpreted expansively to provide rigorous protections for the dispossessed. In eulogizing her former boss in a 1993 law review article, Kagan observed that Marshall's pragmatic jurisprudential approach considered not just the law as written, but "the way in which law acted on people's lives." As Kagan noted, this approach demanded "special solicitude for the despised and disadvantaged." Kagan lauded this view of the judicial role, saying that "however much some recent justices have sniped" at Marshall's vision, it remained "a thing of glory." In the article's closing, Kagan nodded to the progressive view that the Constitution grows and adapts to meet the needs of a changing society, giving Marshall "credit" for our "modern Constitution."
Even if Kagan's judicial beliefs don't align with Marshall's in all particulars, her willingness to praise his general judicial principles suggests that she, like Marshall, sees the Constitution as a dynamic bulwark against majoritarian tyranny and political persecution.
If you're a progressive, she's made troubling comments about executive power, has troubling ties to Goldman Sachs, and has a more-than-troubling record of diversity in hiring while dean of Harvard Law.
So. She's without a comprehensive record of flatly-stated positions on key issues, and she's rumored to be a good progressive, but there are indications she might really be a centrist. Sounds like someone else I know.
This nomination is, in my assessment, classic Obama.
I give a big "wev" to what I imagine her judicial stylings will be on the bench, and a thumbs-up to seeing another woman making her way to the Court.
Doctor Who Open Thread
Hello there, my fellow ShakerWhovians, time for this week's edition of the Doctor Who Open Thread. This week's episode on the wider schedule (two weeks behind the BBC in the UK, on BBC America and Canada's Space) was The Time of Angels: Season 5, Episode 4.
Please be aware that there will be spoiler material discussing Season 5, Episode 4, or any previous Doctor Who episode or other medium.
We ask that you do not give spoiler material for episodes after Season 5, Ep 4.
And, as a more general Who-related question, What or who is (or was) your favourite Dr. Who villain/monster/opponent?
I'll give you three guesses what mine is (and yes, I mean EVAR!), and the first two don't count.
Open Thread
Hosted by the Longaberger Baskets corporate office.
This week's open threads have been hosted by buildings that look like other things. Tip 'o the energy dome to Shaker InfamousQBert for the theme idea.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for violence.]
"I was treated like a criminal, like a complaining woman."—Katie Tagle, whose son Wyatt was killed by his father, Stephen Garcia, after San Bernardino County Superior Judge Robert Lemkau ignored "three motions for an order of protection against Garcia" filed by Tagle and "chose to believe her former boyfriend's denials rather than the evidence she supplied of Garcia's threats―including e-mails, text messages and voice messages. Although no extenuating circumstances were raised in court transcripts of the case, the judge simply accused Tagle of lying, and ordered that she turn Wyatt over to his father—with fatal results."
I encourage you to read the whole article, which also addresses how family courts across the country have "been affected by the rise of the Fathers Rights movement" and notes the conundrum "that efforts to give fathers more rights in custody cases have increased the odds against victimized mothers and children."
[Via Sadie.]
Daily Dose o' Cute
"What? I totally fit in here!"
So, after a week with Dudley now, I cannot begin to convey how much I love this guy. If I'd had the chance to custom-order a dog out of a catalog of awesome dogitude, I don't know that I could have come up with a specimen as tremendous as he is.
Dudz is slowly coming out of his shell, getting more playful with us, and he's starting to trust me more very quickly. (We're already on Day 3 of no submissive piddling—touch wood!) He's still showing no interest, besides a general curiosity, in the cats, with whom he's happy to share food and water and treats; he's great with other dogs and with kids; we're currently having a massive thunderstorm, and he hasn't so much as flinched during the crashing and booming thunder.
So, basically, he's a GOOD BOY! But more than that, he's just such a gentle, empathic, sweet soul. I know every dog owner in the world says this (so welcome me to the ginormous club), but there's something really special about this pup.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[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.]
Save My School, Privileged Messiah Billionaire!
by Shaker TC
I loved Melissa's "Skinny Jesus Chef" series (see here and here on Jaime Oliver's inane TV show and was reminded of them when I heard a This American Life segment on California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner and his semester teaching high school at an "inner city" school. (A pdf of the transcript is here.) It reeks of the same messianic dynamic where a clueless, privileged man who doesn't know anything about a community makes douchebag assumptions and gets everything completely wrong.
Poizner wrote a book about how SCAAARY the neighborhood and high school is:
Steve Poizner: [reading] I passed nearby my neighborhood French bakery and the local Ferrari dealership.Turns out that Privileged Messiah Billionaire has a skewed worldview that he can't admit is skewed.
Ira Glass: This is Steve Poizner, reading from the book he wrote about this.
Steve Poizner: [reading] Several miles and a couple of highways later I took the Capital Expressway exit and drove into what felt like another planet. Signs advertising janitorial supply stores and taquerías. Exhaust hung over 10 lanes of inner city traffic; yellowing, weedy gardens fronted many of the homes, as did driveways marred by large oil spots or broken down cars.
Ira Glass: Driving around the neighborhood, it is hard to disagree with the teachers who say it's a perfectly nice middle class and working class area. Occasionally you'll see a house in bad shape, but overwhelmingly it's neatly tended yards, garages, decent cars and SUVs in the driveways. It's suburban. I was surprised to learn that when Poizner taught here in 2003 there was a golf course just a few blocks from the school - there's still a lake and the Raging Waters water park. He doesn't mention those in the book. We called a half dozen local real estate agents who confirmed what teachers told us - that the neighborhood looks the same today as it did back in 2003. If anything, they said, with the recession it's gotten a little worse – the average house price in 2003 near the school was $457,000. Today it's $317,000.It's not just the neighborhood; it's the students as well. Poizner characterizes the students he teaches for a semester as sullen and unresponsive but This American Life astutely points out that the lack of responsiveness could be the result of Poizner being a bad speaker.
But here was the strange thing: the conclusion Poizner comes to - again and again during these scenes - isn't that he's doing anything wrong or has anything to learn as a teacher. Instead, he blames the kids. They're tough, they're unmotivated, they lack ambition, they're wired differently. The students, meanwhile, in every scene in the book (I read the whole book), seem utterly lovely. Polite, they don't interrupt, they don't talk back, they just seem a little bored. His very worst student is a graduating senior who's hoping to go into the Marines.Like any good Privileged Messiah Billionaire, Poizner is completely adamantly that HIS perception and HIS reality is clearly everyone's reality, facts be damned.
Ira Glass: Are you overplaying the desperate poverty of this neighborhood?It's really fascinating how similar these narratives are in terms of how wrong both Jamie Oliver and Steve Poizner got it working with their respective communities. Neither can see beyond the blinders of their privilege to actually get a complete picture of the communities they are trying to "save."
Steve Poizner: No, I don't think so. I mean, it's definitely not like some inner city areas. And I don't know, what you described doesn't strike me as the neighborhood I was at. I mean, at least in 2002 and 2003, the neighborhood is rough-and-tumble. In that there's definitely a lot of crime, and no question lower income. And there's a lot of, you know, signs that people were struggling economically. That's why the crime statistics for surrounding the school – you know you can get those from the San Jose Police Department, like I did – and we definitely documented that not only did it appear to be a rough up and coming area, but the police will tell you that too.
Ira Glass: So we went to the police, and they informed us that no, the neighborhood around Mt. Pleasant high school is NOT especially dangerous or crime ridden. It's average for San Jose. And while San Jose might have a reputation in the richer suburbs around it for being sketchy, and definitely was more dangerous in the ‘70s and ‘80s, a police spokesman told us that view is out of date, an urban myth. According to FBI statistics, San Jose is one of the safest cities in the country. There were 371 violent crimes per 100,000 people in San Jose in 2003, the year Poizner was there. You'd be more likely to be a victim of violent crime in Austin, Texas, or Seattle or Phoenix or Columbus, Ohio or San Francisco. When it came to property crime that year, you were more than twice as likely to have something stolen from you in Honolulu, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco or nearly any big city you can name.
The scary thing is that Jaime Oliver and Steve Poizner are on TV shows and writing books on how to "fix" things – obesity and education. Based on how wrong both of them get in terms of assessing their environments, they shouldn't be given the authority to fix a cuckoo clock.
And yet they're being touted as experts.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky-n-Liss Brand Tweezers, for all your explosive eyebrow needs.
Recommended Reading:
Susie: The Senate Hearts Big Banking! They Voted To Protect Behemoth Banks, 61-33. We Won't Forget.
Echidne: WaPo Puts Its Left Shoe Forwards!
Shark-fu: A Terminator Situation
Andy: Lesbian Cannot Be Dean, Says Marquette University
Resistance: The Non-Apology Apology
Seraph: Proud to Be a New Yorker
Leave your links in comments...
More
[It has been about a year since this was originally posted, and there's been a lot of concern trolling in threads lately, so I suspect it may be time to post it again, and recommit ourselves to expecting more.]
This, you may have noticed, is a blog about teaspoons.
It is a blog about increments of measurement so infinitesimally tiny they haven't been given names, about glitches in the Matrix so swift and subtle that they are more easily missed than noticed, about tangible particles of a thing called progress not visible to the naked eye.
It is a blog about hope—not the kind that's packaged and sold in anti-aging creams, soda pop cans, or even political campaigns—but the real thing: A hopefulness that radiates like whoa from the pores of indefatigably optimistic dreamers, who close their eyes and tilt their faces up toward the sun and imagine a future where equality and freedom are not aspirational concepts, but defining features of every human life.
It is a blog about connection, and the realization that we are all in this thing together, and the resolve to be all in, because we make a difference in this world, for good or ill, because we know there is no neutral; there is no moral ambiguity in staying silent; there is only standing up and saying no to the indignities one human visits upon another, or saying yes.
It is a blog of wildly unreasonable expectations, because unreasonable expectations are the seeds of progress.
One of the greatest American advocates for progress, a gentleman you may have heard of named Dr. King, is not remembered for giving a speech about his resignation to the status quo. He is remembered because he admonished us not to wallow in the valley of despair and exhorted us to envision big things and told us to never be satisfied with less. He said to the world, "I have a dream," and that dream was what many people might have called in its time an unreasonable expectation.
Eradicating any kind of bigotry is, by definition, an unreasonable expectation—because institutional bigotry is deeply entrenched. Prejudice is ancient. Only a fool would imagine it can be overcome.
Except, of course, that it can be. Bit by bit. Particle by particle. Teaspoon by teaspoon. Person by person. Prejudice is ancient, but it dies with its every carrier and must be taught again. And it can be unlearned. Bit by bit. Particle by particle. Teaspoon by teaspoon. Person by person.
Patience, it takes, and determined sanguinity, to create people filled with expansive love and intractable respect for one another in a culture that casts us as enemies.
And it takes unreasonable expectations, the seeds of progress.
Thus, every time someone asks me, greets my bellicose display of unreasonable expectations with, the exceedingly un-progressive question, "What do you expect?" I will answer the same as I always do: I expect more.
Of course the Republican Party is racist. What do you expect?
I expect more.
Of course lots of male bloggers are misogynists. What do you expect?
I expect more.
Of course some television show is homophobic. What do you expect?
I expect more.
Of course some feminists are transphobic. What do you expect?
I expect more.
Of course there are ablest jokes in sitcoms. What do you expect?
I expect more.
Of course there are fat-hating jokes in advertisements. What do you expect?
I expect more.
You can't expect people to mess with iconic cultural images just to give a nod to diversity. It will upset people.
The fuck I can't. I expect more.
I'm not ironically detached, I'm not apathetic, I'm not resigned, and I'm not contemptuous of bleeding hearts. I am a greedy bitch with voracious expectations, and I dream long and lustfully of a better world that is both my muse and objective. I want it like the cracked earth of the desert wants rain, and I will neither apologize for nor amend my desire because of its remove from the here and now; its distance encourages my reach.
Don't bother asking me what I expect.
You already know the answer.
