Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, introduced legislation on Thursday modeled after Arizona's new controversial immigration law. The bill would create a Minnesota Illegal Immigration Enforcement Team and require immigrants to carry an "alien registration" card. The bill uses the same "reasonable suspicion" protocol that has generated criticism against Arizona's law. It even carried the same name: The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
So, there's this article in The Guardian, which is headlined: "A $95,000 question: why are whites five times richer than blacks in the US?"
Can you answer that in one word? I know I can.
The article itself spends more than 850 words answering the question in its title, detailing many of the current and historical institutional inequities that have resulted in this racial wealth gap. But none of those 850+ words is "racism."
Even though the systematic denial of equal opportunities based on race is the very definition of racism.
"[T]here are greater opportunities and less challenges for low and moderate income families if they're white in comparison to if they're African-American or Hispanic," [Tom Shapiro, one of the authors of the report by the Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy] said.
That's racism.
The report attributes part of the cause to the "powerful role of persistent discrimination in housing, credit and labour markets. African-Americans and Hispanics were at least twice as likely to receive high-cost home mortgages as whites with similar incomes," the report says.
That's racism.
Although many black families have moved up to better-paying jobs, they begin with fewer assets, such as inheritance, on which to build wealth. They are also more likely to have gone into debt to pay for university loans.
"African-Americans, before the 1960s, first by law and then by custom, were not really allowed to own businesses. They had very little access to credit. There was a very low artificial ceiling on the wealth that could be accumulated. Hence there was very little, if anything, that could be passed along to help their children get to college, to help their children buy their first homes, or as an inheritance when they die," said Shapiro.
That's the legacy of racism.
I'm not suggesting, of course, that there's something wrong with the article for exploring structural inequality—quite the contrary, it was unusually well done in that regard.
I do, however, question the reluctance (not unique to this article) to incorporate the word racism into discussions of structural inequality based on race. It would be like a medical paper talking about a cure for the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the human body without ever using the word cancer. I don't believe it's possible to properly address racism if we're unwilling to even call it by name.
This is part and parcel of privileged people trying to turn accusations of bias into an equivalent offense to expressions of bias; that is, we are now meant to regard being accused of racism as just as horrible an experience as being targeted by racism. (Poppycock.) Thus is any use of "the R-word" axiomatically treated as radioactive—or, conversely, the claim is made that its overuse will render it meaningless. These are straw-arguments of people who desperately want to avoid honest, sophisticated, productive discussions of racial injustice, lest that injustice which privileges them be replaced with an equality that robs them of their unearned advantages.
Racism is a word and a concept from which we cannot shy away if we are genuinely interested in challenging its effects.
I've been bombarded with racist messaging since the day I was born, everywhere I've been in the world, and it would have to be some kind of extraordinary bit of magic if I, a human being designed to be an intellectual sponge and socialized in a culture steeped with marginalizing narratives, had absorbed none of the racism (and other bigotries) pervading my environment. Like everyone else, I've internalized those negative messages so profoundly that even those biases of which I am a target get turned in on myself. The question is not whether any of us have internalized racism; the question is whether we leave that internalized racism unexamined.
And part of that examination, surely, is a willingness to call it by name. Again and again. Until we can discuss racism when we see it by using the word matter-of-factly, instead of treating it like a badge of shame, or a word/concept so radioactive it shouldn't be used in a straightforward conversation of structural inequality, but held under glass to be used only in cases of three-alarm racism.
Social justice is not the time for whispered tones and circumspect politeness, lest we offend the privileged.
Racism is why are whites are five times richer than blacks in the US. Let us not be shy. Let us speak about racism with the boldness that materially and enduringly subverting its grim consequences will require.
And why does the New York Times pay him egregious amounts of money to soil its pages with unsubstantiated assertions and imaginary correlations masking as facts dressed up in shitty prose, week after fucking week?
Are there really no other writers in this country, or any other, who could be hired to write something substantive, factual, and interesting?
But, unlike most other crimes, perpetrators of sexual assaults have a high recidivism rate and are more resistant to rehabilitation. Convictions for sexual assault frequently don't come with sentences that reflects that reality, with average prison terms being appallingly low. So, something's gotta give.
I'd personally prefer to see long mandatory sentences with multiple parole opportunities, with parole contingent on rigorous and comprehensive rehabilitation, some demonstrable evidence of success, and a required lifetime commitment to ongoing treatment, the failure to comply with which automatically triggers a reversal of parole.
Waiting until people re-offend is not working. For anyone.
2. Teenagers may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone. This is good news, given that the majority of juveniles sentenced to life without parole are first-time offenders, who may never have had the opportunity to learn how to live a life without violence quite literally until they were incarcerated. (Which is only true of those fortunate enough to serve time in a relatively safe facility.)
And, naturally, juvenile offenders of color are disproportionately sentenced to life without parole, meaning this is a covert civil rights decision, too.
Jill notes, however, "I wish that the court had gone further and held that no juveniles can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. After all, this decision doesn't apply to people like Sara Kruzan, who was put in jail at 16 for killing her abusive pimp." Indeed so.
"Hezbollah is laughing at us, tonight."—Conservative commentator and renowned genius Debbie Schlussel, on the occasion of Lebanese-American Rima Fakih (Miss Michigan) having been crowned Miss USA last night.
Seriously, how am I supposed to get any work done, when I've got this tremendous display of irresistible cuteness lying right in front of me?
"Rub my belleh!"
Resistance is futile. Of course I had to rub the belleh! What have I got—a heart of fucking stone?!
[Bonus Dudz below…]
It's so cold and rainy here today. I could not coax Dudz out of his bed for his midday potty, and getting him outside was like pulling teeth. (He's lazy enough on a sunny day, no less when it's pissing down outside!) We both got all rained on when we went out, and when we came in, I dried him off and he crawled up in his little bed. He still looked all shivery, so I covered him with a blanket.
"Thank you, Two-Legs!"
He's now tucked his head under the blanket and is fast asleep.
A Catholic nun and longtime administrator of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix was reassigned in the wake of a decision to allow a pregnancy to be ended in order to save the life of a critically ill patient.
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, who indicated the woman was "automatically excommunicated" because of the action.
What was the action, exactly? It was terminating an 11-week pregnancy with the patient's consent because the patient "had a rare and often fatal condition in which a pregnancy can cause the death of the mother."
The choice here, to be crystal clear, was terminate the pregnancy, or let the woman die, naturally taking the fetus with her.
James J. Walter, professor of bioethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Catholic university ... said a pregnancy may be terminated only in limited, indirect circumstances, such as uterine cancer, in which the cancer treatment takes the life of the fetus.
Catholic teaching, he said, is that a pregnancy cannot be terminated as a means to an end of saving the life of a mother who is suffering from a different condition.
Asked if the church position prefers the mother and child to die, rather than sparing the life of one of them, Walters said the hope is that both would survive.
Which really isn't much of a fucking answer, now, is it?
From the New York Daily News: "New York City clerk's offices will soon conduct civil ceremonies for gay couples."
Cool, eh?
"Sounds like a small step in the right direction," said Joseph Hagelmann, president of the Stonewall Democratic Club in Manhattan. "But we're not going to be happy until we have full marriage equality."
Registering as a same-sex domestic partner is not the same as gay marriage - which the state Senate nixed last year - but it does convey some legal benefits, especially if one partner is a city employee.
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
All right, you collection of tree-hugging limousine liberals, pinko Commies, dope fiends, queerbaits, ladyboys, fat chicks, feminazi castrators, and assorted freaks: You wanna talk about campaign ads? Let's talk about campaign ads.
Specifically, let's talk about how this campaign ad is the Greatest Campaign Ad ever made since Adam rode a dinosaur out of the Garden of Eden and into this wild, woolly world of ours. Watching this ad brings a goddamn tear to my eye, and that hasn't happened since those liberal bastards canceled "The Dukes of Hazzard."
I told my stepmom Cheryl last night that this ad makes me want to move to Alabama just so's I can vote for Dale Peterson. She said that was a good idea, but I think it's more just 'cuz she's tired of me selling weed and ammo out of the garage.
Anyway, this is what a Great American looks like. Take note, traitors. Pornstache: Out.
[Transcript by your oh-so-sensitive ringleader below.]
[The ad opens with a shot of Peterson's Marines pin and dogtags lying on a reproduction of the Constitution; orchestral music that wouldn't sound out of place in a Ken Burns documentary or Glory swells. Cut to Dale, who is a white man wearing a cowboy hat, sunglasses, a button-down shirt, and dungarees, riding a horse in a field on a sunny day.]
Peterson: I'm Dale Peterson, and I'm after the Republican nomination for Alabama Agriculture Commissioner. [Peterson gets down off the horse.] I've been a farmer, a businessman, a cop, a marine during Vietnam, so listen up! [Peterson takes off his sunglasses.] Alabama Ag Commissioner is one of the most powerful positions in Alabama, responsible for five billion dollars. Bet you didn't know that! You know why? Thugs and criminals! If they can keep you in the dark, they can do whatever they want with all that money! And they don't give a rip about Alabama!
Here we are, losing three family farms a day, illegals bust in by the thousands, and Alabama's unemployment's at an all-time high. And what are my opponents doing about it? Stealing yard signs in the night from my supporters!
Norman Grace brags on his Facebook page about receiving contributions from industries he would regulate. Bragging about receiving illegal money on Facebook! [inexplicable close-up of horse's face] Who on earth would support such a dummy?! And why?! [back to Peterson, who's just pulled out a rifle] We're Republicans—we should be better than that!
I'm Dale Peterson. I'll name names and take no prisoners. [he swings the rifle around] Give me the Republican nomination for Ag Commish and let's show Alabama we mean business!
File under Wonders, Unceasing: Fox News publishes an editorial saying the War on Drugs might, might, mind you, have been a less than perfect idea by the Blessed Saint Nixon1, Father Mighty Whitey on the Drug War trail, and that Ronny Ray-gun's2 law-enforcement-centred budget bump might have been somewhat ill-considered, and that (gasp) the additional billions thrown at the problem by the Kings George (I3 and II4) and Slick Willie5 may have exceeded their imperial reach.
That spending untold billions of dollars to absolutely no effect might, possibly, in some uncharitably liberal light, be seen to be an imperfect, not to say completely pointless, approach to the illegal drug "problem".
We here at Shakesville would like to welcome Fox News to the 21st Century, and hope that they will enjoy their stay in...well, the modern world. We'd like to think they'll stay in the 21st, but we know it's really hard for them to avoid digging into that nostalgic wellspring of good non-exploitative government, the Victorian Age, as predicated by their Great Prophet, Karl Rove.
1 A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.
2 A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.
3 A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.
4 A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB. Anyone sensing a theme here?
5 Do I even need to say it? A white cis man, apparently hetero and TAB.
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
Feel the Homomentum!
