This weekend, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team returned home, effectively abandoning their goal of playing in the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester. The US government originally indicated that it would not allow the team back into the country. Even after the US State Department changed course, The UK government refused to issue visas to the team, as it did not recognize the validity of Haudenosaunee passports.
Well that's just great. Hooray for 18th Century diplomacy. Or 21st Century diplomacy. They look a lot a like some times. Ostensibly this is about the need to microchip everything now that 9/11 blahblahblah, but ultimately, the whole fiasco stems from a disagreement on which people are actually, you know, people.
Previously: Last Monday, Last Tuesday, Last Wednesday, Last Thursday, Last Friday
Boo. Hiss.
Open Thread
Hosted by the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by timepieces.
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!
More Rhetorical Questions
Actual Entertainment Weekly cover.
How is this a "First Look at Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern" and not "First Look at a Terrible, Terrible Photoshop of Ryan Reynolds' Face in Some Green Cartoon Bullshit"?
I can play this game, too!
Not an actual cover of Entertainment Weekly.
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Learning Fail
by Shaker knitmeapony
[Trigger warning for stalking, misogyny, racism, dehumanization, and general assholery.]
So, there's this fella named Joel Johnson. He's an editor and author on high-profile, popular techy blogs like Gizmodo and BoingBoing. Recently, he decided he wanted to broaden his horizons, after he read that Twitter was popular with black people, but "realized most of my Twitter friends are like me: white dorks."
On Wednesday, Johnson wrote a post about the horizon-broadening experience he'd undertaken. An article called, I shit you not, "Why I Stalk a Sexy Black Woman on Twitter (And Why You Should, Too)."
In it, he imparts his wisdom to the masses: he has decided the best way to open his mind is to just stare at someone from a distance. He breathlessly describes his descent into exoticism: how exciting of him to have followed, unsolicited, a black woman on Twitter. Great Maude in the morning! She's Christian! She likes sex! She's fiscally responsible!
He helpfully diagnoses her psychological issues ("She seems to have some problems trusting men, but she's not afraid of them, either.") in the same paragraph that he is ogling her "faux modeling shots" and "mall fashion".
He publicizes her life, her 'childish' and 'charming' faith; aspects of her sexuality she might never have expected to be public beyond the followers who she knows well.
There's so much that has been said about this article, I think I can leave the description alone in its sleezy glory and give you the quick blogaround:
Salon: Gizmodo stalks a black woman
Deanna Zandt: Privileged Voyeurism
Postbourgie: The Odd Habits and Foibles of Sexy Black Women on the Internet
Channing Kennedy: Shut up, dude.
Ann at Feministing: How to win "black" friends and influence people on the internet
Suffice it to say, he's being called out on his racism, sexism, colonialism, marginalization of sexual violence (stalking: not a happy fun time activity, dude), and privilege.
After this all blew up, he went to his Twitter feed, where he tried to understand why people are pissed about the article. To his credit, he has attempted to engage the criticism there, at least, in a cool-headed if very shallow way. Unfortunately, he had to write about that, too: It gets even worse in his follow up: So This Hipster Tech Douche Stalks a Sexy Black Woman On Twitter... Let's let him speak for himself:If I have any regret about the piece, it's that I didn't title it "Why I Stalk A Sexy Black Christian Woman from Detroit (etc.)"…
...really.
…There's been a lot of talk about me "othering" this woman. Frankly? Duh.…
…Which leads to another denunciation levied: that if I really wanted to get to know this woman, I should have interacted with her instead of just voyeuristically following her Twitter stream. That's fair—but only if you presume that I actually wanted to befriend her. I didn't….
…Sorry to disappoint, but I copped to nothing of the sort. It may be a cliched, horndog thing to say, but if I have a fetish, it's a woman fetish. There's nothing the least bit "privileged" about looking at a picture that someone's put online and saying, "Yup. She's hot."…
…[On Stalking] While I believe that absolutely nothing on earth is off limits for a joke, I can understand how, if you only read the title of the post, you might not get the irony.
My psychic prediction: Next week, Gizmodo once again laments that tech & programming culture have a dearth of women and people of color. I will definitely get that irony. Sigh.
Quote of the Day
"So it comes down to this. Republicans believe they can turn bullshit into gold." - The opening of a brilliant post by Jon Perr, who explains how the Republicans are doubling down on the fallacy that cutting taxes actually brings in more revenue.
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning for sexual assault and victim-blaming.]
Lynette Taylor, wife of NFL Hall-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor—who was indicted last month on charges of third-degree rape, patronizing a prostitute, and endangering the welfare of a child, after paying a 16-year-old girl (who was assaulted and brought to his room against her will by another man) $300 to "have sex with him"—took to the airwaves last night to defend her husband. She told Larry King (emphasis mine):
He should have told her to get the heck out of his room. But I cannot explain why men do what they do. I don't understand why we're destroying the Earth to get to Jupiter. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand why we're fighting a war, spending billions of dollars fighting a war over oil, instead of spending that money on stuff that we don't need oil. I don't understand why men do what they do.Ah, the old rape is for nice girls argument: Sex workers can't be raped, because they exist in a perpetual state of consent by virtue of their occupation—and don't even have the right to say no to anything, as long as they get paid afterwards.
And when no one's looking, well, they will try to get away with whatever. I can't say that. But here's the problem. When I say this was an extortion plot that went awry, because what it was to go, did you know that girl was 16, but he didn't have sex with. OK?
So now let's move on to Plan B. Let's just say he raped you and then we can sue him and we'll still get money. All right? This -- this is the most silly, ridiculous thing in the world. And I don't know -- it's like, oh, now she's a prostitute. How in the heck do you rape a prostitute.
She's a run away. Good girls don't run away. I'm sorry. I've been a 16-year-old girl, all right. I've been a 19-year-old girl. I didn't leave my home. That's what happens. That's what I think people need to tell their kids. That's what happens when you run away from home. When you leave the sanctuary of your home and your parents, yes, there are bad people out there. There are pimps waiting at bus stops and stuff things like that. You know what, stop running away. She shouldn't have ran away.
I'm not attacking her, but all I'm saying is, I don't understand how -- it's like, oh, she's only 16. Sixteen is so young. Sixteen- year-olds are driving our cars. Sixteen-year-olds are working in our stores. They're serving our food. They are old enough to have jobs. She was hold enough to, if she wanted to get help, get help. Why did it have to be a rich guy before she decided, oh, I don't want this anymore? It doesn't make sense.
Suffice it to say, this is total bullshit. Of course sex workers can be raped; their consent is required every bit as much as someone who isn't being paid. The exchange of money creates a contract; it doesn't buy a consent exemption.
But the fact that many people believe otherwise means that sex workers are at increased risk of being raped, because rapists know there are always people eminently willing to argue that a sex worker can't be raped at all.
Even when they're trafficked 16-year-olds. For fuck's sake.
And note Taylor's attempt to have it both ways, here: A sex worker can't be raped, but that damn 16-year-old shouldn't have run away, because what did she expect? "That's what happens." What happens to runaway 16-year-olds is that they get trafficked into the sex trade and raped. So she's got no right to complain!
Ugh.
And, as profoundly contemptible as Taylor's rhetoric is, what the fuck is wrong with Larry King that he invites the wife of a man charged with raping a child onto his show to defend him in the first place? No good will come from that—and, without exception, those sorts of interviews turn into spectacles of victim-blaming and heinous rape narratives.
That doesn't serve victims. It wouldn't even serve innocent people wrongly accused. Victim-blaming and rape narratives serve only one master: The rape culture.
Which in turn serves rapists.
[H/T to Shaker Miss_Led.]
Same as it ever was
The UK government is still refusing to issue visas to members of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team. The team has now forfeited a second game.
"Erin Taylor, a spokeswoman at the British Consulate in New York, said by email at 12:36 p.m.: Team members must present travel documents her government considers valid, plus U.S. or Canadian passports."
File under: getting it, you are still not.
Here's the full story from the Syracuse Post-Standard.
An affront to my friends and neighbors is an affront to me.
Speaking as a neighbor, I'll add that Haudenosaunee-American relations aren't looking so hot at the moment, what with state and county governments encroaching on tribal rights. Additional fuckery from the UK is precisely what we do not need at the moment, thank you very much.
Previously: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Swizzle Sticks, now with extra sass!
Recommended Reading:
Ta-Nehisi: The Language Police [TW for discussion of homophobic epithets]
Amie: Women's Groups Respond to Obama's Ban on Abortion Coverage in High-Risk Insurance Pools
Pema: Why Gun Control Laws Are a Feminist Issue [TW for discussion of domestic violence]
Andy: Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach to Pentagon: Throw Out the Troop Survey and Come to Work with Me
Mannion: I don't like being smarter than the President.
Anji: The Twelfth Carnival of Feminist Parenting
Holly: Book Review: Put on Your Crown by Queen Latifah
Leave your links in comments...
David Brooks Still Has a Column in the New York Times
Just when you think it's impossible for David Brooks to ascend to yet higher heights of the imperial assery he calls a career, he takes the elevator to the penthouse of Fuckery Tower, gets out, and constructs three more stories with his bare hands.
In his latest mess, he diagnoses Mel Gibson as clinically narcissistic—I believe he went to the Bill Frist School of Medical Diagnostics—and cites his "favorite piece of sociological data."
In 1950, thousands of teenagers were asked if they considered themselves an "important person." Twelve percent said yes. In the late 1980s, another few thousand were asked. This time, 80 percent of girls and 77 percent of boys said yes.Okay, first of all, someone tell David Brooks that stats from a quarter of a century ago cannot be used as if they're still current, especially when juxtaposed against stats approximately the same distance older, to prove how things can so drastically change in that space of time. Yeesh.
That doesn't make them narcissists in the Gibson mold, but it does suggest that we've entered an era where self-branding is on the ascent and the culture of self-effacement is on the decline.
Secondly, I'll just briefly point out that, without the gender breakdown of the teenagers questioned in 1950, noting that 80% of girls and 77% of boys said they considered themselves an important person in the late '80s is meaningless—except, of course, to implicitly suggest that teenage girls are more inclined toward narcissism than teenage boys.
Which is to say nothing of how meaningless is the entire statistic when "important person" is such an ill-defined concept. Objectively important? Comparatively important? I would certainly classify myself as an important person, if I thought the question meant any of the following: Do I have intrinsic worth as a person? Are my needs and opinions of value? Am I entitled to dignity and respect? Am I capable of making a difference? Do I have privileges I should leverage on behalf of marginalized people? Etc.
As opposed to Brooks' definition, which seems to be: Do I think my shit doesn't stink?
Social justice advocates will certainly note that 1950 and ~1985 stand on either side of some pretty important cultural events: the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, Brown v. Board of Ed, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Loving v. Virginia, the emergence of the feminist/womanist movement in mainstream culture, the failure of the ERA, the Roe v. Wade decision, the Pill, the emergence of the LGBTQI movement in mainstream culture, Stonewall, and the emergence of the disability rights movement, which would result in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act by 1990.
Y'know, just to name a few.
Perhaps it wasn't narcissism which led to increased numbers of US teenagers viewing themselves as "important people," but the fact of their county and culture beginning to recognize their inherent worth and acknowledge their basic rights.
I wouldn't expect a privileged wanker like Brooks—who resists authentic self-reflection with an ardor that suggests he believes it might kill him or turn him into something horrible, like a monster, or a lady—to understand this, but for a person denied fundamental equality, the line between "I am an important person" and "I have dignity" is a lot blurrier.
It's not bragging. It's asserting the humanity one has been denied.
To not understand this is to not understand why those silly gays need a pride parade. "What are they so proud about? I'm proud to be straight; you don't see me having a parade!" This will probably be the title of Brooks' next column.
And, naturally, it is not a surprise that someone with such a fundamental misunderstanding of human dignity would get this wrong, but it is still gobsmacking to see him assert, with regard to Gibson's on-tape tirade:
It is striking how morally righteous he is, without ever bothering to explain what exactly she has done wrong.It is clear on the tapes what exactly Grigorieva is supposed to have done wrong, in Gibson's estimation. Over and over Gibson tells his former partner that she did not provide him with sexual gratification as readily as he wanted, that she prioritized sleep over fucking him, that she was not forthcoming enough with oral sex. "You should just smile and fucking blow me!" he bellows.
Did Brooks really just utterly miss that the evident source of Gibson's ire was his unrestrained indignation that he felt entitled to sexual interaction with his female partner? Or does he just share Gibson's sense of entitlement so thoroughly that the exhortation to "just smile and fucking blow me" doesn't even register as a terrible shock to him?
Given Brooks' aforementioned confusion about the basic human dignity of those Not Like Him, I can guess at the answer.
[H/T to Shaker Bonny_Swan.]
Rhetorical Questions
Why do people watch Tosh.0? Does their sense of cultural inclusion conveyed by watching viral internet videos really need to be validated by a television program that exists essentially to say, "All the cool people watch these viral internet videos"? And do they really not see that Tosh 2.0 is essentially just America's Funniest Home Videos for people who think they're totally superior to people who watch America's Funniest Home Videos?
I am confused.
Also: I hate Tosh.0.
Question of the Day
If an army of Steampunk Abortion Robots invaded the Planet of the Apes, at the end of the battle, who would claim victory?
Bonus points if you can detail why one side would be the likely victor over the other.
For the record, my money's on the monkeys.
Number of the Day
$550 million. The penalty that Goldman, Sachs & Co. will pay to the Securities and Exchange Commission "to settle SEC charges that Goldman misled investors in a subprime mortgage product just as the U.S. housing market was starting to collapse."
Daily Dose o' Cute
This is a little video Dudz and I made the other day to encourage his cousin Alfie on his learning-the-stairs journey. Matilda helped by ambling down the stairs in her peculiar way, and Olivia and Sophie helped by eating treats that had fallen on the floor.
[Video Description: Dudz peeks around the couch. Liss whispers, "Whatcha doin'?" and kisses at him. "You goin' upstairs?" Dudz ducks behind the couch. Cut to Dudz walking up the stairs; he stops and sniffs at something, then continues to the top, looking down at Liss to make sure she's paying attention to what a GOOD BOY he is. Cut to Tilsy galumphing down the stairs. Cut to Dudz trotting back down the stairs. He wanders around the couch into the living room, where Livs and Sophs are eating treats. Liss says "Sit!" but he's discovered a treat on the floor and eats it up. "Can you sit?" Dudz lies down next to Livs and looks up at Liss, who says, "Oh, what a good boy."]
For those who can't watch video, still images are below the fold.
Dudzy.
Sophie.
Livsy.
Tilsy.
