Frequently, when I (or another mod) ban a commenter who isn't overtly expressing bigotry, but is derailing a thread with typical silencing techniques—accusations of bad faith, oversensitivity, humorlessness, looking for things to get mad about, exhortations to "get over it," protestations of providing much-needed objectivity, concern trolling, and the usual tiresome attempts to deny the perceptions and experiences of the actual targets of the particular bigotry being discussed—I make a point to note that the commenter is not being banned from the blog in its entirety. I will note that their commenting privileges have been revoked, but invite them to keep reading the blog in the hopes they might learn where they went wrong, and assure them I will be open to a discussion of reinstating their commenting privileges if and when they email me with some awareness to that end.
I almost always immediately receive an irate email full of phrases like "echo chamber" and "fascism" and "hypocrisy" and "censorship," and I am berated for being the "thought police."
I am not the thought police.
I am challenging you to think about things in a way in which you may have never thought about them before.
The entire rest of the world, with its privileging of men, and heterosexual and cisgender people, and thin (but not too thin!) and tall (but not too tall!) and able and healthy white bodies, and religious people and people who have sex (but only in certain ways) and people who can and want to be parents and the wealthy and the educated and the employed and the powerful and residents of the Western hemisphere, and all the ways in which most of the rest of the world facilitates and upholds that privilege, and all the ways in which the rest of the world marginalizes and demeans and treats as less than all the people who deviate from those privileged "norms," and all the ways the rest of the world has indoctrinated you into that system of privilege, and socialized you to believe it's the natural and right and immutable state of the world, and all the shills for the kyriarchy who fill the ether with self-reinforcing rubbish on a constant loop so you swim in a sea so thick with the detritus of Othering that you don't even notice it on a conscious level anymore, and all the bullies who swarm out of the woodwork to kick you back in line if you do, if you have the temerity to question the message, and all the other bits and bobs of the brainwashing to which we are all subjected since the day we're born as part of the scheme, nearly incomprehensible in scope, to ensure that challengers to these traditions are never made, and, if they're born, are squashed with the weight of mountainous tidal waves of blowback in the other direction…? The purveyors of that shit are the goddamn thought police.
And you know what one of the biggest lies they tell you is?
That it's the other way around.
[Originally published in similar form August 24, 2009.]
Teaspoons 101: I Am Not the Thought Police
Top Chef: Just Desserts Open Thread
[Image from last night's episode: Zac's garbage disaster anniversary cake nightmare in blue.]
Last night's episode will be whipped and folded, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your cream filling and go...
The Best Thing You'll Read All Day
I love Dick Van Dyke, who is always a brilliant and compelling raconteur, and a generous and hearty laugher, and this story has to be one of the cutest things I've ever heard [story starts at 8:20]:
Craig Ferguson: Where do you live now? Do you live in California?[H/T to Ann Friedman.]
Dick Van Dyke: Yeah, right here in Los Angeles.
Ferguson: Do you surf?
Van Dyke: [grins] No. [audience laughter] Not any more.
Ferguson: Did you ever surf? 'Cuz you're down in Malibu, aren't you?
Van Dyke: I surfed when there were— Remember the ten inch boards? [grins at realizing his mistake] The ten inch boards!
Ferguson: [laughs] I never forget ten-inchers! [audience laughter]
Van Dyke: You have to be pretty good. [laughs] Ten FOOT boards.
Ferguson: Ten foot boards.
Van Dyke: The old-fashioned—
Ferguson: Yeah, the big, uh, the long boards.
Van Dyke: Yeah.
Ferguson: They used to have a canteen at one end, a little bar at one end, maybe some chairs. [Van Dyke laughs] You did, you used to long board then?
Van Dyke: Oh, yeah.
Ferguson: Ohhhhhh.
Van Dyke: On the East Coast, really. In Virgina Beach, places like that.
Ferguson: It's freezing, the water there!
Van Dyke: That's correct. [nods emphatically] I went out once and fell asleep on that board [audience laughter], I did, and I woke up out of sight of land.
Ferguson: Oh lord.
Van Dyke: And I looked around, and I started paddling with the swells, and I started seeing fins swimming around me, and I thought, you know, I'm dead. They turned out to be porpoises! They pushed me all the way to shore. I'm not kidding. [mimics the porpoises pushing him] Pushed me all the way to shore.
The Overton Window: Chapter Twenty-Four
You know what? I am getting plenty tired of chapters where fuck all happens. Here is the third Kearns and Bailey chapter in a row where absolutely nothing happens. Frankly, I am sick of padding these posts out. If Beck and Co. can't be arsed to put in the effort, why should I?
Here:
Kearns and Bailey are driving on a dark desert highway, cool wind in their hair. Kearns suggests Bailey stick his head out the window and look up. Bailey does and sees lots and lots of stars. Then they arrive at their meet-up.
End of chapter.
End of post.
Go to hell, Glenn Beck.
Bullied to Death
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, bullying, and suicide.]
Rape charge dropped after accuser commits suicide:
Samantha Kelly endured merciless taunting from classmates after they learned that the high school freshman had accused a senior of rape.That's interesting. Because Kelly was 14 and the accused rapist, Joseph Tarnopolski, is 18, and, when the alleged assault was originally reported, "it was considered a statutory rape case, meaning the pair had consensual sex but that she was under the age of consent." Tarnopolski does not deny having a sexual interaction with Kelly, but claims it was a "mutual thing."
The weeks of harassment eventually became too much. Samantha went home from school Monday and hanged herself in this community southwest of Detroit.
With their key witness dead, prosecutors on Wednesday dropped criminal charges against the older student, saying they had no case without the accuser's testimony.
...On Wednesday, Wayne County prosecutor's spokeswoman Maria Miller said the case against Tarnopolski could not proceed "because the sole evidence ... was the complainant."
Attorney Joseph Kosmala, a Detroit-area defense lawyer who was not involved in the case, said the prosecutor seemed to have no other choice.
"Sexual assaults are not crimes that typically take place in front of witnesses. They're private crimes," Kosmala said. "Unless the complainant can sit in the witness chair and point the finger, there is no case."
Which seems to suggest that prosecutors could still pursue a statutory rape case, even if they cannot pursue it as a more serious sexual assault charge. But I guess the crime doesn't matter now that the victim's dead. Good thing they don't apply the same standards to murder cases.
Meanwhile, this case reveals that US educators still have a metric fuckton to learn about how to assess bullying and harassment in schools:
Principal Donovan Rowe said school officials investigated the alleged bullying and found nothing overt. Rowe said on occasion he walked behind Samantha as she went from class to class and witnessed no harassment.You say no students harassed her while the principal was trailing behind her? Fascinating. What a revelation.
I would love to see this case open up a national conversation about talking rape accusations seriously, about victim-blaming, about victim-shaming and -silencing, the way that we've begun a national conversation about anti-gay bulling. But I suspect that's not going to happen.
RIP Samantha Kelly. My sincerest condolences to her family and friends.
[H/T to Shaker Stella, and Peter Daou.]
Fetch Me the Smelling Salts!
Sources: Pentagon group finds there is minimal risk to lifting gay ban during war.
I'm shocked! SHOCKED, I tell you!
I was fully expecting the investigation to discover that repealing DADT during wartime would result in the meltdown of modern civilization, the spinning of the Earth off its axis, and the planet catapulting directly into the sun, so to find out NONE OF THAT is going to happen has given me one vicious case of the vapors.
Mr. Grumbles, bring me a mint julep—STAT!
Veterans' Day
Today is Veterans' Day in the US.
Veterans' Day is a weird sort of day for me to recognize, because I don't feel like I'm honoring our servicemembers to treat them as a monolith with an easy catchphrase like, "I support the troops." This morning, I saw a segment on CNN about a young man getting the Medal of Honor, who said quite candidly that he was angry to be getting it, because it comes at such a cost. Some generic, feelgood, unqualified, blanket statement about supporting the troops doesn't get at that complicated reality; its vagueness feels like cowardice.
On the other hand, I don't feel like I'm particularly honoring them by pointing out that among the troops are war criminals and thieves and miscreants who harm their fellow soldiers, whose behavior I categorically do not want to support, or by using this day to talk about my objections to the two three wars we're currently fighting, even as I acknowledge the soldiers who honorably staff those wars don't have a choice where they're sent.
Which always leaves me not really knowing what to say.
So I'll just say this: Thank you to all the women and men who have served this country with decency in a military capacity, who have been willing to risk their lives to defend its borders, resources, and people.
And this: When I write about social justice issues every day, I'm advocating for veterans.
I'm advocating for veterans whose bodies and/or minds were changed by war when I write about disability. I'm advocating for veterans who were sexually assaulted when I write about the rape culture. I'm advocating for veterans who were not allowed to serve openly when I write about LGBTQI rights. I'm advocating for veterans who are denied opportunity and equal pay when I write about gender equality. I'm advocate for veterans who are not getting adequate healthcare, who are homeless, who are unemployed, when I write about funding a comprehensive social safety net. Whenever I'm writing about people in need in the US, I'm necessarily writing about veterans.
If we remember that, every day really is Veterans' Day.
[I recommend NPR's coverage here and this piece at Campus Progress.]
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Esme: If you could travel back in time and give a book to your younger self, what book (and what age) would you choose?
Just. No.
[Trigger warning for sexual violence and rape apologia.]
What. the everloving. fuck: Court to judge 'advance' consent.
The Supreme Court of Canada will consider on Monday whether an Ottawa woman, who had admittedly kinky sex with her longtime partner, was a victim of sexual assault when he sodomized her against her will while she was passed out, even though she had agreed to asphyxiation.It's like they keep wanting to find ways to justify rape. It's almost like we live in a rape culture or something.
The case, which will test the sexual autonomy of couples behind closed doors, centres on whether a person can give "advance" consent to sex, a prospect that a leading women's group says would roll back Canada's sex-assault laws about 20 years. "A vital part of the meaning of consent is the right to say 'no' at any point," said Joanna Birenbaum, legal director of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.
"Any change in law to recognize 'advance' consent would be dangerous and regressive."
Here's the thing: This isn't an issue about kink, and it isn't even an issue about whether individual people should have the right to privately assert or negotiate something akin to "advance consent" with a partner. (That's not an argument I'm advancing, btw; it's just an argument being made in discussions of this case.) It's about whether "advance consent" should be a legally established concept, and the answer is clearly and unequivocally no.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it wouldn't even be a question, if the person who had been assaulted was male. Because men, of course, aren't viewed as existing in a perpetual state of consent unless and until they say otherwise.
[H/T to Shaker Dominique. Commenting Guidelines: Keep comments to the discussion setting a legal precedent only. This isn't a thread to condemn or defend kink, nor a thread to play "Devil's Advocate" with what-if scenarios about private encounters. Stick to the topic tightly, or the thread will be closed.]
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.]
Quote of the Day
"When it comes down to it, this is a proposal to get people to pay more for their health care and retirement. With money they don't have. That's the bottom line."—David Dayen (aka D-Day), on the recommendations of the Obama administration's bipartisan Deficit Commission, which are heavy with spending cuts of the sort you might expect to see proposed by people who'd like "to cut government...down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
[Related Reading: "A Milk Cow With 310 Million Tits"; Today in "We've Got a Democratic President, Right? Just Checking."]
Blog Note
Two notes, actually:
1. Clicking "Like" on a post (at the top of a comments section) will now bring up a box allowing you to share the link on Twitter or Facebook (or say "no thanks" to both). Nice feature, Disqus—thank you!
2. My Hotmail account (primary email address) has been FUBARed for weeks now. Not every Hotmail user is having the same problem, so I am evidently on an overloaded server. I'm constantly getting timed out and getting error messages that tell me it's a Hotmail glitch and that they're working on it. I've been without email for more than an hour at a time some days, and Hotmail has not responded to my repeated support requests.
So. My email management is even more disastrous than usual, and if I have failed to respond to something you've sent to which you'd typically expect a response, my apologies.
I trust the issue will be resolved soon. Service has improved, so I'm hopeful.
(Please know that I am extremely reluctant to leave Hotmail, as its layout is clean and manageable and accommodates my dyslexia in a way other email clients do not, so I'm not seeking advice about alternatives. Just letting everyone know what's up.)
17%
Here is a truly depressing article about the state of female representation in the US Congress that most US voters won't care about or pay attention to.
The next time someone demands evidence of institutional misogyny (or gender inequality, or the patriarchy, or whatever variation on that theme), try this on for size: We live in a culture in which 52% of the population in a representative democracy being represented by only 17% of its legislative branch isn't a national outrage.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Lissie's Scowls. Now available in handy 12-packs.
Recommended Reading:
Scatx: Subtle Misogyny: Pelosi vs. Boehner
At Veronica's Place: Exactly how extreme are John Boehner's views? Very.
Adrienne: Presidential Proclamation on Native American Heritage Month
Resistance: Glee Fail
Brad: Yes, the Entitlement Commission Was an Unforced Error by the Obama Administration
Andy: Catholic University Dumps Gay Staffer Over Wedding Announcement
Leave your links in comments...
Aw, Hell Naw!
[A tip of my hat to Elle for the title.]
Chris Matthews' fuckery is beyond fucking description:
So do us all a fucking favor and don't pretend like you played no part in voters not getting a glimpse of Clinton being witty and effervescent. Do us all a favor and don't try to imply that Clinton failed to deliver the charm on the campaign trail. Do us all a favor and take some responsibility for the role you play in the democratic process, or just shut the fuck up.
Today in Misogyny
[Trigger warning for violence.]
Bobby Maurice Tillman was an 18-year-old young man who died this weekend after Damon Coleman, 19, Emanuel Benjamin Boykins, 18, Quantez Devonta Mallory, 18, and Tracen Franklin, 19, who are now facing felony murder charges, attacked him and stomped on him, breaking his rib which then punctured his heart.
What does this story have to do with misogyny?
Tillman was oblivious to the circumstances that led to his death following an unprovoked attack at a rowdy house party Saturday night on Independence Drive in Douglasville, witnesses say. A fight broke out between two girls outside the home, one of whom struck a male partygoer, Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller said. He refused to strike a female but vowed to inflict payback on the next male who walked by.It is not clear from reports whether the woman hit him deliberately, accidentally, or defensively.
Shaker Amber emails (which I am publishing with her permission):
Somewhere along the line, someone taught this guy that it's wrong to hit girls, and he absorbed that lesson to the letter. What he did not learn was not to hurt women, not to threaten or intimidate them in order to control their behavior. So, instead of hitting her, he chose a random bystander to hurt, letting her know that this was her fault. He was seeking her anguish, her anger, her shame.More here, where Amber also notes that men who learn not to hit girls "don't always learn not to use verbal abuse, or financial abuse, or threats of suicide, or other means of controlling" women. To which I'll add: And don't learn how to process anger appropriately so that it never gets expressed in an unhealthy way in the first place.
Now a young man is dead, and a young girl has to live the rest of her life feeling like his death was her fault. That's some fucked up shit right there.
"Boys don't cry" (because that's something girls do) is the first message male children tend to get about expressing emotion. That is, don't express it. Especially negative emotion. And when negative emotion is bottled, and bottled, and bottled, instead of processed, one day it explodes.
RIP Bobby Tillman. My sincerest condolences to his family and friends.
You Disappoint Me, Uwe Boll!
by Shaker Brian G, a gay fatty who is Chief of the PC Police by day and fights prejudice with an adorable cat as a sidekick by night.
[Trigger warning for fat hatred; using Nazis as objects of humor.]
Melissa posted a few weeks ago about the latest project of Uwe Boll, filmmaker laureate of Germany, to produce a film titled Blubberella, the trailer for which has now been released.
[Transcript below.]
Blubberella is the heartwarming tale of a girl, her fat, and how she kills Nazis for their sandwiches. I shit thee not—a scene in the trailer depicts Blubberella violently attacking a Nazi, taking his sandwich, and then eating it. It is to laugh.
Actually, it isn't, and not just because I'm Chief of the PC Police. This "comedy" is not funny in any dimension, because the fat jokes in it are barely jokes at all. It's not even the kind of fat jokes that might elicit a laugh if only through surprise or embarrassment. It's just a laundry list of stereotypical "fat traits" played straight: She's fat, she can't run, she eats constantly. The deal is, these things are never pointed out by other characters; they're never given voice. There is no punchline; it's just supposed to be inherently funny.
I expected this movie to outrage me, but instead it bores me. What a disappointment! These jokes fail not just because of the offensiveness, but because they're composed entirely of tropes and components that are beyond tired. The whole thing reeks of the stench of trying too hard. Each scene with Blubberella could have the dialogue replaced with her yelling "I'M FAT! I'M FAT AND EATING A SANDWICH! ARE YOU SHOCKED YET?" and you'd never notice a difference. It's basically the stuff most of us have heard on the schoolyard all our lives, whether we were the targets or not. The difference is it's being acted out by adults who look like all they want is to get their paycheck and go home. Somehow that renders the whole thing even more pathetic.
[Note: While my personal reaction to this movie was not offense, I'm not arguing that nobody else should be offended or judging anyone who is. I can totally see why some people would be offended and I probably would be offended too if I hadn't found it to be so tedious and insincere. See Melissa's oft-invoked "I'm not offended; I'm contemptuous" line.]
Transcript:
Scenes of people being led off of a train by Nazi soldiers. There is dramatic music, and text onscreen reads: "In a time when evil is arising…and all hope is fading…only a true hero…can bring salvation."
Cut to an SS officer and Clint Howard dressed like Dr. Horrible talking about Blubberella.
Clint Howard: Did it move like a vampire?
SS Officer: I didn't see her, but from all accounts it moved like a slow tornado.
People walk into what is, presumably, a concentration camp. Cut to a man holding a gun, aiming it at someone offscreen. He says, "I've never seen anybody move like you do."
The music segues into a wacky sort of swing tune. Blubberella jumps off of a train onto someone.
Blubberella: That hurt me more than it did you!
Cut to Blubberella being confronted by several armed soldiers and explaining that she is half-human, half-vampire before executing a ridiculously-telegraphed Matrix-style bullet dodge. Cut back to Clint and the SS officer speaking again.
SS Officer: Large—very, very large girl.
Clint: Very large?!
SS Officer: Very large. (He holds his arms out to indicate her ponderous fatitude.)
Cut to Blubberella running and screaming while flailing around with rolling pins. Cut back to man holding gun, who says, "Like a caged rhino that hasn't been fed in weeks."
Blubberella (as if to explain how she moves the way she does, despite being fat): Pilates.
Cut to a shot of Blubberella posing in front of a mirror, when her back cracks because SHE'S SO FAT, and she says, "Ow!", followed by a short montage of her eating...and eating...and eating. She stabs a Nazi and takes his sandwich and eats it.
Cut to Blubberella declaring: "Time to kill some Nazis!"
Cut to Blubberella doing the old cover-up-cursing-with-gunfire gag while shooting Nazis. This is intercut with the film title, Blubberella. She then distracts yet more Nazis with another gag by pointing out Hitler (with a Nazi salute, har har) and sneaking away (with a basket of food, har har) when they look. Cut back to Clint Howard and SS Officer talking again.
Clint: Nosferatu, Dracula, Blade, Blade 2, Dark Shadows! Oh, Dark Shadows was a soap opera.
Cut to a man dressed as Hitler yelling at Blubberella in German and shaking a newspaper at her. Blubberella forgets to react.
Cut to gun-wielding guy, who is now no longer wielding a gun, and is now just Guy Wearing Hat: "This doesn't make sense."
Cut to Blubberella confronting a thin, underwear-clad man pinning a woman to a bed.
Blubberella: Why don't you pick on someone your own size?
The man laughs. Because she's FAT! Not his size. Har har.
Cut to yet another lazily-edited montage of Blubberella threatening Guy Wearing Hat, Blubberella harassing another Nazi dude, Blubberella in her bathrobe opening a door and a bunch of guys acting scared of her, Blubberella coming out of a truck dual wielding rifles while wearing what appears to be a dirndl, and just screwing around with the camera. The trailer ends (thank god) with the words "A Super Hero Comedy – Coming Soon."
