This week's open threads have been brought to you by claymation characters.
Open Thread
This week's open threads have been brought to you by claymation characters.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay. maybe a vestment.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Liss Says Stuff #1
Me, a fat white middle-aged woman with short dark hair and glasses, onscreen: So, two of the requests I get most frequently are for a video series of some description, and for a kind of frequently asked questions series, in which I provide definitions to general social justice terms, general feminist terms, um, Shakesville community terms that aren't in the Shaxicon or frequently asked questions section, terms that I've coined, like Validity Prism, anything that people don't have a really great working definition of, or a great understanding of, or a great definition for, anything that makes people who are new to Shakesville, or new to social justice, feel like they're coming into the middle of a conversation and need help getting caught up.I know dumping this into the Friday news hole isn't the greatest launch idea ever, but I figured it might be useful for people who are interested in the potential for this series to have the weekend to think about it before it falls off the front page.
So I'm combining those two requests into this one series. And, when I have the time and inclination, I will make a new video that sort of talks about one of these ideas, uh, that people need help understanding or need better clarity on, whatever.
So, for this inaugural video, what I'm gonna ask you to do is let me know in comments what you'd like to hear me talk about: What do you need clarity on; what do you need better definitions for; what do you need a good example of...? Lemme know, and we will get this series rolling!
And, really, I'm happy to let this series be whatever you want it to be. If you want to ask questions about a dynamic you see repeating in lots of relationships in your life that doesn't seem to have a name, and want me to address/explore that, leave it in comments. If you have a question about blogging, leave it in comments. If you have a question about me or my experiences that you'd like to hear me talk about, leave it in comments. Of course I will reserve the right to not answer questions that I find too personal, but I'll entertain any topic. Have at it!
Friday Blogaround
Today's blogaround is brought to you by weird shit in historic newspapers.
Recommended reading:
Anindita: Commercial Surrogacy: Choice and Health [Content note: pregnancy, reproductive health, reproductive coercion]
Mike: How Friedrich Engel's Radical Lover Helped Him Father Socialism
Indian Country Today Media Network Staff: 'Not Even Human' How Canadian Govt. Abused Aboriginal Children in TB Experiments [Content note: racism, medical abuse of children]
The History Blog: Inca Child Sacrifices Were Drunk, High Before Death [Content note: human sacrifice]
Monica: Will Bill C-279 Ever Pass the Canadian Senate and Become Law? [Content Note: denial of trans* people's rights]
Angry Asian Man: Sikh Gurdwara Vandalized with Racist Graffiti [Content Note: hate crimes]
Peter: Bear Lake Monster Appears (1907 news item.)
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Sure
"A Republican Case for Climate Action" by William D. Ruckelshaus, Lee M. Thomas, William K. Reilly, and Christine Todd Whitman.
If Republicans are still not persuaded, they should check out my case for climate action: "You still live on this planet, right?"
Hire me, New York Times!
Daily Dose of Cute
Yesterday, Matilda jumped up on my desk and started playing with the cords of the blinds, which had fallen into her reach. We have to secure all of them at the tops of the blinds, because Tils likes to play with/chew on/destroy them, but I'm not tall enough to do it myself and the desk is in the way of standing on a chair to do it, so, in the couple of hours between their falling and Iain getting home, Matilda saw them, aggressively attacked them with her usual cavernous void of grace, and in the process knocked over a neatly organized pile of to-be-filed stuff sitting in a box on my desk, which is now a totally disorganized mess on my floor.
So Matilda and I had to have a conversation about her naughtiness.
Matilda the Fuzzy Blue-Eyed Cat is hanging out on my desk, surrounded by remaining scattered papers. I am behind the camera.
Tils: Meep! Mrrrow!
Me: Matilda, why did you knock that over? You made a big mess on the floor.
Tils: Owwrrr!
Me: Well, that wasn't very nice. Now I'm gonna have to pick all of it up!
Tils: [walks back toward the cords, with which she knows she is not supposed to play, but can't resist rubbing her face on them]
Me: You're not gonna pick it up, are ya? You just made a big mess—cuz you were so intent on playing with the blinds, which you're not supposed to do either, are you?
Tils: Ee ooh! [walks forward and bumps the camera/my hand with her head]
Me: Yeah, well, I know you're sorry, but you're not gonna pick it up. I'm gonna have to. So maybe don't dump things on the floor in the first place.
Tils: Owr.
Me: Yeah, you've gotta make good choices! You don't think about how that kind of rambunctiousness, playing with something you're not even supposed to play with, because you're probably gonna choke yourself, ends up makin' a mess for other people.
Tils: Mrrooow!
Me: Well, I know.
Tils: Oooowwwrrrr.
Me: I appreciate that you feel bad. I do. Anything else you have to say for yourself?
Tils: [looks down at the papers on the desk, contemplating knocking them to the floor; then looks back at the blind cords, contemplating playing with them some more]
Me: No?
Tils: Ahwwhh!
Me: Oh, really? Well—
Tils: Arrroowww.
Me: I know. I know. That's what you said the last time. "I'll never do it again." But here we are.
Tils: Mrow!
Me: [reaches out to pet Tils and she presses her head into my hand]
Tils: Rroow-mrroww!
Me: I know. You're just lucky that you're so cute.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Lindsey Stirling: "Transcendence"
(Filling in for deeky while he descends into the maelstrom.)
This week's music brought to you by pushing back the kyriarchy. Deeky's whereabouts brought to you by the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Discussion of racism/respectability politics.]
"Whenever a young black man pulls his pants up, the very inner-workings of the cosmos immediately realign in his favor."—Jay Smooth, on respectability politics.
[My thanks to Partario Flynn for providing a transcript here.]
In The News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
Trayvon Martin's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, have met with federal investigators and prosecutors to discuss the status of the Justice Department's investigation of their son's murder. Still no news on whether there will be federal charges, though.
[Content Note: Sexual harassment] Another day; another woman comes forward with sexual harassment allegations against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner. That makes nine.
Democratic Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison continues to be a good egg and makes me joyblub by singing "This Land Is Your Land" in celebration of legalized same-sex marriage in his state.
Anita Sarkeesian, professional badass, debuts Episode Three of Tropes vs. Women.
[CN: Gendered violence; attempted murder; rape; coercion] I don't write about "feminist ally" Hugo Schwyzer because fuck him. But he has decided to leave the internets because, after disclosing his history of attempted murder and rape, and affairs with students, he was subjected to the same sort of harassment I get every day just for being a fat feminist woman who asserts her right to take up space in the world, having not tried to murder or rape anyone. He is terrible. But this piece by Dianna E. Anderson about redemption narratives is great and you should definitely read it.
James Cameron is going to film three Avatar sequels all at once! Pretty exciting news for people who enjoyed Avatar, I guess! I am not one of those people! But I'm happy for anyone who is so excited!
Totally Effective Strategy, Dudes
[Content Note: Homophobia]
As Liss mentioned yesterday, Russia has some monstrous policies towards LGBT people, and is also hosting the Winter Olympics next year. You may have also heard that Dan Savage has successfully encouraged gay bars to stop carrying Russian vodka using the clever hashtag #dumpstoli.
Don't get me wrong, I love the gays. Some of my friends are gay. I never, ever, drink Russian vodka, either. That's mostly because of my ties to Finland, but still, if I'm gonna gonna chug a clear liquor, I'm definitely gonna butt chug it, and it's definitely gonna be Finlandia.
However.
When your first response to injustice at the hands of Russian authorities is to boycott vodka, you might want to think about whether you're being racist. Also, how would you like it if someone started a movement that implies that gay men are a bunch of dudes that hang out in dance clubs drinking vodka?
Besides, when I was learning Russian in high school, my Soviet-made textbook didn't even get to vodka until the middle chapters. (Spoiler alert: It's a cognate.) I recall learning the words for smoking and cigarettes in the very first chapter. Vodka came after smoking, ballet, theater, hockey, gymnastics, and the circus. But sure, Russia is all about vodka. Whatever, jerks.
Second, the Stolichnaya that's available in the States isn't even distilled in Russia. It's made in Latvia. I mean, The Latvian government also hates LGBT people. It doesn't hate queers as much as it hates Russians (and presumably Russian queers), but still. If you don't believe me, the Latvian word for vodka isn't even vodka, which is really saying something.
In conclusion, I dare you to go up to a random ethnic Latvian and just start speaking broken Russian. I fucking dare you, Dan Savage.
It's Delightful, It's Delicious, It's De-Lovely...
...it's De-lurk Day! We haven't had one of these since the first of the year, so all you Shaker lurkers who rarely or never pipe up, don't be shy; say hi!
Cheeky devils!
And, as always, no one should feel obliged to stop lurking. These threads are a meant as a safe and easy space for people who do lurk to pop in if they want to, and some people have used them as a springboard to regular commenting, but that doesn't have to be the case at all.
Lurking is one of many ways to be part of this community, and if lurking feels best to you—lurk away! lurk away! :)
Question of the Day
What's for dinner?
(I know I ask this one a lot, but I always love these threads!)
Why I Don't Support A Twitter Report Abuse Button
[Content Note: Rape Threats, Transphobia, Racism]
As some of you already know, feminist Caitlin Moran has called for a boycott of Twitter on August 4th in order to demonstrate support for a "report abuse" button on Twitter as well as possibly making Twitter a paid-subscribers-only service.
Hurricane Virginia has a good Storify here, and I strongly urge everyone to go read it, but I'll summarize the events as I understand them here: Activist Caroline Criado-Perez lobbied long, hard, and ultimately successfully to get Jane Austen placed on banknotes in the UK. Misogynistic pushback immediately occurred, and she started receiving hundreds of rape-threats and death-threats on Twitter.
Now, just to be clear for a moment: rape-threats and death-threats on Twitter are not new. Feminist and womanist activists -- and especially trans* activists and women of color -- have been receiving them for a long time on Twitter, and Twitter's historical position has been basically to ignore any threats reported to them. For example, Canadian-American-with-Armenian-parents blogger Anita Sarkeesian has been told by Twitter staff that rape threats aimed at her are not a violation of the Twitter terms of service. That Twitter is not taking these threats seriously is a serious problem.
Occam's Big Paisley Tie
[Content Note: Privilege; auditing; gaslighting.]
Yesterday, in the comments of Hallelujah_Hippo's post about "not seeing" prejudice, I said:
The correlated urge to ask me, "Well, are you sure [the incident of rank misogyny you just pointed out to me] isn't REALLY [something else]?" makes me ragefrustrated like whoa.This is something men do to women, white people do to people of color, straight people do to queer people, cis people do to trans*/intersex/genderqueer people, able-bodied people do to people with disabilities, thin people do to fat people, religious people do to atheists, etc.
Yeah, I don't actually need to consider every other conceivable possible explanation for something I know is rank misogyny from a lifetime of experience in order to satisfy you, Helpful Ally.
Around every axis of privilege/marginalization, there are marginalized people saying, "I just experienced this heinous bit of hatred because of my marginalized identity," and privileged people saying, "Hang on, now. How can you be sure that it was because of your marginalized identity, and not just a misunderstanding, or a mistake, or a misspeak, or this thing or that thing or this other thing over here, because there's surely a perfectly logical explanation for why this behavior that looks exactly like a million other bits of behavior that you and other people in this marginalized population have experienced is actually something TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Have you considered that maybe it's just that you're too sensitive?"
If Occam's Razor is the principle by which the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, this urge to exhaust every possible explanation—no matter how convoluted, remote, unlikely, or totally fucking absurd—is Occam's Big Paisley Tie.
A swirling vortex of elaborate designs when a simple pinstripe just won't do.
Are you sure that salesperson didn't ignore you because zie just didn't see you? SWIRL! Well, maybe zie was just having a bad day. SWOOP! Are you certain zie heard you? SWIRL! Did you really try to get hir attention? SWOOP! Maybe zie didn't realize you needed help. SWIRL! I'm sure it's not that zie was being purposefully rude. SWOOP! Maybe zie is hard of hearing. SWIRL! Have you considered that maybe you had an unfriendly look on your face? SWOOP! You know how your face gets when you're not smiling. SWIRL! I don't know—there has to be some explanation you just didn't notice. SWOOOOOOOOP!
Certainly, there are people who engage in these critical investigations out of a misguided sense of protectiveness. They don't want their marginalized friend/relation/colleague to have been treated badly because of rank prejudice, and so their instinct is to try to find some other explanation, any other explanation, an explanation that might be more fixable than ancient and deeply entrenched bias.
But, you know, intent ain't magic. So it's just as infuriating, and functions in the same way as intentional gaslighting and emotional policing done by privileged people who put marginalized people's lived experiences through their Validity Prism with an agenda.
That is: Hearing prejudice described as prejudice and then filtering it through one's Validity Prism, because one has mistaken privilege for objectivity; and auditing that lived experience for veracity as measured against one's own personal experience, because one has mistaken privilege for default humanity.
Naturally, people with privilege (who want to defend that privilege) have a vested interest in pretending that evidence of the oppression which is the ugly underbelly of any privilege is attributable to Something Totally Different. It's harder to justify coasting by on your unexamined privilege when faced with evidence of its harm.
And so out comes Occam's Big Paisley Tie, to try to find the Something Totally Different on which to pin the blame for the prejudice that Occam's Razor—and a minimal commitment to integrity and decency—would rightfully identify.
The swirls and swoops on the tie conspire to create a pattern of distraction. But maybe this tie is really a razor! And when all else fails, comes Occam's Big Paisley's Tie Windsor Knot of Bullshit: "Have you considered that maybe you're just looking for things to get mad about?"
Fuck that tie.
You Might Be Suuuuuuuper Racist If....(Updated)
[CN: Racism]
A. You found a "White Student Union" on your campus.
B. You say the following with a straight face:
"If we are already minorities on campus and are soon to be minorities in this country why wouldn't we have the right to advocate for ourselves and have a club just like every other minority?"C. You want to celebrate "white identity" in a club where students of "European and European-American descent" can gather.
D. You are definitely not bothered if your "club" is also known as a "hate group" by the SPLC.
E. All of the above.
Extra credit bonus question: In a paragraph or so, please describe the level of genius it takes to assert that a plurality is a minority, to confuse "whiteness" with "European descent," and to ignore all the other fun whites-only clubs, such as the Every Single Governor of Georgia Alliance, The Presidents 1-43 League, The Georgia GOP Caucus Moose Lodge, and the KKK.
NO CHEATING.
ETA: If you need a visual aid for this test, the GSU WSU's flyer can be viewed at this link.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley, just lying around with his tongue hanging out and his nose running. Like ya do.
Have I ever mentioned I love this dog? I think I might have mentioned once or twice that I love this dog. I love him so much that I feel like my heart is going to break into a million billion trillion biebillion pieces when I look at his silly face hanging over the edge of the sofa, just waiting for me to leap up and grab his triangular head and cover it in so many kisses, because this dog makes me so happy. He is the best.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Number of the Day
Stocks are kicking off August on a bullish note with the Standard & Poor's 500 index crossing the 1,700 milestone for the first time ever.Super! Good news for everyone! (Except those 326,000 jobless people, and all the other unemployed people, and all the people who are excluded from unemployment stats because they have given up job hunting, or took "early retirement," or who are stay-at-home parents because they can't find work, or who are barely eking by via self-employment and/or freelancing, etc. Not to mention all the people who don't have retirement accounts through their shitty jobs and can't afford to invest privately in the stock market. And everyone else who has no direct investment in the stock market for whatever reason, but is nonetheless still affected by its performance, and has to watch people celebrate how AWESOME the market is doing because we are all still pretending that trickle-down economics works.) BUY! SELL! BULLS AND BEARS AND THINGS!
...All the major U.S. stock gauges hit fresh highs in early trading.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 145 points, or 0.9%. The Standard & Poor's 500 added 1.1% in its maiden climb above 1,700 and the Nasdaq composite index was up 1.1%.
Investors are in a buying mood a day after the Federal Reserve kept its "easy money" policies steady. Boosting investor sentiment: Thursday's jobless claims figures, which dipped by 19,000 to 326,000.
