Shakesville

Thailand Military Stages Coup

[Content Note: Militarism.]

The coup that was not a coup is now a coup:

Thailand's military has announced it is taking control of the government and has suspended the constitution.

In a TV statement, army chief Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha vowed to restore order and enact political reforms.

The cabinet has been told to report to the military, TV broadcasting is suspended and political gatherings are banned. A nationwide curfew will operate from 22:00 to 05:00 local time.

...On Tuesday the army imposed martial law. Talks were then held between the main political factions, but the army announced the coup on Thursday.

Political party leaders, including opposition leader Suthep Thaugsuban, were taken away from the talks venue after troops sealed off the area.

Troops fired into the air to disperse a pro-government protest camp on the outskirts of Bangkok but there are no reports of major violence.

The broadcast media have been told to suspend all normal programming.

Gen Prayuth said he had taken over power because "of the violence in Bangkok and many parts of the country that resulted in loss of innocent lives and property, [which] was likely to escalate".

He added: "We ask the public not to panic and to carry on their lives normally."

Carry on your lives normally, and don't panic, even though you've now got a curfew and no right to protest, as "political gatherings" of more than five people are now punishable by "a one-year jail term, 10,000 baht ($307) fine, or both." I imagine people genuinely are trying to carry on their lives as normally as possible, but what's possible under these sorts of rules and the uncertainty of what's going to happen next is generally not normalcy.

The justification for the political gatherings ban also underwrites the military's reason for staging a coup in the first place:

[T]he military cited the need to "restore and maintain order" following six months of sometimes bloody protests that have left Thailand in legislative paralysis.

The political fighting has seen 28 people killed and more than 700 injured since November when anti-government protesters began calling for the removal of the Pheu Thai government.

I don't know what's going to happen from here. I hope this resolves quickly and safety, in a way that best serves the people.

Trolling, Power, and Enforcing Privilege

[Content Note: Fat hatred; racism; threats; eliminationism; harassment; stalking; abuse.]

Fierce fat activist (and my friend) Amanda Levitt has written a stellar piece for BitchMedia about trolling, with a central focus on the trolling of fat activists.

For almost a decade, I have been involved in online fat-positive community spaces. For the last eight years, I have been writing and working as a fat activist, moving more offline over the past few years as I head into academia. So I expected to get some pushback on the Tumblr from people who are upset the idea of fat people loving their bodies. But the sheer amount of hatred took me by surprise. On my first day moderating the blog, I logged on to find my inbox filled with messages from a single person who wrote the word "FAT" hundreds of times in ten messages that filled my screen.

Frankly, I found someone wasting their time copying-and-pasting a word we use to define our own bodies amusing. It was then that I decided to document the trolling we got for an entire year and turn it into an art project. I started taking screenshots of the messages. Some days I would only get a few and other days I would get a hundred. My intent in the beginning of this was to create a visual representation of the hatred that feminists and activists online have to deal with. Over the time I archived the attacks of anti-fat trolls, I began to see that while there were a few individuals who were continually sending vitriolic messages, trolling wasn't the work of just a few bad apples. Instead, there were many, many people who sent us mean messages saying that they simply thought the blog shouldn't exist. This is similar to the way fat people experience the world offline—there are a handful of folks who will make nasty overt comments, but many, many ways we are subtly told that we shouldn't exist.

One of the important ideas Amanda is documenting here is something about which I've written before—that the internet is not separate from culture, but a reflection of culture. The pretense that the anonymity of the internet creates the urges that underlie bullying is a way of distancing oneself from the real-life harm many marginalized people face, ignores that many people engaging in trolling come at us under their real names and even work emails, and elides that whatever anonymity and/or impunity the internet provides merely empowers bullies to be uglier, meaner, bolder than some of them would be face-to-face. It doesn't make them engage in behaviors that don't exist in the offline world.

As I've said many times before, it's not like no random dude ever called me a fat cunt before I started a blog.

Amanda also effectively knocks down that this is just the product of a "small but vocal group"—another rhetorical mechanism people use to try to distance themselves and diminish the harm done via trolling to people from marginalized populations.

The opening salvo to a conversation about the trollery directed at fat women is to document what it looks like and who's doing it and why, in a way that transcends the usual dismissals. Amanda has accomplished that here, and her piece urges people to care about what's happening to fat activists.

Especially all those people who purport to be so very concerned about our health, ahem. Because this isn't remotely a healthy environment for fat activists, or for the people for whom we advocate.

If you care about our health, maybe start there.

Two famously unmoderated Shakesville threads—Rape is Hilarious (trigger warning) and Fat Princess Update—give a glimpse behind the curtain of the sort of violent fat hatred that is directed at me. And, as perfectly documented in Amanda's piece, when trolls are cut off at one source, they take it to another. That is, if they're moderated here, they come to my inbox.

And when our inboxes don't satisfy, the aggression escalates. Amanda again:

In April, Lindsey Averill and Veridiana Lieberman launched a Kickstarter campaign for their documentary Fattitude, a feature-length film that will seek to "expose how popular culture fosters fat prejudice" and offer an alternative approach to thinking about fatness. When the campaign began, Averill and Veridiana were instantly attacked online. People wrote vitriolic messages to them on Twitter and on the project's social media sites, saying that the film shouldn't exist. The online abuse spread into their home lives—people called Averill to harass her, so she changed her number. Then someone anonymously ordered her a pizza. In an interview with a local TV station, Averill says she knows that this isn't just about trying to make a fat woman feel bad by sending her a pizza. "They are telling me they know where I live," she says.

The motivations behind this kind of behavior are bigger than just wanting to be anonymously nasty to someone. Feminists who seek to deconstruct dominant narratives about race, gender, class, body size and other forms of marginalization online are often subjected to calculated and destructive trolling campaigns that go far beyond individual attacks and instead seek to damage their work and lives.

It isn't just a "small but vocal group" who are using the anonymity of the internet to annoy fat advocates and others. To continue to believe this lie is to facilitate the indifference in the shadow of which this chilling abuse is perpetrated.

Please read the whole thing.

Open Thread

image of a fez hat

Hosted by a fez.

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker browneyedblues: "If you were a superhero, what logo/symbol would be emblazoned on your chest?"

[Note: I'm wrapping up a little early today, because I'm having a wee health issue. I spent last night at urgent care, and I'm completely knackered and really not feeling well. It's nothing super serious, but I need some rest, and hopefully I'll be back tomorrow. If I'm still feeling poorly, I'll let you know.]

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Dudley the Greyhound sitting and looking at me and Zelda the Black and Tan Mutt lying on the ottoman beside him looking at me

"Give us things!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

The Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by fur.

Recommended Reading:

Tami: [Content Note: Misogynoir; violence; emotional auditing; appropriation] Precious Mettle: The Myth of the Strong Black Woman

Monica: RIP Matt Kailey

stavvers: [CN: Disablism] Not That Garbage About Trigger Warnings Again

Dayvoe: [CN: Homophobia] Wherever He Is, Rick Santorum's Probably Having a Bad Day

Lauren: Five Upcoming Female-Led Games to Get Excited About This Year

Andy: [CN: Homophobia] Adam Carolla Says Life Is Hard as a Comedian Because of Gays, Wishes They Would 'Shut the Fuck Up'

Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Marilyn Monroe: "Anyone Can See I Love You"

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Terrorism; death] At least 118 people were killed by two bombs in Jos, Nigeria, yesterday: "There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosions, but the bombs bore the hallmarks of other attacks by Islamist sect Boko Haram, which has recently stepped up a bloody five-year battle campaign to establish a caliphate in northern Nigeria, and kidnapped more than 300 schoolgirls from a remote north-eastern school in April. In the past month, the group has set off two bomb blasts in the capital, Abuja, and another in the country's second city, Kano." I just can't even imagine the terror and heartbreak of average Nigerians right now.

Gallup finds that 55% of US respondents to their latest poll are now in favor of marriages between couples of the same sex being "recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as [different sex] marriages." A majority of USians has now supported legal same-sex marriage since 2012.

[CN: Class warfare; food insecurity; racism] In REPUBLICANS THINK PEOPLE AREN'T ENTITLED TO FOOD news: The House Republican agriculture bill includes a provision stipulating that its summer school lunch program is only for rural children: "Democrats were surprised to see urban children were excluded. And the GOP had some trouble explaining the history itself. But a spokeswoman confirmed that the intent of the bill is a pilot project in 'rural areas' only." Let's just put it bluntly: In rural areas, most poor children are white. In urban areas, most poor children are nonwhite.

[CN: Torture] Hey, remember when we were totes gonna close Gitmo? Ha ha whoooooooooops! "During the House Armed Services Committee's recent markup of its annual defense funding bill, lawmakers bemoaned the fact that tight budgets mean hard choices. Combat ship programs, helicopter systems, and even the venerable A-10 attack plane were not too sacred to escape the committee's scrutiny. Even so, the committee was able to find some $69 million for a new "High Value Detainee" facility to replace secret Camp 7 at the Guantánamo detention camp – even though the Pentagon did not even request funds for a new prison facility this year... The proposed facility would house 15 former CIA captives. That's a whopping $4.6 million per detainee in construction costs." The cost of the facility are gross, but the indecency of maintaining it at all is even grosser.

A principal and superintendent have apologized to a student after giving her an in-school suspension and disallowed her from participating in a senior class event because her yearbook quote was: "When the going gets tough just remember to Barium, Carbon, Potassium, Thorium, Astatine, Arsenic, Sulfur, Uranium, Phosphorus." That is: "When the going gets tough just remember to BaCK ThAT AS_ UP." LOL. I love this girl. And I'm glad she's going to get to give her speech at graduation after all.

Heads-up: eBay is recommending that users change their passwords after a cyberattack compromised one of its databases.

Something something first gay player but oh remember the WNBA? And while people wring their hands about an NFL draft pick kissing his boyfriend and whether lockers rooms are "ready" for gay players, the WNBA is "launching a campaign to market specifically to the LGBT community," which will encourage teams and players to "participate in local pride festivals and parades, [work] with advocacy groups to raise awareness of inclusion through grassroots events, and [advertise] with lesbian media. A nationally televised Pride game will take place between Tulsa and Chicago on Sunday, June 22."

And finally! This one's for you, Wondy fans: "DC Comics is launching a digital-first Wonder Woman anthology series in August 2014 called Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman. ...Digital chapters of the new series will hit once a week, with every three chapters being collected into single print issues." Woot!

Quote of the Day

"I'm not a single mom with two jobs trying to get by every day. I have much more support than most people, most women in this world. And I have the financial means to have a home and health care and food. My kids, they're here upstairs."—Angelina Jolie, during a promotional appearance for Maleficent.

I understand totally why so many privileged mothers feel obliged to talk about how they're just average working moms and how it's hard to juggle careers and kids, because there is enormous cultural pressure for prominent women to be "average moms" in order to be relatable.

But it's still extraordinarily refreshing to see a privileged woman speak so candidly about her privilege.

Perfect

[Content Note: Misogyny; objectification.]

Daniel McCawley owns a restaurant called the Atomic Grill in Morgantown, West Virginia. Recently, a customer posted a review on UrbanSpoon demanding that the female servers at the Atomic Grill "show some skin." And this is how McCawley responded:

image of potato skins on a serving platter loaded with toppings

By posting an image of potato skins!
And he didn't stop there:

"It was brutish. I was upset. I’m a father of a 12-year-old girl and I’ve got five sisters," McCawley said. "The way that women are treated is pretty personal as far as I’m concerned."

...From now through Memorial Day, Atomic Grill will be offering a potato skin special for $7, and 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information Services.

"We took offense to the review and wanted to flip it in a positive way," McCawley explained.

If you'd like to offer a virtual high five to McCawley and some support to his female staff, the Atomic Grill's Facebook page is here.

Good Morning! (Or Whatever!)

Here is just a ridiculously adorable video of President Barack Obama being mobbed by kids who love him at the White House Talent Show yesterday, including a kid who tugs on the President's ear in order to tell him something, while First Lady Michelle Obama talks about the importance of the arts for kids. OMG. The cuuuuuuuute!

The clip starts with President Obama handing a microphone to First Lady Obama, to the sound of applause, as they stand on a brightly decorated stage, surrounded by children, most of whom are black.

"Thank you, honey," says First Lady Obama. They kiss. "Thank you, honey. That's how—you guys, I want all the kids to know just how important you are that the President of the United States came by to tell you how proud he was." The kids laugh and cheer. "I just want to thank everyone—to all our principals, to all our teachers, to our turnaround artists, to our funders—this wouldn't be possible without you. Remember what I said early on—just think about the millions of kids who aren't being touched by the arts. Look at how much we're missing. We can't afford to miss out on any kid's talent, reaching their potential— I have seen these kids, from little to—" She puts her hand on top of a little black boy's head and he grins. "This little one has grown up so much! And I am so proud of them. We have to make this a reality for every child in this country. We just have to."

Meanwhile, while she's speaking, President Obama leans down toward a little black boy who's beckoning him. But when he doesn't lean down quite far, enough, the boy reaches up and pulls him down by the ear, and tells him something, to which Obama nods and agrees. He high-fives a little black girl. He leans down and speaks to the kids surrounding him. Some of them gently reach out and touch him, patting him and lying their hands on him. They look at him with awe. He grins and puts his arm around a black girl's shoulders. The kids crowd him and chatter, and he says, "Shhhh" because the First Lady is speaking. He gazes at her, holding some of the kids close to him.

Everything about this video. EVERYTHING.

Open Thread

image of a fuchsia flower

Hosted by fuchsia.

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker everestmckinley: "What personal/funny/non-professional items do you have in your workspace? ('Workspace' defined broadly—a bobble head on your car dashboard, a sticker on your laptop, or a frog statue near your kitchen sink might be your answer.)"

Congrats?

[Content Note: Gender essentialism.]

Hey, remember the lady who decided to earn a marriage proposal from her boyfriend by making him 300 sandwiches? Well, you'll be happy to hear she's now engaged. And has a book deal! Because of course she does.

And it only took 257 sandwiches.

As for those of us who didn't find it charming that a woman was publicly documenting winning her boyfriend's promise of marriage by making him sandwiches, well, we can LEARN TO HUMOR sheesh: "If he wasn't the kind of guy that was worth one sandwich, I wouldn't be making 300 sandwiches. And plus it was a joke. It was light, it's funny. Come on, it's a sandwich. It's supposed to be just lighthearted."

It's not my fault that I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington. Take it up with the assholes who tell me to STFU and make them a sandwich.

[Video Description: A clip from the film Bridesmaids in which Kristen Wiig is riding in the passenger seat of a car driven by Jon Hamm, who tells her: "It's called humor. Learn about it!"]

This Is Rape Culture

[Content Note: Sexual violence; spousal assault.]

A man in Indianapolis who was convicted of raping his now ex-wife while she was sleeping, likely because he had been drugging her, has been sentenced to eight years of home detention and no jail time:

A jury found David Wise, 52, of Indianapolis, guilty on April 30 of six felonies - one count of rape and five counts of deviate conduct, according to Peg McLeish, a spokeswoman for the Marion County prosecutor's office.

Marion County Superior Court Judge Kurt Eisbruber imposed a two-year suspended sentence plus eight years of home detention for the rape count. Ten-year suspended sentences were imposed for each of the remaining counts.

"We had hoped for some prison time," McLeish said.

Each of the felonies of which Wise was convicted is punishable by six to 20 years in prison. There is no doubt about Wise's guilt, as he recorded himself sexually assaulting his sleeping/drugged ex-wife.

Prior to his sentencing, which allows Wise to continue to work, though he will be monitored by a GPS device, he served 24 days in jail. His ex-wife believes that the abuse was ongoing for three years.

Not only did Judge Eisbruber give a serial rapist a sentence that includes no jail time, he admonished the victim to forgive her rapist:

"I feel like I got sucker punched in the gut Friday when my rapist, my convicted rapist, was given a home detention sentence," said [the woman]. "I heard the judge tell me to forgive my rapist and then I listen to him say he can go home that day. Never in a million years would I have thought anyone would ever, especially a judge, I never thought anyone would ever tell me to forgive my rapist and I mean, in a million years, thought my rapist would be walking out the door with me."

Eisruber has not commented on the generous sentence he gave to Wise, though there are plenty of apologists offering up explanations on his behalf:

Jack Crawford, an Indianapolis defense attorney and former Lake County prosecutor, said he cannot comment specifically on the case, but generally, judges consider several factors in deciding on a sentence. A defendant's criminal history, employment status and likelihood of committing another crime are among those considerations.

"There's a multitude of factors in deciding what the fairest sentence is for all concerned," Crawford said, adding that Eisgruber has a reputation for being firm but fair in his sentencing.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based nonprofit that focuses on reforms of sentencing policy, said judges determine the risk to the public and to victims when they're deciding whether or not to incarcerate a defendant. Judges also consider whether a sentence could deter a person or others from committing a crime, he said.

"Rehabilitation is the other," Mauer said. "Would incarceration or living in the community make this person more or less likely to repeat this kind of behavior?"

But Eisbruber did not sentence Wise to therapeutic rehabilitation. Instead, he told his victim to forgive him and sent him home.

This is fucking rape culture.

Trigger Warnings, Again Again Again

[Content Note: Discussion of harm and survival.]

Over the past two days, I have seen three more articles about trigger warnings and their chilling effect blah blah fart. Because I can only write the same fucking thing over and over so many times, here is just a recap of some of what I tweeted yesterday, for those who aren't on Twitter and/or those who want the opportunity for discussion in this space.

screen cap of a tweet authored by me reading: 'I love the meme that ppl who appreciate TW are too delicate for the world. I appreciate them & I write content warranting them ALL THE TIME.'

screen cap of a tweet authored by me reading: 'I have spent nearly a decade writing difficult stuff about the rape culture. I am not too delicate for the world. That meme is utter shit.'

screen cap of a tweet authored by me reading: 'And fuck anyone who casts as

screen cap of a tweet authored by me reading: 'You got a problem with people who have been harmed needing a heads up? Take it up with the people who harmed them.'

Have at it.

Pennsylvania's Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Ruled Unconstitutional

Woot! Earlier today, federal Judge John E. Jones III ruled that Pennsylvania's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, saying: "We are a better people than what these laws represent. It is time to discard them into the ash heap of history." Rock the fuck on!

The ruling by Judge John E. Jones III would make Pennsylvania the last Northeast state to allow same-sex marriages, although the state could challenge the decision before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Several couples sued the state in July for the right to marry in Pennsylvania or to have their out-of-state same-sex marriages recognized. A 1996 state law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

"Plaintiffs suffer a multitude of daily harms, for instance in the area of child-rearing, healthcare, taxation and end-of-life planning," Jones said in his 39-page written opinion.

He called the couples who brought the case "courageous" and said his ruling brings the court in line with "12 federal district courts across the country which, when confronted with these inequities in their own states, have concluded that all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage."

Yayayayay!

image of falling dominoes

image of falling dominoes

I would be perfectly happy to post that picture every single day until same-sex marriage is legal in every single corner of the US.

Chicago Cops Sued for Assaulting Woman in Custody

[Content Note: Violence; police brutality; racism; anti-immigrant rhetoric; white supremacy.]

Jianqing "Jessica" Klyzek has filed a suit in federal court after Chicago police officers physically assaulted her, shouted racist shit at her, and threatened violence against her while she was handcuffed on the floor of her place of employment, which they were raiding.

There is video and a partial transcript of the incident at the link, which may be difficult to watch/read.

Klyzek, who is a naturalized US citizen who emigrated from China, endured this abuse while restrained on her knees after plainclothes officers burst into the salon and began shouting at her. They were followed by uniformed officers, but it is evident from the video that it wasn't immediately clear to staff why the men were there or who they were.

Following the incident, police tried to retroactively justify their abusive actions by claiming that Klyzek attacked them:

Initially accused of an aggravated battery of the officers, as well as ordinance violations, a bruised Klyzek was quickly cleared by Cook County Judge Paul Pavlus, who found no probable cause for her arrest.

Police then tried again. They pursued charges, and Klyzek was indicted for aggravated battery, alleging she scratched and punched officers on July 31, 2013, during the raid of the business in the 1000 block of North Milwaukee. That charge was also thrown out after prosecutors saw the video, the lawsuit states.

Unconscionable.

There is literally nothing I can say about this heinous abuse of power except that these men have no business being police officers, and they need to be removed immediately.

I do want to highlight, however, that in coverage of this incident, there are some interesting, ahem, statements about Klyzek's immediate response to the raid:

While the video shows Klyzek as an uncooperative and unhinged arrestee, and is not as clear-cut as the notorious footage of off-duty cop Anthony Abbate beating a barmaid in 2007, it likely sounds unwanted echoes for police brass.

...The video shows plainclothes police march in through the front door, followed by uniformed officers, and attempt to apprehend an apparently confused Klyzek in the salon's lobby.

"What happened?" Klyzek asked before becoming hysterical. During a prolonged struggle she then yelled "f--- you" and "I want my lawyer," while one officer cried, "She bit me," and another shouted, "Guys, she scratched me!"

At one point an officer said, "Can I just Tase her? F--- it. I can Tase her 10 f------ times."

By the time she was handcuffed and kneeling on the floor, with her back to several male police officers, "she was screaming but appeared to be offering no physical resistance when an officer identified in the lawsuit as Frank Messina then smacked her in side of the head from behind."

In other words, once she realized that they were police officers, she stopped being "uncooperative," "unhinged," and "hysterical."

This framing is utterly mendacious, especially juxtaposed with the observation that she was confused about what was happening—and understandably so. From her perspective, it seems like a bunch of big, burly men have just walked in and started shouting at her and grabbing at her.

Is the suggestion here seriously that she should have "cooperated" with what appeared like an abduction by a bunch of random dudes? I would have been screaming and fighting in that situation, too.

Her reaction does not make this incident of police brutality any less "clear-cut" as other cases. No behavior warrants police hitting a suspect and shouting racist epithets at her and threatening violence against her and her family.

And, let's be perfectly clear: These were police officers who were threatening to harm her, who were standing over her while she was restrained talking about repeatedly tasing her. Resistance to that sort of police interaction is not "unhinged." It is eminently reasonable.

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Zelda the Black and Tan Mutt sleeping on the floor, Matilda the Fuzzy Sealpoint Cat sleeping on the ottoman just above her, and Dudley the Greyhound sleeping on the loveseat just behind Matilda

The Nappingtons: Zelda, Matilda, and Dudz.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch: "Good Vibrations"