Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Shooting] Last night in Ferguson, two police officers were shot and seriously wounded during protests near police headquarters, hours after the Ferguson police chief announced his resignation. "Protesters had gathered near the Ferguson police headquarters after Thomas Jackson, the chief of police, said he would step down next week. But the shooting, which occurred after midnight, took place as protests in the area were relatively quiet and after many demonstrators had left, according to police." Protesters are being blamed by police for the shootings, although the shooter is still unknown, and the protesters noted "'that the gunfire did not come from among them, rather from a distance behind them,' The New York Times reported. Witnesses told the Times that the shots came from the top of a hill about 200 yards across from the police station."
[CN: War on agency] OH GOOD GRIEF: "The Arizona legislature took an unprecedented step Tuesday during a late night hearing, amending a bill that would block abortion coverage in insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act and inserting a new rule requiring that abortion providers inform patients that the procedure could in fact be reversed—despite no substantiated medical evidence to support that charge."
[CN: Clergy abuse] The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled that the Catholic Church cannot "hide behind claims of religious liberty in order to avoid liability" for clergy members' sexual abuse of parishoners. "The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee sought to insulate $55 million of its funds from lawsuits brought by victims of priestly sex abuse, according to a letter penned by then-Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan, so it transferred those funds into a separate trust set up to care for the archdiocese's cemeteries and mausoleums. Once the sexual abuse victims sought those funds in a bankruptcy proceeding, however, the archdiocese claimed that it had a religious liberty right not to use that money to compensate victims of abuse." That is one cynical fucking religious liberty claim. Fucking hell.
What in keystone cops hell is going on with the Secret Service?! "Now, in what almost looks like a deliberate attempt to prove that the Secret Service still can't be trusted, two senior agents are under investigation for allegedly getting drunk last week and crashing a government car into a set of security barricades at the White House. The Washington Post reports that the two agents are Mark Connolly, the second-in-command on the president's protective detail, and George Ogilvie, a senior supervisor at the Washington field office." Good gourd.
[CN: Elder abuse] Oh dear: "Investigators in Alabama are examining a claim of possible elder abuse related to the upcoming publication of the second novel by Harper Lee, the 88-year-old author of To Kill a Mockingbird... It was announced out of the blue last month that a novel Lee wrote as a precursor to Mockingbird had been discovered and would be published in July by HarperCollins, with the author's approval. Lee's lawyer, Tonja Carter, has said she stumbled on the unpublished manuscript, Go Set a Watchman, and Lee agreed it should be published. But doubts arose about whether the publicity-averse Lee was fully behind the decision, or even understood it. And immediately, conflicting accounts began emerging from different friends, acquaintances, neighbours, staff and lawyers about exactly how frail the 88-year-old, who now has little sight or hearing, is, with some saying she has a full grasp of her faculties, others that she is weak-minded and easily duped. Carter has been looking after Lee's affairs since the author's sister Alice, a lawyer and her long-time gatekeeper, died last November. Now the Alabama authorities are investigating, according to the New York Times."
Would you like to read a very detailed article about the clitoris? It's very good! I enjoyed it!
How about an interview with Maya Yamato, a whale biologist at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, about how whale ears work compared to how human ears work? It is also very good!
And finally! Baby sloths getting a bath omgggggggggg!
In the News
In News Any Feminist Could Have Told You
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
A new study (yay evidence!) has found that chivalry is sexist. Huh! You don't say! Tell me more:
A new study out of Northeastern University in Boston says there are two types of sexists out there. Acts of so-called chivalry, like paying for dinner, offering up jackets and calling a women 'love' or 'dear' can be signs of "benevolent sexists," according to psychologist Jin Goh, while "hostile sexists" are those who specifically leave housework to wives and girlfriends, or wolf whistle at women walking down the street.Yes, well, if treats other human beings around him with courtesy because that's just the decent thing to do, that isn't chivalry. So, yeah, actually: We can (and should) do away with chivalry altogether.
...The study, which paired 27 men with women between the ages of 18 and 22, encouraged the individuals to take a quiz and get to know each other. Rating their agreement on statements like "a good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man" and "women are too easily offended" helped differentiate between the two types of sexists.
So does that mean we should do away with chivalry altogether? Not necessarily. As Australia's News.com points out, if a man is carrying out these actions because he believes a woman is fragile, and thus requires protection, then he's being sexist. But if he's doing it to be kind? That's just being polite.
Which is, ahh, something that feminists have been saying for a very long time. But at least now SCIENCE HAS PROVED IT.
Former Fetus; Current Dip$hit
[Content Note: Anti-choice jackassery.]
Republican Texas state Representative Jonathan Stickland decided to make an Important Statement when he heard people from Planned Parenthood would be visiting the capitol:
I'm guessing that "organizations that murder children" aren't welcome in many elected officials' offices. (Unless they are corporations who merely kill children as collateral damage to turning a profit.) Of course, Planned Parenthood does not "murder children." Which is why the totes cool sign outside Stickland's office doesn't read "Former Child."
Insert here the usual commentary about how if anti-choicers want to convince me they really give a fuck about saving "children," their garbage platform wouldn't look like a how-to manual on harming the most vulnerable children in the country.
Harrumph
Does anyone like daylight savings time? I never hear anyone espousing the joys and benefits of daylight savings time; I only hear everyone (myself included) complaining about it. I'm sure someone must like it, since we keep doing it!
If you love daylight savings time with so many hearts, I am genuinely happy for you!
As for me, daylight savings time can kiss my ass.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker BigDots: "When you work, do you prefer background noise or silence? If you like some background noise, what do you prefer?"
It depends on what kind of work I'm doing. When I'm writing, I prefer silence. When I'm doing any kind of physical work, I prefer music. Something to which I can sing along.
Shaker Thumbs
Shaker Thumbs is your opportunity to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to a product or service you have used and that you'd recommend to other Shakers or warn them away from.
Today I am giving a thumbs-up to True Blue Spa's Cracked Heel Treatment, which I got at Bath & Body Works.
I have the woooooorst heels on the planet, because I am barefoot all the time. At least, as often as I can be, which is most of the day, every day. I'm forever buffing and pumicing my heels, and slathering them with lotions and potions, but I still basically have hooves.
So I decided to give this a try, and it's already making a difference after two uses. It's definitely not going to give me baby smooth feet, but I don't expect it to, since I have no plans to change my barefoot ways, lol. But it's an improvement, which is for what I was hoping.
And for a price tag of $15, that's worth it.
Anyway! Give us your thumbs-up or thumbs-down in comments!
Just to be abundantly clear, I am not affiliated in any way with Bath & Body Works, nor am I receiving any form of payment for recommending them. It's just a thing I've personally found super useful and am happy to recommend.
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by noodles.
Recommended Reading:
Kaye: [CN: Fat hatred; disordered eating] How Finding a Fat YA Heroine Changed My Life
Amadi: [CN: White Supremacy] On #BlackOutDay
Trudy: [CN: White Supremacy] Thoughts after the Epic #Blackout, #BlackoutDay
Colin: [CN: Fat hatred] Professor Highlights Gaming's Tendency to Shame Fat People
Nancy Jane: [CN: Misogyny; ageism] No More Dried Up Spinsters
Aura: [CN: Racism] How White Separatists Disable Native American Facebook Accounts
Fannie: [CN: Mansplaining] A Correlation
Crystal: [CN: Biphobia; racism] #ThisIsLuv: A Black Bisexual Manifesto
John: [CN: Homophobia] Arkansas Democrat Responds to Hateful Anti-Gay Law with Proposal to Add Statewide LGBT Protections
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
What am I even supposed to do about THIS FACE?!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Bargain, and Its Alternative
A funny thing happened on the way across the blogosphere.
Somewhere along its way through time and space and the series of tubes, the "Terrible Bargain" started being referenced as an agreement to be silent to allow people their prejudices.
I have seen variations on, "I'm having a hard time keeping the terrible bargain," meaning "a hard time keeping my mouth shut about something that's annoying me," at other blogs, in comments here, and in two guest posts that were submitted. Some commenters have criticized the post on the basis that they interpreted it as an exhortation to silence in exchange for peace.
I suspect the misunderstanding arises from the resonance of this line: Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon? A lot of people relate to that line, to that dreadful feeling of loneliness as one stands in the reverberating echo of a slur or some other indignity, knowing that a reasonable discussion of the offense is not possible because of the person who offended, because that person will not respond reasonably to being forced to address hir privilege; knowing no matter how cautiously or carefully or calmly or reasonably or angrily or aggressively or contemptuously one approaches the issue, only drama will ensue; knowing that the only realistic choice is swallowing shit to maintain a public serenity or ruining the entire afternoon to maintain one's principles and dignity.
Sometimes, silence—swallowing shit—is the better option (of two shitty options) because one just doesn't have the energy that day, or because a confrontation could put one's job at risk, or because one is at a breaking point and isn't yet prepared to say to a partner or parent or mentor or friend: I just can't be around you anymore.
But silence as a strategy is just a consequence of the Terrible Bargain. It is not the bargain itself.
This, then, is the terrible bargain we have regretfully struck: Men are allowed the easy comfort of their unexamined privilege, but my regard will always be shot through with a steely, anxious bolt of caution.The Terrible Bargain is this: If you make a ruined afternoon the only possible outcome of my refusal to swallow shit, I will never be able to wholly trust you.
I was not exhorting silence, and I was not confessing to it.
Iain and I have had house-shaking rows that began with his expressing internalized sexism, followed in quick succession by my pointing it out, his getting defensive, my getting frustrated, his getting more defensive, my getting aggravated, his getting exasperated, my getting angry, and the whole thing escalating into an enormous shitstorm of invective and recriminations.
[Note: Because I want to be totally fair to Iain (who, btw, gave his enthusiastic consent to be included in this piece), I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not claiming the only arguments we've ever had are because he's been defensive about expressing internalized sexism. It's just that those are the only arguments relevant to this post. I fuck up, too. I've hurt him, and I've had cause to apologize. We are almost always good to one another—and very occasionally shitty to each other.]
Now, the truth is, that particular trajectory toward enormous shitstorm is largely because we are Liss and Iain, not woman and man: Liss, who comes from a home of Not Speaking About Unpleasant Things, is fiercely averse to under-rugging, insistent on just getting shit out in the open, like, now, and Iain, who comes from a home of OMFG WE'RE FIGHTING!!!, is mulishly conflict-avoidant. We are a poor match in terms of natural communication styles about contentious subjects, and we've worked hard at sorting that shit out—I can back the fuck off, he can step the fuck up, and, when all else fails, we scream absurdities at each other to diffuse: "ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK! ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK!" (It works. But I digress.)
There is also, however, a part of it that's about Liss being a feminist woman and Iain being a straight, white, cisgender, educated, middle-class man whose many privileges are rarely challenged. Even though, intellectually, he knows I'm not accusing him of deliberate maliciousness, and knows I understand he doesn't intend to hurt me, and knows I'm telling him because I want to be able to trust him, and because I already do, and knows down to his very bones that I wouldn't even bother if I didn't already believe and know him to be decent and good and capable of even more, despite all that, being challenged on his male privilege, when it's such a rare occurrence, makes him viscerally defensive.
And it's taken a good long time for him to wrap his head around the fact that another part of that privilege is having control over which direction we go when he says/does something sexist and I point it out to him.
There are infinite possibilities of how to react: He could be defensive. He could refuse to hear me. He could try to insist I judge him on his intent, rather than the actual effect of his words/actions. He could accuse me of imagining things. He could imply that I'm crazy. He could turn it around on me. He could behave belligerently, childishly, furiously. He could storm out. He could stand in one place and stomp his feet. He could shout. He could demand a divorce. He could buy a one-way ticket to Rio. He could throw spaghetti. He could challenge me to a duel.
Or he can listen. Take on board what I'm saying and acknowledge how I feel. And then we can get on with the day.
It is a privilege that he gets to decide. And it is a privilege I recognize, because it is also operative for me, when my privilege is challenged—my white privilege, my straight privilege, my cis privilege. I have the same privilege, just in different situations.
Listen, or ruin the entire afternoon?
My speaking up, even before we learned how to better manage those conversations, is a challenge to the privilege of being in receipt of criticism—a privilege which Iain now recognizes he has, and understands that to wield it irresponsibly is a silencing mechanism.
Ruin enough afternoons for someone, and zie'll never bother challenging your privilege again.
The imperceptible slamming of an door to close off access to part of one's self is masked by the quickening footfalls of walking away, or by the gnashing of gritted teeth which accompanies a self-imposed silence; either way, the door closes with a heave of resignation, after one too many ruined afternoons, when the balance of trust has shifted from hopefulness to despair: I've got no traction here; I mustn't bother, and instead endeavor to protect myself.
That is the Terrible Bargain, and it is struck in either the silence obliged by or the loud conveyance of an obdurate refusal to examine one's privilege, and the sloppy buckshot of its careless expression.
Iain's taken a long look at the Terrible Bargain from its other side, and doesn't want the easy comfort of unexamined privilege at the cost of my trust. And so he does his best to quell that reflexive defensiveness and listen.
And in those moments of listening, we forge a new bargain, lovingly struck: He looks inside himself for the hardened bits of internalized misogyny that yet linger, unexamined; I hand him in exchange the crumbling bricks of a protective wall built long before we met.
The rubble collects at our feet, and we kick it away.
[Originally posted October 01, 2009. Reposted by request.]
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Death penalty.]
"We have to have an option."—Utah Representative Paul Ray, who has introduced legislation "that would make firing squad the method of execution in the state if authorities can't obtain increasingly scarce lethal injection drugs."
Because not killing people is not an option. Not to these people. They'd rather reintroduce the firing squad than stop executing people.
End the death penalty now. END THE DEATH PENALTY NOW.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; terrorism] In Iraq: "Iraqi government forces have retaken a large part of north-western Tikrit as they battle IS militants to recapture the city, security officials say. ...On Wednesday, a security official at the Samarra Operations Command in Salahuddin province told the BBC that government forces had entered north-eastern Tikrit after 10 days of heavy fighting in towns and villages along the Tigris river to the north and south. He said soldiers and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation (Hashid Shaabi) militiamen now controlled two-thirds of Qadisya, Tikrit's largest district, and had raised the Iraqi flag at the nearby military hospital."
[CN: Death] It is still being considered a search and rescue mission, but: "Seven Marines and four soldiers were presumed dead after an Army helicopter crashed during a nighttime training mission off the Florida coast, where some remains have washed ashore and search efforts were hampered by heavy fog, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday." My sympathies to their families, friends, and colleagues, who are still waiting for definitive answers at this point.
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton made a statement and answered questions about her email usage while at the State Department. The complete transcript is available here. Relatedly: "The Associated Press sued the U.S. State Department for Hillary Clinton's e-mails and other records, a day after the potential presidential candidate said she wouldn't consent to an outside review of her private server where the e-mails were stored."
[CN: Police brutality; racism] Meanwhile, in Ferguson: "Ferguson's chief executive resigned Tuesday night, becoming the latest in a string of law enforcement officers and officials to leave their posts following the release of a scathing Department of Justice report. John Shaw, 39, had served as Ferguson's city manager since 2007, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reported that Shaw's resignation was announced at a city council meeting where members of the Council unanimously approved a 'mutual separation agreement.' ...Shaw denied in his resignation letter that his office had anything to do with implementing policies that discriminated against some Ferguson residents. 'While I certainly respect the work that the D.O.J. recently performed in their investigation and report on the City of Ferguson, I must state clearly that my office has never instructed the Police Department to target African-Americans, nor falsify charges to administer fines, nor heap abuses on the backs of the poor,' he wrote, as quoted by the newspaper." Well, he seems terrific. Really seems to "get it." (That was sarcasm, in case I wasn't laying it on thick enough.)
[CN: Domestic violence; animal abuse] This is so important: "As many as 25% of domestic violence survivors have reported returning to an abusive partner out of concern for their pet. And that fear is often justified. Recent studies demonstrate that abusers intentionally target pets to exert control over their intimate partners—71% of pet-owning women entering domestic violence shelters report that their abuser threatened, harmed, or killed a family pet. This point bears repeating: victims ready to escape from abuse are instead risking their lives to protect beloved family pets. No one should have to make the impossible choice between leaving an abusive situation and ensuring a pet's safety. ...That's where the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act comes in. Reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives today, this bipartisan bill criminalizes the intentional targeting of a domestic partner's pet with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate. It also establishes a federal grant program to help victims safely house their pets, and adds veterinary care to the list of costs that victims can recover. Additionally, the PAWS Act strongly asserts the need for states to expand their legal protections for the pets of domestic violence victims."
Cool: "Dark Energy Survey Reveals Signs of Nine Dwarf Galaxies: "Two groups of astronomers looking around the edges of our Milky Way galaxy were surprised to find a gaggle of previously undetected dwarf satellite galaxies—incredibly dim conglomerations of stars that may account for some of the mysterious dark matter in our cosmic neighborhood. Nine galaxy candidates were discovered in a region of the southern celestial hemisphere near the best-known dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way: the Large and the Small Magellanic Cloud. The closest is about 95,000 light-years away. The farthest is more than a million light-years distant."
Scientists have discovered what makes a chameleon able to change color: "A team of scientists from the University of Geneva has observed that chameleons have a layer of skin cells which contain nanocrystals floating within them. Relatively evenly distributed in the cellular matrix, these crystals reflect light at wavelengths—and hence color—related to their spacing. But the researchers have also found that chameleons can change the spacing between crystals. It's this that enables them to change color before our eyes." Whoa!
And finally! Bow-Z the dog and Jasper the cat were apart for ten days, and Jasper is REALLY HAPPY to see Bow-Z again! Aww lol.
Transphobia in Texas
[Content Note: Transphobia.]
Last month, I wrote about a transphobic bill introduced in the Florida state legislature that seeks to prohibit trans* people from using public bathrooms corresponding to their gender. Similar legislation has passed in the Kentucky state senate.
And now the Texas state legislature is following suit and doubling quadrupling down, with four pieces of transphobic legislation introduced in the past few weeks.
HB 1747 "amends the definition of 'disorderly conduct' to make it a crime for transgender Texans who have not been fortunate enough to correct their official gender markers to use public gender-segregated space appropriate to their gender identity or expression."
HB 1748 "creates two new offenses: making it a state jail felony for most business owners if they repeatedly allow a person who has at least one 'Y' chromosome to enter a space designated for women, or a person with no 'Y' chromosome to enter a space designated for men; and making it a Class 'A' misdemeanor for a person with at least one 'Y' chromosome to enter a space designated for women or a person without a 'Y' chromosome to enter a space designated for men."
HB 2802 is an update of HB 1748, which expands this chromosome requirement to educational spaces.
And HB 2801 "declares that schools must 'adopt a policy providing that only persons of the same biological sex may be present at the same time in any bathroom, locker room, or shower facility.'"
Introduced yesterday by Republican Texas Rep. Gilbert Peña, HB 2801 "does not define how a student's 'biological sex' would be determined or verified." But it does nonetheless encourage other students to hunt and report on their fellow students they believe or know to be transgender:
The bill does, however, make the school liable to any cisgender (nontrans) student who "encounters a person not of the student's biological sex" in a bathroom, locker room, or shower. Every student who successfully proves the school violated this would-be law "shall be awarded … exemplary damages in the amount of $2,000." That sum does not include the "actual damages," which the bill notes includes "damages for mental anguish even if an injury other than mental anguish is not shown."Emphasis mine.
In other words, the bill sets up a standard where cisgender students can not only complain about sharing facilities with a student they believe to be transgender, but if they can prove that student was in the "wrong" restroom, will also be awarded $2,000, in addition to whatever amount a judge deems is sufficient compensation for the "mental anguish" presumably caused by sharing space with a trans person.
As I have pointed out before, and will keep pointing out until these bigoted fuckos stop targeting trans* people and endorsing state-sactioned terrorism against them, this is projection. It is not cisgender people who need to be kept safe from transgender people; it is transgender people who need to be kept safe from cisgender people.
Case in point: This fucking legislation.
All of these hateful stains purport to be concerned about preventing violence, with zero regard for the fact that trans* people are at much greater risk for violence because they are trans*. It's a damnable, indefensible lie that this sort of legislation will protect anyone; it only makes trans* people less safe.
[H/T to Eastsidekate and Marti Abernathy.]
Number of the Day
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
59%: The percentage of USians who now support same-sex marriage, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
In the new survey released Monday, 59 percent of Americans said that they favor same-sex marriages while just 33 percent said they oppose them.There is a part of me that can't believe it's only 59%, but here is yet another moment in which I will celebrate progress and resolve to continue to expect more.
The numbers have shifted dramatically in the past decade. In 2004, only 30 percent of Americans said they supported same-sex marriage, while 62 percent disagreed. Half of those polled at the time said they strongly opposed allowing gays and lesbians to marry.
"He is a good boy."
[Content Note: Racism. Video may autoplay at second link.]
Yesterday I mentioned an incident at the the University of Oklahoma in which members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity were caught on video engaging in a racist chant, which included a slur and eliminationist rhetoric, the point of which was to celebrate that the frat would never admit black members to their chapter.
Since the video surfaced, the university's president severed the school's ties with SAE; the national leadership of SAE has announced it will close the OU chapter; the university legal staff is "exploring whether the students who initiated and encouraged the chant may have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination"; and two of the SAE members who have been identified have been expelled from school.
These are all good and necessary steps.
And, naturally, there is plenty of resistance to accountability, as well. Because anytime white "boys" do anything terrible, lots of white people mobilize to defend them. Or to make sure we know they're just a couple of bad apples, not reflective of systemic racism.
So we get shit like this:
[Former Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer] spoke to local Oklahoma City news outlets about the issue he says he has "a vested interest in." He believes the university shouldn't punish the entire fraternity for the actions of a few members.Sure. Because obviously these fraternity members acted in a vacuum. They invented all on their own the idea that their fraternity would never admit black members, and wrote a song about it, and sang that song in public, without fear of consequences. Sounds legit.
"I understood that supposedly they were called bigots that lived in this house, none of them could live on this campus. I haven't seen the interview, but if that happened and occurred, that's no different from what those kids did on that bus," Switzer told KOCO in Oklahoma City. "Throw a blanket over these kids that are here and say that they're bigots? That's unacceptable."
Meanwhile, one of the expelled members' parents are publicly apologizing for him (because nothing says maturity and meaningful accountability by having your parents apologize for you):
"As parents of Levi, we love him and care for him deeply," says the statement, which has also been posted on this website. "He made a horrible mistake, and will live with the consequences forever. However, we also know the depth of our son's character. He is a good boy, but what we saw in those videos is disgusting. While it may be difficult for those who only know Levi from the video to understand, we know his heart, and he is not a racist. We raised him to be loving and inclusive and we all remain surrounded by a diverse, close-knit group of friends."There's more, in which they note how sad they are for their son, before apologizing "to the community he has hurt...to the entire African American community, University of Oklahoma student body and administration," and finally thanking their friends and family for "your kind comments and prayers."
He is a good boy who made a horrible mistake. But they know his real character, and he is not a racist. P.S. They have black friends.
This is a problem for all sorts of reasons, but primarily because privileged people have to stop insisting that they know someone's character, or heart, or spirit, or whatever abstract part of a person's humanity they invoke, based on how they are personally treated by that person.
I'm sure a white man who despises black people enough to sing about violently harming them can be a perfectly great dude to other white people. Why wouldn't he be? He thinks white people are superior and deserving of his respect.
A white person who interacts with another white person is not the best judge of that person's character when it comes to how that character is expressed around people of color. And we need to stop pretending that it can ever be otherwise.
This is a constant narrative that gets built across multiple axes of oppression to protect white men. A white man is "no racist" because other white people have never been treated shitty by him. A white man is "no misogynist" because other men have never been treated shitty by him. Etc.
This isn't meaningful. People who will never be harmed in the way that a white man harms people see no evidence of his harmfulness. WHO CARES.
All of which is an extension of the obnoxious and unproductive pretense that only monsters are racist, instead of starting from a point at which we recognize we're all socialized to be racist. Because if we acknowledge that we're all racist, and only learn to unwind that socialization with extraordinary effort, then we won't imagine that it matters, not one little bit, how a white person treats other white people, when we're talking about how that white person treats people of color.
Especially when they think no one is watching.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker masculine_lady: "What are you waiting for?"
Interpret however you like: A literal question about something for which you're waiting, an existential rhetorical about making shit happen, whatever!
Quote of the Day
"I knew I needed to provide abortions when I realized that there were people who would not be able to access abortion care if I didn't. As providers, we are the links between the abstract right to abortion and the reality of being able to actually have one."—Dr. Cheryl Chastine, who provides abortion services at the South Wind Women's Center in Wichita, Kansas, at no small risk to her own safety and peace of mind. She is a real-life superhero, and one of the kindest people I've ever met. Read the entire interview with her here.
You can read more from Dr. Chastine in this piece by Robin Marty, in which five women explain why they became abortion providers.
The Walking Thread
[Content Note: Descriptions of violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
Daryl stomping on a piñata, to get all the candy out!
When last we left our totally trepid band of zombie slayers, Grimes Gang had arrived at Aarontown, and everyone was very RELUCTANT and SUSPICIOUS about this community of people who are willing to provide them with comfort and sustenance and friendship in exchange for some lessons on surviving the zombiepocalypse.
This week, everyone is still very RELUCTANT and SUSPICIOUS. So, as per usual, we're whipping right along the narrative arc at the pace of a dead snail. RIP metaphorical snail.
The episode opens with Sasha laying awake in her new house, staring at photos of the happy white family who used to live there. She carries the framed photos out to the woods and shoots at them. When no zombies show up to try to destroy her, she is discombobulated. "Come and get me!" she says, but no zombies come to get her, because the zombies all take a nap when the writers need to make a point.
Meanwhile, Grimes, Carol, and Daryl meet in the woods to hatch a plot for stealing guns from the armory, so they can defend themselves from the Aarontownians if need be. Carol says she'll trade on her Silly Lady Dodobrain persona to leave the window unlatched when no one is looking. Another powerful moment for womankind on The Walking Dead.
The episode progresses with more RELUCTANCE and SUSPICION, and every conversation about every thing between every member of Grimes Gang with every person from Aarontown has an IMPORTANT DOUBLE MEANING. Sure, it might seem like Daryl and Aaron are having a conversation about something else, but when Aaron says, "Fear makes you stupid" (or whatevthefuck he said), he's really talking about Grimes Gang. There are fully one million IMPORTANT DOUBLE MEANING exchanges like that one, and in case you missed any of them, don't worry—I'm sure there will plenty more in the next episode!
Anyway. It's a real struggle for all the Grimes Gangians to navigate this new world. Sasha can't relax. Noah can't socialize. Daryl isn't sure what to do with himself. Sgt. Red Bull says things about how you don't want to have to use your weapon, but don't want to forget how to use it. Michonne hangs up her katana over the fireplace, and longingly gazes at a plastic cocktail sword (LOL FOREVER).
Deanna isn't making things easier on the twitchy Grimes Gangians with her casual indifference toward militaristic security, and her desire to throw a big welcome party for them, and her truly bonkers vision of turning Aarontown into a place with "industry, commerce, civilization." Ha ha okay player!
But she agrees to Grimes' surly and paranoid demand for more security around the perimeter, and she relents to Sasha's request to woman the watchtower.
Daryl goes hunting, and stumbles across Aaron in the woods, and Aaron is amazed that Daryl can tell the difference between a zombie and a human just by sound. For reasons unknown, Daryl does not simply tell him, "Well, you weren't gurgling and gasping like a trash compactor drowning in a mall fountain, so it was pretty easy, actually."
They try to capture a horse, but they get overrun by zombies, and then so does the horse, and it is sad. There are many IMPORTANT DOUBLE MEANING exchanges during this whole sequence, like how the horse is getting more feral the longer it's out there on its own, and how it got killed even though they were trying to help it.
If you didn't watch the episode, but want the full experience of listening to all this IMPORTANT DOUBLE MEANING repartee, just hit yourself over the head with a brick.
At Deanna's party, which is surprisingly well stocked for the zombiepocalypse, Grimes makes googly eyes at his married lady friend, which makes me barf one hundred times, and Sasha freaks out that a nice black lady is worried about making her a nice dinner, because she should be worried about being mauled to death instead, and Grimes has a terrific dick-measuring contest with Deanna's husband, who built the wall around Aarontown, and Deanna calls the contest a tie, because they are both great, even though it's OBVIOUS OMG SO OBVIOUS that Grimes is a superhero who has definitely led his people to safety with great decision-making and solid beard skills.
Carol sneaks off to the armory to steal guns while everyone is partying. But a little boy who wanted more of the cookies she baked for the party follows her and catches her. She threatens to leave him tied to a tree for the zombies to devour if he tells anyone, but she'll bake him lots more cookies if he doesn't. DECISIONS DECISIONS.
Daryl skips the party altogether, and Aaron invites him to have dinner with him and his partner Eric. Daryl slups spaghetti and wipes his mouth on his sleeve, in case you misunderstood that he was being compared to a wild animal in earlier IMPORTANT DOUBLE MEANING conversations with Aaron.
Aaron tells him he wants Daryl to be his new sidekick on recruiting missions, because he doesn't want Eric to risk his life anymore. He sweetens the deal by giving Daryl a motorcycle left in his garage by the previous resident, and convinces him by talking about how they're both outsiders. "You're just like me, because I'm gay and you're very dirty!" Daryl seems pretty happy about the whole thing.
So happy, in fact, that when Grimes and Carol and Daryl reconvene at their secret woodland meet-up to distribute the guns Carol stole, Daryl doesn't even want one. He's gonna try to fit in and trust his new friends. Grimes definitely takes a gun because OBVIOUSLY.
Later, Constable Grimes is patrolling the streets of Aarontown and sees his new lady friend, whose name I don't know but let's call her Blaura Blinney, because she looks like a B-version of Laura Linney, walking down the street with her husband, and he puts his hand on his hidden piece. Oh good grief. OH GOOD GRIEF.
The episode ends with Grimes hearing a zombie on the other side of the wall, and pressing his stupid head against the wall to listen to it wail and thrash. Ugh. He looks at a red A that Blaura Blinney's son stamped on his hand at the party, which definitely doesn't stand for Aarontown but should, which her son said made him "one of us." BUT IS HE ONE OF THEM?! There ain't no other fools leaning against a wall jerking off to the sound of a frustrated zombie!
Next week: More of this crapola.
