[Content Note: Racism; white privilege.]
"Hillary is a good listener. But she still has lots of room to grow when it comes to listening to black people actually talk about the issues that are affecting them, vs. how she perceives the issues to affect us."—#BlackLivesMatter activist Johnetta Elzie (@Nettaaaaaaaa) on the 90-minute meeting on institutional racism she and her colleagues had with Clinton on Friday, which "included topics such as demilitarization of police, the school to prison pipeline, and violence committed against members of the LGBT community."
Deray McKesson (@deray) also observed: "Sometimes her language does not match her intent. In this setting—we were with her for 90 minutes. So if she said something and we wanted more clarity we had the time to do that. But I think in general I think she can just be clearer and more plainly talk about issues related to black people and black people than she has done for the duration of the campaign."
From day one of her campaign, I noted this was going to be a particular weakness: At best, she usually sounds awkward when talking about race, and, at worst, she avoids personal accountability for racist policies, sometimes because she doesn't even seem to realize that's what she's being asked to do.
That's a pretty common problem among white people in positions of power who ostensibly care about racial justice—this stilted, impersonal way of speaking about racism, combined with a refusal to be meaningful accountable for one's own racism, privilege, and upholding of systemic marginalization—and the reason it's so common is because Good White FolksTM know that racism isn't personal the same way it is to the people affected by it, and the only way to make it personal is to interrogate our own internalized bias; deconstruct white privilege; be accountable for the ways in which we've wielded it, traded on it, and benefitted from it; and listen to what people of color need from us, as individuals, and how we can leverage our privilege and power on behalf of racial justice instead of on behalf of white supremacy. As an ongoing process.
The only way to make it personal is by owning our power to oppress.
It's never going to be personal, and Clinton is never going to be able to "more plainly talk about issues related to to black people and [about] black people," until she's got a willingness to be more fully accountable, and to own her power to oppress.
I know this, because I've been there.
It's easy to say "I have white privilege," but it's harder to talk about what that means in practical terms. What it means we are empowered to do with that privilege. What we have done, by intentional action or indifference. That is the harder part; the part white people resist. That is the part that makes people say things like, "I didn't ask for this privilege, and I don't want it." Too damn bad. As a person with some parts of my identity being privileged, and some being marginalized, I can say that not asking for and not wanting oppression is really the bigger burden than not asking for and not wanting privilege.
Anyway.
Clinton is still sitting in that space where maintaining your identity as Good White FolksTM is more important than actually addressing your fuck-ups in a meaningful way. Which is where most white politicians sit. (And a lot of white liberals generally.) But I expect more, because she's given me reason to.
Come on, Hillary Clinton. You can do it. But more importantly: You must.
Quote of the Day
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie "helping" me with laundry over the weekend
while Matilda supervises.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
"This Is a Negative Story About Clinton, We Swear!"
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Let's start with the headline of this WaPo piece on Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings: "Hillary Clinton's declining image numbers inch upward."
LOLOLOL! That is a real winner, right there.
"How do we make this story about an increase in Clinton's approval ratings sound negative?"
"I've got it! Let's call them declining numbers even as they're inclining!"
"Walters, you're a genius!"
"And let's say they're 'inching upward,' even though her net favorability is up six points since August!"
"Thompson, give Walters a raise!"
Naturally, it only gets worse from there. This is, perhaps, my favorite part:
Clinton's net favorability didn't change among Democrats, we'll note, while both Bernie Sanders and non-candidate-and-maybe-never-candidate Joe Biden saw improvements with Democrats. Clinton gained with independents -- and Republicans, where she essentially had nowhere to go but up. Biden saw the biggest gain in net favorability with Republicans, though, gaining 12 points.So, Clinton's favorability hasn't decreased among Democrats, and she's gained six points with independents and Republicans in the last two months, and yet who cares yawn fart because "she had nowhere to go but up" with them, anyway.
The desperate attempt to paint Clinton in the most unfavorable light at all turns makes for the most ridiculous reporting I've ever fucking read.
Or maybe this is my favorite part:
We'll note that, for her recent improvement, Clinton is still the least positively viewed Democrat among the three that poll the highest. At least on net. She is also the most popular Democrat among Democrats, with 79 percent favorability to Biden's 72 and Sanders's 47. It's just that she's viewed far worse by Republicans."We'd better begrudgingly acknowledge that she's actually still the most popular candidate with the people most likely to vote for her!"
Clinton is more popular among members of her party than a sitting vice-president in her party. That is remarkable. And yet the headline is all about her "declining image." I mean.
*this face*
"Walters, go write up a piece about why there aren't more women in politics. Make it about how women are constitutionally unsuited for it!"
"You want me to include some evo psych?"
"Walters, they might as well give you the Pulitzer now!"
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; airline disaster; death] "Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board says. The missile hit the front left of the plane causing other parts break off, it said in a final report into the July 2014 disaster, which killed 298 people. The West and Ukraine say Russian-backed rebels brought down the Boeing 777, but Russia blames Ukrainian forces. The report does not say who fired the missile, but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed." Well fuck.
[CN: Misogyny; racism; antisemitism] That's your liberal media! "So far, the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination has focused on exciting issues like the merits of Carly Fiorina's face, the height of the new wall between the United States and Mexico, and whether the Jews were responsible for the Holocaust. The Democratic debate scheduled for Tuesday night, meanwhile, is expected focus on issues like climate change, criminal justice reform, and zzzzzzzzzzz… Major media outlets would like you to know that it will probably be a snooze-fest. The Washington Post reports that the Republican debates have been 'appointment television' featuring lots of personal insults and attacks. Meanwhile, the Democratic debate will focus on 'substantive' issues like 'how each would pay for his or her higher-education overhauls.' It's possible, the Post warns, you will be 'bored senseless.' This is because the Democratic candidates have avoided 'direct, personal attacks that have been so prominent in the Republican race.' This leaves them, according to the Post, 'downright predictable.'"
[CN: Racism; police brutality; prosecutorial misconduct] Yep: "Attorneys for the family of Tamir Rice, who was killed by police officer Timothy Loehmann while holding a pellet gun in a park in Cleveland in November last year, said the pair of external reports had 'tainted the grand jury process' that is considering criminal charges against Loehmann. 'It's clear to the Rice family that these so-called experts were selected to present a point of view to defend the officer's conduct,' said Subodh Chandra, an attorney for the family. Chandra said the unusual decision to request and publish the external reports by Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, was 'an unprecedented thing for a prosecutor to do on behalf of someone potentially facing a murder charge.'"
[CN: Police brutality; racism] A Texas police school resource officer was caught on camera slamming a 14-year-old boy to the floor by the throat, and: "No one was arrested, but Gyasi said that he is on suspension until Tuesday and also landed two Saturday detentions." I don't even know what to say anymore.
Okay: "As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude." Lest you imagine this is because of something resembling decency: "Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. 'That battle has been fought and won,' said Scott Flanders, the company's chief executive. 'You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture.'"
In presidential news: "On Tuesday Rand Paul will become the first candidate to live stream an entire day on the campaign trail." Cool. Can't wait to keep not watching that all day!
[CN: Rape culture; misogyny] Good grief, this family: Michelle Duggar thought now is the perfect time to write a piece about how the best marital advice she ever got was to be sexually available to her husband 24/7. The grossest. The absolute fucking worst.
Johnny Depp says he never wants to win an Oscar. "No problemo!"—the Academy.
And finally! "Footage of Whales Swimming Under the Northern Lights Is Simply Majestic." It certainly is.
What in Minstrel Hell Is This?
[Content Note: Racism; body-shaming.]
Yesterday on her show, Ellen Degeneres aired a "comedy" segment in which she purported to be previewing a scene from the upcoming sitcom based on Nicki Minaj's early life. She introduces the (fake) clip while sitting in front of a screen showing a large image of Minaj from her "Anaconda" video, where she is on all fours. It has certainly become an iconic image of Minaj, who has done and said a lot of other amazing things, but the point of showing this particular image in this particular moment is to highlight that Minaj has a big butt. Because, if you're an Ellen audience member, and you don't know that one thing about Nicki Minaj, you won't understand the sketch. Which is one joke, over and over, about Nicki Minaj, a powerful and influential black female artist, having a big butt.
[The video has been removed from YouTube. You can view it here.]
Ellen Degeneres, a thin white middle-aged woman, sitting on the set of her show, with the above-described image of Nicki Minaj, a curvy black young woman, prominently displayed behind her: "I have one more thing that I think will boost your mood. It was just announced that Nicki Minaj is producing a sitcom based on her childhood growing up in Queens, New York." [audience laughter at the juxtaposition of the image and, apparently, the suggestion that Nicki Minaj is producing a biographical show] "It, uh, yeah this is true! It's not on the air yet, but I called in a favor, and I was able to get us a very exclusive sneak peek. This is totally real, not something we put together as a joke. It's a real clip from Nicki Minaj's... Again: Real."This is some rank racist shit. How this was conceived, produced, and aired as a "comedy" sketch in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fifteen is unfathomable. I am not operating under the misapprehension that we are living in a post-racist world, but I did imagine that there might have been at least one adult human being on Ellen's staff who realized that diminishing a prominent black woman to nothing more than the size of her ass, then suggesting all black people have huge asses, then conflating black people with dogs, under the auspices of "comedy" is not, in fact, humor but is instead a terrible, reductive, racist shitshow.
The clip begins to roll. Exterior of a suburban house (that would not be found in Queens, btw). Cut to the interior, and a black mom is standing in a living room, her lower body concealed behind a couch. She finds a pair of misplaced girls' sneakers and says, "Nicki Minaj, come down here right now!" A little black girl comes down the stairs. She has a giant fake ass. The audience roars. In case you didn't get the joke, the little girl bends over, with her ass to the camera, so you can get the full scope of her oversized ass.
From there, the clip rolls forward as expectedly. Mom comes out from behind the couch revealing that she, too, has a huge fake ass. She knocks over a vase with her unwieldy ass. Dad comes in and he has a huge fake ass, too. He knocks over a lamp with his ass. As a typical sitcom scene plays out, they all knock stuff over with their asses. They all try to sit on the couch together and can't fit. The family dog comes in, a black dog, and the dog, too, has a huge fake ass.
The audience finds all of this uproarious. The clip ends, and we cut back to Ellen who is sitting onstage laughing.
Degeneres has a history of fat hatred and body shaming, so I'm not even a little surprised that she'd find this acceptable, but I hope she's getting lots of feedback letting her know that it really fucking isn't.
The Thinkiest Thinkpiece
[Content Note: Mass shootings; descriptions of violence and threats of violence; disablism.]
Malcolm Gladwell, Lord Thinkpiece of Thynkpease Manor, has written the thinkiest of all the thinkpieces about mass shootings committed by young men:
But what if the way to explain the school-shooting epidemic is to go back and use the Granovetterian model—to think of it as a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before?What if?! Well, I can tell you one answer to that question: If that model is indeed the way to explain the school-shooting epidemic, it necessitates viewing these shootings as among the "situations in which people did things for social reasons that went against everything they believed as individuals," which in turn requires, like so many thinkpieces before it, ignoring that most of these shooters have very strong beliefs that women are a sex class who owe men sex on demand.
I have read piece after piece after piece written by men searching for explanations and advancing theories and proposing solutions, all of them flatly refusing to even mention that the allegedly elusive thread between most of these shootings is toxic masculinity. Which is not elusive at all. Because the shooters themselves reveal this motive. And then other men refuse to listen.
And why is it that so many men refuse to listen to shooter after shooter say, in manifestos or interviews with police or evidence left behind in online footprints, that they are fueled by a vengeful rage against women who do not conform to their will? Is it because these men share, to some degree, these rageful men's entitlement to women's bodies, and thus cannot imagine that it's cause to start shooting? Is it because they think, "Yeah, well, every young guy feels that rage of unfulfilled entitlement to women," recalling their own feelings of entitlement and dismissing out of hand that it could be the reason another man picks up a gun and opens fire?
How else can they be so indifferent to this manifestly obvious, to this admitted, rationale that it does not register to them? That it merits nary a mention in their thinkpieces?
Is this why the shooters become, in their musings, "boys" rather than men? Misguided youth who just need some love? Is this why men who write thinkpieces so unfailingly relate to and sympathize with shooters, in a way women rarely do?
Gladwell's piece concludes thus:
In the day of Eric Harris, we could try to console ourselves with the thought that there was nothing we could do, that no law or intervention or restrictions on guns could make a difference in the face of someone so evil. But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement. The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It's worse. It's that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts.The riot has engulfed "the boys" who are no longer deeply disturbed.
What a privilege to be able to view men who murder because they are not getting what they feel they are entitled as regular old dudes caught up in a slow-moving frenzy. What a terrifying thought for me, and I'm guessing not a few other women, that a murderous hatred of women doesn't seem disturbed to the thinkpiece writing men.
Oh, You Devil!
This will probably be my favorite thing I read all day: "Is the Jersey Devil in Galloway Township?"
And this is my favorite part:
His final statement on the incident was simply, "I think I saw a large, flying mammal about the size of a deer."LOL! Let's all look at or read the description of this picture of THE JERSEY DEVIL and submit our theories about what it is!
I mean, clearly it's the Jersey Devil! But if it isn't, WHICH OBVIOUSLY SEEMS UNLIKELY, then I think it's a goat with a jetpack doing a trial run for a delivery service by Barnes & Noble, who are just trying to compete with Amazon's drone delivery.
You?
Question of the Day
In situations where your total comfort just isn't an option: Would you rather be slightly too chilly or slightly too warm?
Slightly too chilly. Always.
Photo of the Day
Two 4-month-old Snow Leopard sisters, named Malaya and Daania, made their public debut October 7 at Brookfield Zoo.Via ZooBorns.
...The Chicago Zoological Society (CZS), which manages Brookfield Zoo, happily announced the birth of the two Snow Leopard cubs on June 16. Until now, the girls and their mom have been safe and secure in their behind-the-scenes den.
Mom, Sarani, and her five-year-old mate, Sabu, arrived at Brookfield Zoo in October 2011 from Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Cape May County Park & Zoo in Cape May Court House, New Jersey, respectively. This is the second litter of cubs for the couple. Their pairing was based on a recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' (AZA) Snow Leopard Species Survival Plan (SSP).
...A leading Snow Leopard conservation organization, the Snow Leopard Trust, estimates population numbers of this elusive cat to be between 4,000 and 6,500 remaining in the wild.
Gorgeous beasties! They say a leopard can't change its spots, but why would anyone want one to?!
*wink*
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by autumn leaves.
Recommended Reading:
Jeni: [Content Note: Anti-choice harassment; disablist language] When Anti-Choice Protestors Outside of My Office Laughed at My Abortion Story
Kenrya: [CN: Racism] Study: White People Think Men with 'Black-Sounding' Names Are Scary
Daniel: [CN: Disablism] Ableism and the Academy: What College Has Taught Me About My Disabled Body
Taimour: [CN: Discussion of anxiety; disablism] Open Letter: We Need to Talk About How Mental Health Affects South Asian Men
Germain: Furiosa Won't Be in George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road Sequel
Digby: Bo Is 7
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
It's as Good an Idea as Any
With Congressional Republicans in chaos after John Boehner's ouster, and the leading contender to succeed him as Speaker having abruptly withdrawn, and Paul Ryan saying he'll only take the position in the incredibly unlikely event that "he was the true consensus choice of the party. That means no opposition, no sniping, no acceding to demands in exchange for support," shit is getting reeeeeal desperate.
Last week, Fox Shitlord Sean Hannity opened the floodgates of a whole new angle of desperation by asking Newt Gingrich if he'd be willing to assume the role once again, with reference to a little-known rule that the Speaker doesn't have to be a sitting member of Congress.
Now a Republican Senator, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, has suggested that Dick Cheney would make a terrific Speaker: "Look, these are trying times for our nation. It's important to have a steady hand on the helm during times like this. I think experience really counts in a matter like this. I think House leadership experience really matters. And as you know the speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House: So therefore, Vice President Cheney for speaker."
Sure! Why not?!
I think we should all start making our nominations now! I nominate a Big Mouth Billy Bass wearing a flag lapel pin.
It's no worse than Paul Ryan and definitely better than Dick Cheney! Who do you nominate?
Daily Dose of Cute
Tils, being very Tilsish.
If you're wondering what that speckling all over her arm is, that would be popcorn dust acquired after she reached her dirty paw into a bag of popcorn I'd left unattended. She has zero interest in People Food, save for chicken and TUNA WATER!, and even those only sometimes, but will absolutely lose her mind if I am eating popcorn and she doesn't get some. It's like a toy and a treat, all in one!
So I have to fastidiously guard a bag of popcorn, lest she stick her grody feets in there and turn it into a bag of garbage.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Terrorism; death] Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that IS is "the prime suspect in the Ankara bombings that killed nearly 100 on Saturday... Saturday's twin explosions ripped through a crowd of activists outside the main railway station in the Turkish capital. They were due to take part in a rally calling for an end to the violence between Turkish government forces and the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party." Fucking hell.
[CN: Misogynist violence; racism] "In a few days Canada will elect a new government. The hope is that through the ballot box the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls will take on new importance—and at the very least there will be a serious national inquiry. Three of the four major political parties have agreed that there should be a major investigation and solutions put forward to end the epidemic of violence. But the party that said 'no' is the current government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper." That fucking guy. I hope every Canadian says 'no' to his stupid party.
[CN: Violence; racism; deportation; image of injured and bloodied person at link] "The US government is deporting undocumented immigrants back to Central America to face the imminent threat of violence, with several individuals being murdered just days or months after their return, a Guardian investigation has found. ...Immigration experts believe that the Guardian's findings represent just the tip of the iceberg. A forthcoming academic study based on local newspaper reports has identified as many as 83 US deportees who have been murdered on their return to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras since January 2014. Human rights groups warn that deterrent measures taken by the Obama administration after last year's 'surge' in arrivals at the border of unaccompanied children from Central America have triggered a series of powerful unintended consequences across the region." This, too, is a refugee crisis. These are refugees seeking refuge, and they should be received thus. What the fuck are we even doing?
[CN: Guns; death] So, basically, I'm never leaving the house again: "The Waffle House crew was busily going about its typical early-morning ritual—smothering and scrambling breakfast, clanking through the dirty dishes—when a robber jolted them out of their routine. A customer decided he was having none of that and opened fire in the North Charleston eatery, thwarting the holdup Saturday by fatally shooting the suspect." Nope. Meanwhile, the more these citizen shooters are hailed as heroes, the more dipshits who will try to become "heroes" by firing at suspected criminals in public places. For fuck's sake.
[CN: Misogyny; rape joke] Here are just two supercool dudes talking about Hillary Clinton in supercool ways. I officially had enough of both Bill Maher and Andrew Sullivan about eleventy years ago.
[CN: Misogyny] Welp: "According to a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, male scientists receive twice as much financial support to kickstart their careers in science and medicine as their female counterparts, an early career inequity that could limit professional opportunities for women scientists throughout their working lives." I hope female scientists were funded to do this study!
OMG THIS IS AMAZING: "BuzzFeed's Another Round podcast sat down with Hillary Clinton to talk everything from Black Lives Matter to her thoughts on squirrels" and also why she doesn't sweat AND SHE SAID IT'S BECAUSE SHE'S A ROBOT! "You guys are the first to realize that I'm really not even a human being. I was constructed in a garage in Palo Alto a very long time ago. ...But you have to cut this, you can't tell anybody this. I don't want anybody to know this. This has been a secret until here we are in Davenport, Iowa, and I'm just spillin' my electronic guts to you." LOLOLOL!!!
Wow: "Stunning Drone Footage Captures Giant Whales Wondering What to Do with a Tiny Human." Very cool.
And finally! I love this: "When You Just Can't Get Them out of Your Head…" On rescuing a dog they saw online, and couldn't forget. ♥
Maybe Think a Little More About Your Thinkpiece
[Content Note: Mass shootings; toxic masculinity.]
In the wake of every mass shooting, there are always a bunch of thinkpieces about how such things could be avoided. They've become as much a part of the grotesque routine as grim presidential statements, media narratives about the shooters, paranoia about gun criminalization, and the uptick in gun and ammo sales.
One of the more popular thinkpiece themes, rooted in and in response to the narrative that mass shooters are socially isolated, is that it is our collective responsibility to reach out to one another.
Here's a perfect example, which I read this morning, in which the writer urges the reader to assume personal responsibility for reaching out to the people around us, because that's the only thing that will work, since mass shootings are as unstoppable as natural disasters: "You'd have as much luck passing regulation against tornadoes. It would be equally as effective."
I know what you're thinking. That's never going to work because no one is going to make the effort to connect with the strange kid sitting by himself at lunch each day. No one is going to reach out to the gawky, awkward guy at work and ask him about his weekend. You're probably right and that's an absolute shame.The idea that community is important profoundly resonates with me, as anyone who has spent more than five seconds in this space certainly already knows. But this argument elides a couple of key points about many US mass shooters.
...No entity can do anything meaningful (more than is presently being done) to thwart a disaffected person hell-bent on committing such an act.
But you can.
You can talk to your co-worker for a few minutes. You can talk to the kid in your Physics class that appears to be all alone. You can teach your children to do the same, to make sure no one is left to feel totally isolated. Because that's the breeding ground. That's where the seeds are planted.
...Community is easy to take for granted. Most of us have strong family connections and healthy friendships. Most feel as though they're part of a group, be it community, religious, or work related. But it's increasingly easy for people on the edges to withdraw and it's easy for us to forget them.
No, it's comfortable to forget them. It's preferred to forget them. It's highly desired to forget them. And we have to change that.
The first is that they're typically not as socially isolated as reports based on observations from neighbors or other people who didn't know them well would have us believe. Many of these shooters had family and friends with whom they had active relationships, and most of them had an online community of some sort to which they belonged. It may well have been a toxic, hateful internet community, but only if we concede an erroneous narrative that online community isn't real community (ahem) can we argue that these men were truly socially isolated. To the contrary, some of them had social involvement with people who fueled their vengeful rage.
The second is that many of them are motivated by violent patriarchal entitlement. Which gets euphemistically (and dishonestly) repackaged as "social isolation" and "he didn't have a girlfriend," which are not the same things as "he felt entitled to be fucked by a beautiful woman and went on a violent rampage because he wasn't getting what he felt he was owed."
That's a fundamentally different thing than social isolation—although we can see here how the author of this thinkpiece is subtly conflating the two, with reference to "the gawky, awkward guy at work."
That conflation is why we also get post-massacre thinkpieces about guys who can't get laid and girls who are out of one's league.
In the wake of men picking up guns and killing people because they aren't getting fucked by a woman of sufficient social status, men rush to write thinkpieces that sympathize with those men, rather than the women who are their primary targets, urging us to teach them how to get laid and to reach out to them and make sure they don't feel socially isolated.
But these guys don't want more pals. They want women to fuck them on demand.
I doubt that the author intended to offer advice that, at its essence, is an admonition to women to make themselves more sexually available to dangerous men. But he's only avoiding that by ignoring that the issue isn't "social isolation" but the violent entitlement of toxic masculinity.
His broader advice—reach out to socially isolated people who might be inclined to pick up a gun and start shooting—is dangerous advice for women. Because a woman who extends kindness to a rageful man who feels entitled to her body and (deliberately) mistakes her kindness for something more, is a woman who is in grave peril. Entitled men who believe women owe them sex get very angry and very dangerous when a woman offers friendship and draws an entirely reasonable boundary there.
Telling women to befriend these sorts of men out of compassion or pity is urging her to put herself at risk.
This is dangerous advice for women, and it's pointless advice for men. Because it utterly ignores what the real problem is.
I'm a Professor, Not a Swat Team Member
[Content Note: Guns, campus gun violence.]
Note: In light of the recent violence on campuses in Oregon, Arizona, and Texas, I have seen renewed calls to arm instructors and other staff on educational campuses. I wrote this response to such calls after the deaths in Connecticut in 2012; I am re-posting it, slightly edited, with profound regret that it is relevant again.
I'm a professor of history. What does that mean? It means that I attended graduate school and learned not only about the current scholarship in my field, but also the skills necessary to produce scholarship of my own. I proved this by writing a doctoral dissertation. Today, my job is divided in three: teaching, research, and service (which means things like sitting on committees to run my department, my college, and my university).
What my training and job do not include is detecting and neutralizing armed threats. Not only do I not have that training, I also don't have regular reinforcement of that (non-existent) training, nor the kind of equipment to carry it out.
It's not that I can't fire guns. Admittedly, it's been a long while since I've done so, and I definitely need practice. And it's not that I don't have "military training." I served in the Navy.
But those things--being able to fire a gun, having some long-ago basic weapons training--those things are not what is necessary to respond to an armed assailant in a crowded school.
Unlike the GOP jackasses in Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia, (or running in the 2015 GOP presidential primaries), who apparently think that any old person can do what a SWAT team does, I actually have respect for the men and women who do that work. I understand that it takes a lot of training, and a particular set of aptitudes, in order to do their jobs. (And not even everyone doing that work has the aptitudes to do it well.) I understand that proper training is not a matter of attending a session or two. I also understand that people in these jobs get paid to be alert to danger, and to proactively respond to it. I even understand that not all law enforcement and security forces have the same training, that some are very specially trained to handle things like hostage situations or gunmen who threaten large crowds. And I understand that even with all that training and screening and practice, there are still very serious individual and systemic social justice issues in US law enforcement, which mean that many of the civilians who are supposed to be "protected" by SWAT teams and law enforcement are, in fact, frequently endangered by the same. It's far from a perfect system.
But, whatever else we say about various forms of law enforcement and security work, and whatever changes need to be made, I can definitely say this: their jobs are not the same as my job. My job involves things like palaeography and reading microfilm, or grading papers, or going to yet another meeting about campus recycling. Nor is it the job of teachers at the elementary and secondary level. Their jobs are focused more on teaching and service than mine, and their training is a little different from mine--they take classes on their subject area and on the actual craft of educating, rather than focusing on how to produce scholarship. But you know what they don't take classes on? How to take down an armed gunman without shooting innocent civilians. At least, they don't teach that at my university's College of Education. You know why? Because that's a different job.
There are people who are willing to, as a profession, put their lives on the line to protect others. That's the job they do. I have enormous respect for that. I appreciate the police force that helps keep my campus safe, and I try to communicate to them that I respect their mission and the danger it puts them in. So, conservatives, please: stop proposing these ridiculous laws that suggest I could do their job. I can't. For people who claim to respect the work of law enforcement, you sure have a funny way of showing it.
Tamir Rice Case Update
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; guns; death.]
Tamir Rice was the 12-year-old black boy playing with a toy gun who was shot and killed by Cleveland police last year. Saturday night, ahead of the grand jury being seated to assess whether criminal charges should be brought against Officer Tim Loehmann, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office released two separate reports from outside investigators which assert that Loehmann "acted reasonably in deciding last year to shoot when he confronted the 12-year-old boy carrying what turned out to be a replica gun."
The reports, which were commissioned by the prosecutor’s office, come almost 11 months after the shooting outside a recreation center on Nov. 22, 2014.Oh.
..."There can be no doubt that Rice's death was tragic and, indeed, when one considers his age, heartbreaking," [Colorado prosecutor S. Lamar Sims] wrote. But he added that "Officer Loehmann's belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death was objectively reasonable as was his response to that perceived threat."
If you're thinking that the timing of the release of these reports, nearly a year after Rice was killed, as his family waits and waits for something, anything, resembling accountability or justice, before the prosecutor has even brought the case to a grand jury, is pretty goddamn suspect, and sure as hell seems as though the prosecutor is telegraphing to the prospective jury pool there's nothing to indict, you are not alone.
Jonathan S. Abady, a Rice family lawyer, said in a statement that "we now have grave concerns that there will be no criminal prosecution."They sure do.
"Prosecutors exercise substantial influence over the grand jury process and whether an indictment will issue or not," he said.
And I don't see any reason at all for publicly disclosing these reports except to exploit that influence on behalf of a killer cop.
Nope
[Content Note: Racism; violence.]
Today is the US federal holiday known as Columbus Day. Columbus Day is terrible. A terrible day that celebrates a terrible man at the continued expense of the indigenous people he harmed. Discuss.
