Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Mira: "What's your #1 most favoritest, bestest cleaning or organization trick?"
This Must Stop
[Content Note: White supremacy.]
Here is a thing that Dianna E. Anderson, Alison R. Parker, and I all worked on together, and it's a really important piece to me, and I hope you will read and share it: "Nazis were 'stylish,' too: The dangerous hipsterization of white supremacy."
One of the methods by which authoritarian power asserts itself is through appearance — a clean-cut young gentleman in handsome attire is less likely to be a red flag, as humans often expect people who hold extreme views to look extreme.There is much, much more at the link.
The Nazis had a very specific style guide aimed at normalizing their appearance and reducing any sense of fear around members of the Nazi guard. Fashionable, well-designed clothing was specifically chosen to reassure the citizenry: The Nazis looked like the guy next door, not like a degenerate or a monster. Their outer appearance belied their inner depravity, which allowed the latter to metastasize that much more easily.
...There is a demonstrable history of oppressive movements using fashion-forwardness as a means by which to insinuate themselves, and media replicate this history at our collective peril.
Recommended Reading
Here is some good stuff to read!
Yessenia Funes at Colorlines: "Water Protectors Celebrate Army's Halt of Pipeline, Brace for Trump Pushback."
Sean Mandell at Towleroad: "HB 2 Stalwart Pat McCrory Finally Concedes Defeat in NC Governor's Race."
Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire: "Pro-Choice Legal Offensive Launched in Three States."
Melissa Brown at Daily Progressive: "Ready to Ditch White Feminism? Here Are 6 Black Feminist Concepts You Need to Know."
[Content Note: Racism; colorism] Parth Shah at NPR: "For Tattoo Artists, Race Is in the Mix When Ink Meets Skin."
Trump Picks Carson for HUD
Because of course he does. I've got a few thoughts on that at Shareblue: "Unfit president-elect Trump chooses unfit nominee Carson to lead HUD.
Now, after dithering about it, Carson has accepted the nomination to HUD, despite his lack of qualifications. He will "oversee an agency with a $47 billion budget, bringing to the job a philosophical opposition to government programs that encourage what he calls 'dependency' and engage in 'social engineering.' He has no expertise in housing policy."There is, as always, more at the link, including a strong statement of objection from Nancy Pelosi. GOOD.
Carson's only cited qualification, such as it is, is having grown up in an inner city: "In a recent television interview, Mr. Carson said that he was prepared to lead the agency because he grew up 'in the inner city' and because as a physician in Baltimore he has 'dealt with a lot of patients from that area.'"
...But no expertise is required by Trump — who, after all, has no qualifications himself. He has never served a day in public office in preparation for the presidency, and has so little knowledge of the job that he was surprised he has to staff the White House.
What is telling about this selection is that it is clearly Trump's pick — unlike much of the Cabinet, which otherwise has Mike Pence's fingerprints all over it. That Pence, and whichever other Trump advisors are wielding influence, evidently stepped back and "gave" this one to Trump suggests what a low priority HUD is to the powerbrokers in the incoming administration.
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Dear The Left
[Content Note: Bigotry, privilege, emotional auditing and tone policing.]
First they came for the trans people, and we said, "America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms."
Wait, no. That's not right, is it? Let's start over.
Dear The Left,
Let me put the situation in a pop culture reference so the gravity might be appreciated: The white walkers, and I do mean white, have breached The Wall and are now holding victory rallies in the heartland.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported nearly 900 hate incidents believed to have been inspired by Donald Trump's Electoral College win. Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke has celebrated Trump's win as a great victory for the white people. Trump is crafting a Cabinet of deplorables who are not only economically elite, but who also hold white supremacist, anti-immigrant, misogynistic, and/or anti-LGBT views.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.5 million votes, which tells me that more people agreed with her message than with her opponent's. And, in light of this tragic and urgent state of affairs, I find it most curious and unfortunate that some of our white male friends on the left are critiquing what they call identity politics, political correctness, and what they have deemed the general failure of Hillary Clinton in particular, and the the left in general, to sufficiently consider the perspective of so-called ordinary (implied: white, straight, cis, male) Americans.
Now, it's hardly new to complain about how the scourge of political correctness has gone too far. Yet, if one paid no attention to politics, one would likely have no idea what this phrase "political correctness" could possibly mean. That's because it exists in a context where those who utter it nod and wink to one another because they all just somehow know it when they see it. Ah yes, they roll their eyes, this again.
As Moira Weigel observes in The Guardian, the phrase conjures "powerful forces determined to suppress inconvenient truths by policing language." But also, she adds, speaking specifically of Donald Trump, "There is an obvious contradiction involved in complaining at length, to an audience of hundreds of millions of people, that you are being silenced." It is the ultimate illogic: we are supposed to believe that the politically correct are at once immensely powerful and also the weakest of the weak.
In that illogic lies the second contradiction: The goal of those who decry political correctness is precisely to police what language is acceptable in society. Specifically, they seek to silence the truths of marginalized people's lives by delineating for marginalized people which instances of real bigotry are allowed to be named and with what tone of voice.
Writing for audiences of millions at The New York Times, Mother Jones, and The Atlantic, some liberal and progressive white men have recently offered their half of what is, in actuality, a common dialogue that happens around the clock on the Internet. The maintext of these white male monologues is that Trump supporters are right: PC has gone too far! An insidious subtext is that academia and social media have fostered a hostile, uncharitable, and truly unbecoming incivility against ordinary Americans in general, and white men in particular. It treats identity politics as the invention of women and minorities rather than, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie aptly notes, the white (male) invention that it is and the very basis of segregation.
For those of us conversant in these dialogues around language and tone, we know that the full conversation often goes more like this:
Person A: That's offensive!Observe.
Person B: You're wrong. Stop being so sensitive.
Person A: Wait, that's even more offensive!
Person B: Well you'll never convince anyone if you say it like that!
Person A: I shouldn't have to ask nice for you not be racist!
Person B: See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! I'm a NICE GUY!
In his recent Salon piece, Conor Friedersdorf presents a bizarre, convoluted telling of an Internet "case study" wherein he claims that some on the left have "uncharitably" stigmatized people as being "white male supremacist." His overall point is that gratuitously using loaded terms dilutes the power of the words and, besides that, is ineffective. He defends Bernie Sanders and Kevin Drum at great length.
Drum, for reference, just wrote a piece at Mother Jones, suggesting that Ta-Nehisi Coates has made it "fashionable" to use the term "white supremacy." So now people are apparently wantonly using the term where it doesn't apply. It is faddish, we are to believe. Popular. Easy and fun to do. As an analogy to why he deems this purported trend dangerous, Drum patronizingly instructs, "A lewd comment is not the same as rape."
Meanwhile, media outlets, including Mother Jones in a tweet they've since deleted, are literally glamorizing white nationalists, labeling them "dapper" and publishing cool-guy pics of white nationalists in sunglasses and suits. CNN tweeted over the weekend, "Hipster or hate-monger?" of one far rightist.
And it's like our white male brethren on the left have fallen into this warped Upside Down where we, women and minorities, as we defend ourselves from these assaults are the real problem here.
Friedersdof, in his piece, assumes the role of Person B, that common white male "devil's advocate" protagonist in a conversation about race or gender who whips out his Merriam-Webster, jabs his finger at the page, and lectures the "uncharitable" women and people of color what words like feminism and racism mean. In a most decadent-of-decadent argumentum ad populums, he adds that he even asked six random people at the writing cafe for their definitions and they agreed with him, so seeeee, that's exactly what he's talking about! These are all nice ordinary people!
Even as he concedes that, yes, words might have different meanings in different, academic contexts, he instructs that the proper way to deal with ordinary Americans is to..... well, I'll just note that it's almost like there are powerful forces at work determined to suppress inconvenient truths by asking marginalized people to police their language.
Meanwhile, Mark Lilla, in The New York Times, quoted at the top referencing how hard it is for him to have to hear about bathrooms, claims that "the fixation on diversity in our schools and in the press has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life."
That we are ostensibly the same "unaware" liberals and progressives who somehow know about, and object to, pretty much everything Donald Trump stands for seems to be of little consequence to our white male scolds. That many people of color, queers, and trans folks are also in the group "liberals and progressives," and that we literally spend our lives tip-toeing around the delicate feelings of "ordinary Americans" seems ..... like it, too, might be a thing that they are, dare I say, unaware (and, unlike Lilla, I'll hold off on the mental illness judgment).
What strikes me most about these monologues is that they read as instructions from white men to other white men. The pieces are permission slips. Now now, they tell themselves. Of course we'll be the KKK's "worst nightmare" if it comes to that, but we can't focus on "identity stuff" that is less than that. Trans people have to pee? How self-involved!
When coupled with the related articles being shared on social media citing research that shows that having "nonconfrontational conversations," rather than calling people bigots, is a more productive way to address bigotry, we see white people everywhere letting themselves off the hook, whispering, It's true you know, if only marginalized people were more thoughtful about this stuff...
Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote in The New York Times of this tendency to think of "identity politics" as an insular, faddish issue. She asks, "Is this what my fellow Americans had thought of my fight for dignity all along?"
And, I'm with her. It's as though treating people who have marginalized identities with basic dignity is so "boutique" that it's something our allies think can be withheld if we don't pay the proper currency for it. (Meanwhile, if Richard Dawkins has a little jar of honey taken away from him at airport security it is a human rights violation of the first order. Never forget.)
So, The Left, I offer for your consideration:
- Please consider that many marginalized people already know that it is considered uncivil if we do not ask nicely to be treated decently. We know this from lived experience. Many people have no idea the daily accommodations that people with marginalized identities engage in to keep our/themselves safe. We are the black mother teaching her son a hundred lessons on how to stay under the radar of potentially-hostile white strangers who could, in an instant, bring the full force of the police state upon them. We are the women who bite our tongues when we hear sexist jokes at work, because we cannot afford to be seen as troublesome. And yes, we are the trans person navigating a public space while inhabiting a body that, like most human bodies, requires the expelling of wastes at regular intervals.
- On that basis please consider that if you don't know that marginalized people dance around calling out bigotry all the time in our daily lives, you either aren't in much contact with marginalized people, you are completely oblivious, or we/they don't trust you enough to share this experience with you.
- Please also consider, white men, that while these conversations are difficult for you, I can assure you that they are also difficult for marginalized people, let alone to have repeatedly in a sufficiently-nice manner. These conversations often mean being directly confronted with people's patronizing "just telling it like it is" opinions that we are sinful, lesser-than, mentally-ill, or otherwise faulty beings.
- On that basis, please consider that when you instruct marginalized people to have these conversations in a way that you deem to be civil or "more accurate," it might be empathetic on your part to also add that you acknowledge that the marginalized person will likely be in at least a fair amount of discomfort while having these conversations. Stop shoving dictionary passages in our faces as though we're unaware and illiterate. Stop trying to win all the conversations. Stop telling people what is and isn't real bigotry against us, worthy of the collective attention. Stop acting as though empathy is women's work and marginalized people's work, but definitely not ordinary white people's work. Don't tell us you're a good guy, show us that you are. A little, "Hey, I know these times and these conversations are hard for you, how can I help?" could go a long way.
- For all of these reasons, these conversations could be great for allies to actively engage in. Are you a white man? Awesome. Get to talking to other white men. Talk less about how you agree that PC culture has gone too far, and instead about how maybe, just maybe, we all harbor beliefs that are probably at least a little bit racist, sexist, homophobic, and bigoted and we, The Left, must keep working on that.
A Few Things to Read...
Here are a few things I wrote over the weekend, in case you missed them...
1. Trump risks major diplomatic dispute with China over call with Taiwanese president: "The Financial Times reports that President-elect Donald Trump spoke via phone with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, marking what is believed to the first time since 1979 that a United States president—or president-elect—has spoken to 'a leader of Taiwan since diplomatic relations between the two were cut in 1979.' The call, which the New York Times describes as 'a striking break with nearly four decades of diplomatic practice that could precipitate a major rift with China even before Mr. Trump takes office,' was news to the White House, which 'was not told about Mr. Trump's call until after it happened.'"
2. Trump’s Taiwanese call: diplomatic failure and more conflict of interest questions: "These reports once again raise concerns that Trump's business interests, and his plan to turn over his business to his children, will continue to cause major conflicts of interest during his presidency. Unless and until he solves this dilemma by taking the meaningful actions of disclosing his tax returns and business financials, fully divesting himself, and ending brand licensing deals, these serious concerns will not go away. A seemingly less solvable problem is Trump's tendency, as described by former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill, to 'wing it.'"
3. Trump tweets about SNL sketch that is literally about how he can't stop tweeting: "It continues to be worrying that a man soon to be inaugurated as the President of the United States can be piqued by satire. And react so petulantly that he virtually renders it beyond satire."
4. Keep your eyes on Mike Pence, who is emerging as the most powerful veep ever: "Pence's style has always been less aggressive than it is opportunist—which does not make him any less dangerous. To the contrary, his patience in waiting for effective opportunities in which to implement his extremism, and his willingness to brazenly disregard democratic processes to get it done, makes him all the more toxic. His stealth is the perfect complement to Trump's theatrical egotism: Pence will exploit every second of being ignored to enact a radical conservative agenda in the long shadow cast by Trump's attention-grubbing megalomania."
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
Recommended Reading
[Content Note: Bigotry] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the New Yorker: "Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About."
[CN: Privilege] Damon Young at Very Smart Brothas: "Why So Many Liberal White Guys Just Can't Admit the Election Was About Race, Explained."
[CN: Civil rights violations] Melinda D. Anderson at The Atlantic: "What Is the Future of the Office for Civil Rights?"
[CN: Bullying; bigotry] Matthew Chapman at Shareblue: "Trump's Bigotry Has Empowered Hatred and Bullying in Schools."
[CN: Prejudice] Caleb Luna at The Body Is Not an Apology: "Romantic Love Is Killing Us: Who Takes Care of Us When We Are Single?"
This Is Doing My Head In
[Content Note: White supremacy.]
I've got a new piece at Shareblue about the corporate media's unconscionable abetting of Kellyanne Conway's lies about empowering white supremacy:
The original exchange, as well as Conway's denialism — and personal offense — have been widely reported. However, a critical piece of context has been left out of every bit of reporting I have read thus far.This is what happens when the media decide facts don't matter anymore.
As Shareblue has documented, Trump is populating his administration with people who have direct links or associations with white supremacist groups.
Chief policy strategist Steve Bannon, Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and a number of other appointees and advisors have affiliations with white supremacist organizations. This is not incidental: It is a continuation of Trump's campaign, which routinely made explicit and dogwhistled appeals to white supremacy.
Conway's denialism, and purported offense, are thus absurd and deeply dishonest. But without this important context being included in reports, news consumers are left without crucial information to make that assessment.
This is an editorial choice, and it is a dangerous and irresponsible one.
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
So, Trump Had a Rally Last Night
[Content Note: Racism.]
I watched some clips of it. It was as terrifying as you'd expect. I honestly don't have anything to say about that spectacle other than what I said on Twitter last night.
"Divisive president-elect calls for unity at white supremacy party."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 2, 2016
Scenes from America 2016.
I was hardcore empathizing with the economic anxiety being expressed in the LOCK HER UP chants at the Make America Cheer for Me Again rally.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 2, 2016
We are living in strange and terrible times, friends.
The Rubber Meets the Road...to the Sound of Squealing Tires
I've got a new piece up at Shareblue about how the Republicans are getting a case of the jitters about repealing Obamacare now that they actually have a chance to do it.
By February of 2016, Congressional Republicans had tried — unsuccessfully — to repeal the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) more than 60 times. Despite the fact that more than 20 million people are now covered under the ACA's provisions, Republicans have repeatedly deemed it a failure that needs to be dismantled.More at the link, as ever.
But that was then. A time when Republicans could get a lot of mileage out of attacking a healthcare access expansion without worry their attempts to overturn it would pass. Now, there is a president-elect who is unlikely to veto a repeal.
...It is not just a theoretical proposal discussed by grandstanders in the abstract anymore. Now it is a real possibility, with real people who will lose their healthcare coverage with a repeal — and whose lives may hang in the balance as a result.
As they say: Be careful what you wish for. Republicans now face the prospect of getting what they have long claimed to want — the chance to repeal Obamacare. But if they do it, they will face the wrath of voters who value their health insurance made possible by Obamacare. And if they do not do it, they will face valid accusations of breaking promises they have been making for six years.
Buyers' remorse over the election of Trump might come sooner than expected. And in, of all places, the Republican Congressional caucus.
It's all fun and games pretending to have principles until actual votes are at stake.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Dreadful Invalid: "Are there any movies that were a big part of your childhood that are still enjoyable and relevant today?"
Ughhhhhhhhh
[Content Note: Violence.]
"Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James Mattis for secretary of defense."
This guy's nickname is "Mad Dog," and he has a history of talking about how much he loves killing people. He has said things like: "It's fun to shoot some people" and "It's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
So, you know, everything's looking great.
*jumps into Christmas tree*
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
"The LA traffic was thick and my mind, as it does in heavy traffic, started to wander. I'm a comedy writer, but suddenly I was thinking up stories about post-apocalyptic worlds where women revolt and take over the planet. I started thinking about writing a song. Something that captured everything I was feeling. A love song, a fight song. Something to show the world that I was still with Her. I am her. The words flashed through my head. And suddenly, there on the 101 freeway, I was down the hole again. Tears streaming, sobs choking, heart breaking. The realization hitting me. I am Her."—Eirene Donohue, in a must-read piece that I suspect will resonate with a lot of readers here. It certainly did with me.
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
