Really, Rush?

When called out for a hateful, misogynistic tirade, please have a more original response than, "One of the greatest illustrations of [a double standard] is that rappers can practically say anything they want about women, and it's called art."

Just Edit the Bad Parts Out!

Ran across this: Tenn. Tea Party Demands Slavery Removed From Textbooks:

Regarding education, the material they distributed said, “Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government.”

That would include, the documents say, that “the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy.”

The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”

I vote that last sentence be included in upcoming dictionaries as a definition for "white privilege." Let's obscure "minority" experiences so the "majority" can come away looking angelic and declare that "the truth."

Please!

And this little bit about their rationale:

Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.

“The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” said Rounds

Wow, wow, wow. Apparently, it is okay to dismiss the parts of history that make your heroes look... well... less heroic, to prioritize the image of some over the experiences of others.

As for "liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed," dude, your founding fathers' fathers were the primary reasons there was a notable shortage of liberty 'round these here parts.

They weren't all that revolutionary. They were a bunch of privileged white guys that laid out a system that supported their privilege as wealthy, white men. They did not and did not want to bring liberty to everybody.

This reminds me of one of my many issues with the idea of "colorblindness," that if we pretend not to see and refuse to talk about things, from skin color to differential treatment to patterns of inequity, that they will magically disappear. No one will have to be uncomfortable. No one will have to acknowledge the perpetuation of inequality and discrimination. And, oh, if you bring those things up, well, you're the racist.

Also, I am faintly amused by the way they use words like "truth" and "made-up."

Life in our post-racial world.

This Story Is Too Bootylicious for Me

The fascination/fetishization of black women's backsides... will it never end???

From the Associated Press:

A newly discovered horse fly in Australia was so “bootylicious” with its golden-haired bum, there was only one name worthy of its beauty: Beyonce.

Australian researcher Bryan Lessard, 24, says he wanted to pay respect to the insect’s beauty by naming it Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae. Lessard said Beyonce would be “in the nature history books forever” and that the fly now bearing her name is “pretty bootylicious” with its golden backside.

This is not an honor. He is not doing her a favor. In fact, Lessard is evidencing an ongoing, problematic fascination with black women's bottoms. Dr. Janell Hobson, in an essay in which she analyzes "the prevalent treatment of black female bodies as grotesque figures, due to the problematic fetishism of their rear ends," (88) on the history of this bullshit:*

[A] history of enslavement, colonial conquest and ethnographic exhibition-variously labeled the black female body "grotesque," "strange," unfeminine," "lascivious," and "obscene." This negative attitude toward the black female body targets one aspect of the body in particular: the buttocks (87).

Dr. Hobson delves into the longstanding fascination with/assumptions about black women's alleged hypersexuality, a hypersexuality symbolized by our deviant bodies and an "emphasis on the black female rear end, with its historic and cultural tropes of rawness, lasciviousness, and 'nastiness'," (97). And though this history extends much farther than two centuries into the past, she highlights the heartbreaking and dehumanizing display of Saartje Baartman, arguing that "perhaps no other figure epitomizes the connections between grotesquerie, sexual deviance, and posteriors than the 'Hottentot Venus'," (89), put on display primarily for the " 'strange,' singular attraction" of her rear end (88). As crunktastic notedm over at the Crunk Feminist Collective, about Lessard's naming of the fly in Beyonce's "honor," "The legacy of Saartjie Bartmann lives."

Lest you think this is purely a compliment (I say purely because I am sure, in some strange way, Lessard meant it as such), ponder Dr. Hobson's words on Sir MixALot's Baby Got Back:

This so-called "appreciation"of black women's bodies does not necessarily challenge ideas of grotesque and deviant black female sexuality. Interestingly, both the song and video uphold and celebrate the black body precisely because it differs from the standard models of beauty in white culture, (96).

Substitute "the naming of the fly" for "both the song and video."

If you're still leaning towards, "compliment," think of this: The recent "global desirability of a Black girl’s ass" is not complimentary; it grows out of a history of othering and "exotifying" black women's bodies and "excuses her allegedly less desirable dark complexion, full lips, and kinky hair," you know, the still grotesque and "ugly" parts of us.** But the appeal of black women's butts is not always enough to "excuse" our deficiencies/lack of beauty in other categories. In fact, a curvy backside becomes even more desirable when it is not attached to a black woman. As Dr. Hobson notes,

[P]erformer Jennifer Lopez offers a slightly different take on rear-end aesthetics. Her Latina body, already colored as "exotic" in a so-called changing American racial landscape, bridges the desires of black and white men, because she can serve as the "racial other" for both. More importantly Lopez's derriere does not carry the burden of Baartman's legacy.

[snip]

Dominant culture came to celebrate Lopez's behind as part of a recognition of "exotic" and "hot" Latinas, women perceived as "more sexual" than white women but "less obscene" than black women. In this way, Lopez's body avoids the specific racial stigma that clings to black women's bodies (97).

Or, as I read in my Facebook feed the other day,*** part of the adoration/fascination with Kim Kardashian is the desirability of having physical features typically associated with a black woman unencumbered by the history of racism, colonization, and devaluation.

I guess what it boils down to is the naming of this fly as symbolic of a culture of what crunktastic calls "disrespectability politics":

This is a world where disrespectability politics reign, a world where black women’s bodies and lives become the load-bearing wall, in the house that race built, a world where the tacit disrespect of Black womanhood is as American as apple pie, as global as Nike. (Just do it. Everybody else is. ) In this world, Black women have moved from “fly-girls to bitches and hoes” and back again to just, well, flies. Insects. Pests.

Please spare us honors like these, Mr. Lessard.
_______________
* Janell Hobson, "The 'Batty' Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body," Hypatia 18, no. 4, Women, Art, and Aesthetics (Autumn - Winter, 2003): 87-105.

** From this sentence by crunktastic: "In this world, the global desirability of a Black girl’s ass excuses her allegedly less desirable dark complexion, full lips, and kinky hair." I know, I know; someone might argue that full lips are all the rage, but remember they can't be too full and they are much "better" on a non-black woman--hello, world's fascination with Angelina Jolie!

***paraphrased from a note or article posted by one of my friends for which I have searched desperately and cannot find. Please let me know if you know the citation. (Update: Here it is! Hat Tip to checarina at Shakesville, where this is crossposted)

A Manifatso

From Liss:

It's like a manifesto, but filled with fat.

[Content Note: This post contains discussion of fat hatred and disablism.]

I've spent the past two hours (give or take) tweeting my fingers off about fat hatred and the fact that, no, Paula Deen allegedly having diabetes is not, in fact, "justice" for her particular culinary oeuvre, which centers food associated with fatness.

(Yes, it's true that rich foods make some people fat and/or unhealthy; it is also true, however, that rich foods do not make other people fat and/or unhealthy; it is further true that foods not associated with fatness make some people fat and/or unhealthy. You may detect a patten here! A pattern that suggests people are not Bunsen burners!)

Anyway! Because I'm a motherfucking progressive optimist and shit, I wanted to end on an upbeat note, so now I'm busily tweeting my manifatso. And here it is:

I want to be in the world, and I will participate, and I will take up the space that I need without apology. Also: I may occasionally eat butter. But mostly: I will be publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy. Happy-Go-Lucky, in fact! I am a fat woman, and I will matter—to me and to you.

Read the rest here.

And I just have to add: Diabetes as justice? As what fat people or people who eat certain food deserve? I wonder if @baratunde has seen diabetes in action, if he knows what it can do?

Maybe I should tell him about how my father and grandmothers and uncle lost their kidney function and had to go through the exhausting process of dialysis every other day.

Or maybe I should tell him how frustrated my father and MamMaw were by sores that wouldn't heal, that turned gangrenous, that took their limbs.

Or maybe I should tell him about my grandmother losing sight in one of her eyes and my mom's terror now that all the changes she's made mean little in the face of worrisome reports from her eye doctor.

Or maybe I can bring up my niece, who, just out of her teens, dropped from 130 lbs to 94 lbs (on a 5' 11" frame), was unable to walk more than a few steps, and was perpetually tired, her (gasp!) thin frame ravaged by diabetes?

Or maybe I should tell him, how, as I lay in bed sick with other ailments, my dad's dialysis shunt came out, bringing with it copious amounts of blood, a flow that no one could stop, that ultimately took his life... while I, she-who-thought-she-could-fix-everything, had to lie their, unable to move, and listen to him ask people to hurry to help him. Listen to my family's sounds of panic and uncertainty and urgency. Listen as people came to help me get dressed and I knew, if they were rousing my grievously sick self from bed, that he must be gone.

Is that how justice is defined now?

Hmmm...

What I'm Reading

Good morning, sunshines! Back at it again. Thinking about blogging ideas and as I stick my toes cautiously in the water, my ever-faithful cousin sends me topics. I've read a lot about the so-called "slavery" math problems and the proposed boycott of the Girl Scouts/Girl Scout cookies by a cisgender girl and her adult supporters who are appalled that the Scouts accept transgender girls.

Read and SYDH along with me.

You Probably Should Discard Some of Your Previously Held Notions about Black People

Dear Friends,

Please don't ever "forget" I'm black, even for an hour. That is not a compliment. Colorblindness =/= progressive; Colorblindness = "You a damn lie"

Love,

elle

Please Know Something about That of Which You Speak

Thinking of getting that inked on my forehead so people stop saying stupid sh*t--to me, at least.

Of course, that won't stop me from reading stupidity, things like, oh, say, this article by Paul Shirley. Shirley feels the need to tell us why he won't donate to Haiti relief efforts, and infuses his story with meaningful personal insights like:

I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.

And historically clueless rhetoric flavored with a touch of social darwinism and a smidge of eugenics* such as:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

Oh, Mr. Shirley, might I, in my boldness, point you to two brief observations? First from Kai:

It’s not just a natural disaster, it’s a disaster of the modern neo-colonial social order. Earthquakes need to happen, but this doesn’t need to happen. It’s a devastating unfolding of institutionalized racism. Not only rhetorical or interpersonal or representational aspects, but perhaps more importantly the vital economic, infrastructural, and human consequences of several centuries of the very gunships-n-slaves imperialism which generated the modern concept of race.

Then, from Summer:

Haiti was born of a slave rebellion. They didn't seek or wait for permission. No one wrote a speech declaring their freedom. They claimed it for themselves. They were their own saviors. Their own, I suppose, personal Jesus. (All those white men they killed, must have been a deal with the devil.) And so, Haiti couldn't survive or be successful. Haiti concerned Thomas Jefferson--and rightfully so. Can't have those kinds of examples floating around the Caribbean circa early 19th century. What kind of message would that send to other enslaved people on this side of the Middle Passage? Haiti fought the law and won. That couldn't have been good for business. So the powers meddled with the land until the seeds sprouted nothing but "flimsy" stalks, ushering in the refrain "Haiti is the most impoverished..." Straight dissonance to my ears. They treat it like a bastard child. Father France, Mother Africa, or something like that.

A flourishing Haiti is white supremacy's greatest fear. Haiti cannot survive. If Haiti endures, if it succeeds, then the slaves win, right? Haiti's continued endurance would prove that everything they've ever taught us is false. If we only understand Haiti as a perpetually impoverished nation, and have no comprehension of Haiti as symbol of black resistance and survival then what have we learned? We will have learned that Haiti is poor because its citizens are lazy, culturally backwards, wary of outsiders, lawless, lascivious. What we should know is that even in these dark days of desperation, Haiti has survived, despite even the most powerful acts of a most angry God and world powers that imagine themselves in His likeness.

They don't like the message, so they don't want Haiti to survive--but it will.

Haiti will survive, Paul Shirley, without your donation and in spite of your condescension and ignorance.
__________________________________
*Is that (the oh-so-new blend of social darwinism and eugenics) the flavor of the month or something???

This Week in "Stuff elle can't f*cking believe!"

Item 1: Mark Krikorian posits that Haiti's suffering is the result of not having been colonized long enough. Haitians didn't have long enough to absorb civ-uhl-eye-zayshen from the French.

My guess is that Haiti's so screwed up because it wasn't colonized long enough. The ancestors of today's Haitians, like elsewhere in the Caribbean, experienced the dislocation of de-tribalization, which disrupted the natural ties of family and clan and ethnicity. They also suffered the brutality of sugar-plantation slavery, which was so deadly that the majority of slaves at the time of independence were African-born, because their predecessors hadn't lived long enough to reproduce.

But, unlike Jamaicans and Bajans and Guadeloupeans, et al., after experiencing the worst of tropical colonial slavery, the Haitians didn't stick around long enough to benefit from it. (Haiti became independent in 1804.). And by benefit I mean develop a local culture significantly shaped by the more-advanced civilization of the colonizers.

You notice this line: "the majority of slaves at the time of independence were African-born"--yep, no civilization at all.

Item 2: "South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer(R)Compares His State's Poor Children to 'Stray Animals'" and advises against feeding them, lest they reproduce:

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.

And y'all thought negative eugenics was a thing of the past!

h/t Nezua

Notice

Dear World,

As has become my habit, I want to make an announcement without adding much commentary or history. After seeing this burning question on CNN's front page:

Is it ethical to vacation in Haiti now?

and seeing this article which positions Haiti as little more than a piece of territory over which the French and Americans can posture and prove who is more "powerful"

and reading another article about a recent spate of adoptions of Haitian "orphans" with little time given to find any extended family members, I would just like to remind you/us:

Haiti/Haitians do(es) not exist to facilitate opportunities to make you feel good about yourself.

If I were my former self, I suppose I could make some point about further marginalizing people by centering yourself and your desires or the historical precedent for abrogating the relationship between children of color and their families members for money, ego, and superiority complexes like racism and ethnocentrism. I might even reiterate Angela Davis's story of how armed guards are protecting tourists in Haiti from the pesky Haitians. But that ain't even me right now.

I have a feeling you're not listening anyway.

Love,
elle

Hey, Census Bureau? You Forgot to include "Cullud!"

So, the census form for 2010 gives us the option to check "Negro" for race.



That image is from the linked article.

I can't decide whether the folk at the Census Bureau decided, "Hey, we have a black president; let's remind people how far we've come!" or "Grumble, grumble, let's remind them of their place in the not-so-long-ago past."

Because--and I can't speak for everyone--"Negro" certainly invokes thoughts of a much different era.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other...

Remember the Loud and Clear post? Consider this an addendum.

Yesterday, the Nixon Library made "more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents" public, much of it online.

One of the things revealed is that, while Nixon didn't make a public statement about Roe v. Wade, he had mixed feelings about the decision. He worried, like so many concerned trolls citizens, that the ability to fuck without one of the biggest "penalties"* would turn women into loose, sex-crazed sluts, thereby unraveling the fabric of the United States:

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.”

But he did recognize that sometimes, women might need abortions (emphasis mine):

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”

Because apparently, a white woman having consensual sex with and becoming pregnant by a black man is equivalent to/"just as tragic as" being raped and becoming pregnant. I put it in these terms, not because black women didn't/don't have children with white men, but because this is the combination that has always been seen as "tragic." White southern men, for example, spent many of the early years of the "New South" warning about such relationships and trying to ensure, violently, that they didn't occur.

The newly released recordings also document Nixon's anti-Semitism (as recordings before have done):

The tapes also include a phone call from February 1973 between Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, during which Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.

“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said.

At another point he said: “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”

It's funny how Republican leaders for the last 50 years or so have been accusing racial/ethnic/religious minorities of "stirring things up" and provoking the attacks on themselves by demanding to be seen, heard, counted. It's the height of privilege-- and evidence of a sad lack of empathy--to view someone's struggle for rights as an inconvenience to your own life and the source of your righteous indignation.

And as to the part I emphasized, note that he is speaking, what, one generation after the Holocaust? I don't even have flippant analysis for that--he was just an asshole.
_________________________________
* Meaning forced pregnancy and childbirth

Really, Justice Thomas, You Don't Have to Go that Far to Prove a Point

Whatever that point is:

Clarence Thomas casts lone vote against Voting Rights Act

In your haste to show all of us unambitious, whining, dependent black folk up, do you even know what the point is anymore?

Enjoy Feeling Uncomfortable?

That's the question Deron Bauman asks about the feeling created by this video, which I saw on ClusterFlock.




I'm still looking for evidence that this is satire. Has to be, right? Lyrics after the fold, but I just had to highlight a few.

A mildly amusing moment: A young white man who attends Dartmouth raps, "It's not the hand you were given, but how you lay down your cards."

WTF moment 1: Rapping, "Don't matter if your (sic) gay, straight, Christian or Muslim," after having said, "Thank you Miss Cali for reminding us of marriage," and after issuing the warning that "Terrorists were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Now they're in our neighborhoods, planning out doomsday."

WTF moment 2: Rapping, "Everyone can succeed, Because our soldiers bleed"

Just a little musical interlude for your Saturday afternoon.

H/T Laurie, whom you should really, really follow on Twitter


Serious C:

“Yo this ones for all the young conservatives.

I rep the Northeast and I’m still a young con,

Let your voice release, you don't have to be obamatrons.

I debate any poser who don't shoot straight,

Government spending needs to deflate,

Your ideas are lightweight,

Ya careers in checkmate

I frustrate. I increase the pulse rate

I hate when,

government dictatin, makin, statements, bout how to be a merchant,

How to run a restaurant, how to lay the pavement

Bailout a business, but can't protect an infant

Deficiencies are blatant, young con treatment

I stand one man, outnumbered at my college

Thank you Miss Cali for reminding us of marriage

Can't support abortion, and call yourself a Christian

I support life, you're a puzzled politician

Terrorists were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay,

Now they're in our neighborhoods, planning out doomsday

No such thing as utopia,

no government can control ya, baby ya,

Reap the benefits hard work, self reliant


Listen to Stiltz, my dude’s a lyrical giant


Yo Stiltz... make it two time... please”

Stiltz:

“I'm 6'9 head and shoulder above the rest


Liberals playin checkers, I'm playin chess


My conservative view is drill baby drill


You can say you hate me but


I'm praying for you still


My dislike for thee most def is not hyperbole


Taxes are the subject and I will spit them verbally


I'm just livin life a conservative philosophy


Sorry Hilary not a right wing conspiracy


We need more women with intellectual integrity


I'm talkin Megyn Kelly not Nancy Pelosi


My main motto is you best work hard


It's not the hand you were given, but how you lay down your cards


I don't speak lies but I spit the facts


28% the new capital gains tax


Porkulus bill lacks a few stats


The more money we spend, the more mine is worth Jack


The Bible says we're a people under God,


Usin radar for radical Jihad


AIG was hooked up by Chris Dodd


A classy gift ain't an Ipod


The standards of my crew ain’t republicans dude


I'm reppin Jesus Christ and conservative views


Study history and true conservative moves


Every single time they refuse to lose


I’m starting to see a modern day Jimmy Carter


When really nothin but a Reagan era starter”


Serious C:

“Yo, We americans son


Hit ya with some knowledge


The movement has begun


Everyone can succeed


Because our soldiers bleed, for us


I said it in the verse,


now I'll say it in the chorus”


Stiltz:

“We young conservatives son


Hard work is our motto


The movement has begun


EVERYONE can succeed cause our soldiers bleed, daily


My views are rock solid, no chance you can break me”


Serious C:

“Phase me, make me, into something that ain’t me


Serious c... can’t nobody shake me


great like the Gatsby, poppin posers like acne


Don't matter if your gay, straight, Christian or Muslim


There's one thing we all hate, called socialism.


It's loathsome, and America ain’t the outcome,


Raise taxes on the people,


And you’re gonna feel symptoms, problems


I gotta message for a young con:


superman that socialism,


waterboard that terrorism”


Stiltz:


I fulfill the role that's inherently mine


Teaching politics through my rap and my rhyme


I'm signing off this track with a question in mind


How will this country get its precious change in time?


Three things taught me conservative love:


Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged


Saving our nation from inflation devastation


On my hands and my knees praying for salvation”


Serious C:

“Yo, We americans son


Hit ya with some knowledge


The movement has begun


Everyone can succeed


Because our soldiers bleed, for us


I said it in the verse,


now I'll say it in the chorus”


Stiltz:

“We young conservatives son


Hard work is our motto


The movement has begun


EVERYONE can succeed cause our soldiers bleed, daily


My views are rock solid, no chance you can break me”

Teh Gayz: In Ur Homes, Confusing Ur Children

Are the people in charge of advertising for NOM made of epic fail?

OK, yeah, that's a rhetorical question.



This ad rehashes the tired old lines that people who are gay having rights and living their lives, is immensely threatening to children's well-being. But as Genia pointed out, it has an added message:

The latest* anti-gay marriage commercial uses really young and really cute white kids to spread the organization’s bogus message that gay marriage is a serious threat to society. I’m guessing NOM figured people would worry more about gay marriage if the lives of cute white kids were at stake.

Emphasis mine.

Some other things stood out to me as I transcribed the video. While there are three boys and three girls, only one of the girls speaks, while all of the boys do. Instead, the girls are directed to "look scared," from what I can tell. The boy who gets the most talk time is, not-surprisingly, fair-skinned and blond. And, as Liss noted when I e-mailed her the link,

I just LOVE how the final note is the kid saying, "I'm confused!" as if the world has to be structured so that it's easily comprehensible for children

I suppose this ad is a perfect one for modern-day social conservatism.

Transcript after the break.

LB = Little Boy; LG = Little Girl

LB1: Grandma, my teacher says… if grandpa was a girl, that’s ok! You could still be married.

Shifts to image of frightened/confused looking LG1.

Voiceover: If we change the definition of marriage…

LG2: God created Adam and Eve? That was so old-fashioned.

Voiceover: Our kids will be taught a new way of thinking..

Shifts to image of confused looking LG3.

LB2: He should’ve created Anna and Eve!

LB1: If my Dad married a man, who would be my mom?

LB3: I’m confused

Voiceover: Marriage is between a man and a woman. Call Governor Lynch today and ask him to support marriage by not supporting House Bill 436.

Genia hat tips Renee.

(Crossposted)
________________________
*The NOM site dates the commercial to Fall 2007--even before the madness that is the "Gathering Storm" ad. Apparently, they dusted it off, tacked on the stuff about [NH] Governor Lynch, and voila!

Nativism 2.0

Emily linked to Uniball Roller, who shares the story of:

tender2be, a college student without a credit score, a [probably-off-the-books] job on the side, and a baby on the way, [who] wants to know how to get an apartment without a credit score or a cosigner.

Another LJer, brooklynknight, puts two and two together and quickly comes up with seven. In response to her query, he posted:

I... gandered at her Journal and looking at it (she lives on cash and refuses to get credit, her LJ is russian) and I got the distinct feeling she might be here on an expired visa.

[snip]

if she is indeed an illegal immigrant then I have no desire to help her, I don't want her child born here either and frankly If I could prove she was an illegal I'd forward all the information on her I could get to INS/ICE.

Tender2be denies that her visa is expired and tells brooklynknight to

send your energy in more positive direction, 'd be better for you

Now, of course, brooklynknight's concerns have already been shaped by a misogynist nativism--the belief that tender2be is an immigrant trying to get over on 'the system' and the idea that immigrant women view their children as little more than assets through which they can attain a desired status (i.e. the anchor baby argument). There's also the fact that she repeatedly tells him she's not an immigrant (here on a student visa) but he argues with her about her own status until someone explains student visas to him.

After tender2be's initial response to him, brooklynknight's sexist/nativist tirade continues. Apparently, she was not sufficiently obsequious or threatened. He is offended by her tone and reports that he has exploited the perceived power differential between them:

In any case, the tempo of your reply has further raised my suspicions.

I've just sent all the information I've found on you to my friend at the local ICE office. If you're here legally, well you've got nothing to worry about and good luck!

He believes she is an undocumented immigrant, he claims to have just set her up for possible detention and deportation, and he signs off 'good luck!' As Emily says:

He thinks she'll be A-OK as long as she's got papers. Clearly, he hasn't heard of American citizens being deported.

Of course, when he is called out on his assholishness, he claims that he has nothing against immigrants--he just wants to make sure people "do it the right way."

The douchery... it boggles!

(Crossposted)

Loud and Clear

So E Pluribus Unum thinks more African Americans are not Republicans because we don’t listen to them. He suggests to us,

“how about listening? How about listening to what Republicans have to say, instead of what the Democrats say we say? How about listening to what we have to say before booing us out of the building?”

I’d like to argue that we hear very well what you’re saying. The historian in me would like to point out how long we’ve been hearing it.

In the late 60s, when Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon* were both positioning themselves as law and order candidates, with illegality shaped by the fact that the dominant group often criminalizes what they fear, don't like or don't understand in marginalized communities, and lack of order being defined largely as previously disfranchised people pressing for their rights, we heard you.

When Richard Nixon tried to slow down school desegregation, when one of his strategists heralded the use of the Southern Strategy, we heard you.

In the late 1970s, when Ronald Reagan waxed poetically about fictional welfare queens—giving proof, you believed, to your long held beliefs that African Americans were promiscuous frauds who did not want to work—and “strapping young bucks” using food stamps to buy something other than dry beans (poor PoC, in keeping with their sackcloth and ashes attire, should never eat delicacies like steak, especially when white people were eating hamburger!!! Think about all the attention paid to Pres. Obama's "elitist" eating habits), we heard you.

And re: food stamps, welfare, public education—as you’ve engaged in rhetoric over the last, oh, million years, that equates “taxpayers” solely with white people and “taxpayers’ burdens” with PoC, we heard you.

When your hero opened his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS, site of the brutal murders of three civil right workers not even two decades before, talking about poor people’s "dependency" and states’ rights, we heard you.

By the way, I’m not sure if states’ right is supposed to be some sort of sooper sekrit kode, but, fyi, we knew what it meant in the 1850s and 60s; we knew what it meant in the 1950s and 60s, we knew what it meant in 1980 and we know what it means now.

When he was elected president and tried to secure tax exempt status for Bob Jones University, supported South Africa’s apartheid government as an anti-communist measure, slashed social programs that assisted the most vulnerable Americans, saw the annual income of the bottom 20% drop, hired aides who reveled in what you thought were the subtleties of the Southern Strategy, we heard you.

We still hear you downplay all that as you to try to canonize the man.

Emboldened by your successful Southern Strategy, you produced lovely ads like the Willie Horton one—support Michael Dukakis and you support scary! violent! black! men!—and Jesse Helms’s “Hands” ad—because no way could a PoC ever be equally or more qualified than a white person and plus, you’d convinced everyone that affirmative action was nothing more than unfair quotas (that's why Bush I had to veto that Civil Rights Act!) that were unnecessary since racism and sexism were things of the past (and your other beloved meme—figments of PoC’s and women’s imaginations). We definitely heard both of those.

You vowed to launch a culture war, in which all of us non-WASP-heterosexual-men were to forsake our cultures, heritage, languages, selves to support the idea that the real U.S. history (and the real U.S.) was one characterized by consensus, that since “Western Civilization” was man’s (yes, man’s) greatest achievement, the ends justified the means—the means being the systematic murder, assault, and oppression of millions of us. Nevermind that your winning the war was predicated on our silence and our invisibility. Yes, we heard you.

We heard you when you made your Contract on with America, vowing “to fund prison construction and additional law enforcement” even as it was becoming obvious how the so-called War on Drugs, with its harsh sentences and sentencing differentials, was disproportionately affecting our communities and feeding us into the emerging prison-industrial complex and when it has long been known that “law enforcement’s” role in our communities is markedly different from the one they play in white communities.

Also in that contract, you promised to encourage “personal responsibility” (which you get to define) by “cut[ting] spending for welfare programs, and enact[ing] a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements” because, damn poor working mothers, they shouldn’t be having sex or babies anyway and because you really believed the lie that most women on welfare didn’t work.** You didn’t give a damn about how those women and children survived “after welfare” as long as you could glowingly report that the state’s caseload was reduced.*** We heard that, too.

And Lord, George W. Bush. When he campaigned at Bob Jones University in 2000, when it still banned interracial dating, we heard you.

We heard you, during Hurricane Katrina, when people were left to suffer, he was clueless, and you all were going on and on about how many people, with little money and no means of transport, should’ve magically gotten out before! The response to Katrina was not proof of egregiously unresolved issues of race and class, not evidence of what has always been a narrow definition of who is “deserving” of help in this country; it was proof of too much government dependency (as you’ve been arguing for forever!).

When his administration tried to downplay a Bureau of Justice statistics report that “found that minority drivers were three times as likely to have their vehicles searched during traffic stops as white drivers,” we heard you.

Other gems from this very century? We heard Trent Lott's plaintive yearning for the victory of the States' Rights (**sigh** here we go again) Democratic Party who left the plain old Democratic Party because of a civil rights' plank in the party platform and a desire to preserve the "southern" way of life (euphemism for segregation).

And you hit poor Harold Ford, Jr with a double whammy, warning Tennesseans to be wary of the African-descended (wherein Africa roughly = uncivilized jungle) guy who might engage in sex with a white woman! Now that one, we're tired of hearing.

And now, so many of you back claims that the first black President is not really American. In your feeble-mindedness, you posit that it is literal—searching for birth certificates and calling him Kenyan. You don’t seem to grasp that what is bothering you is mostly figurative—you live in a country where citizenship and who is “really” American has usually been the domain of whites. Having a black man occupy the highest office in the land is mind-boggling. So when you have your Tea Parties, demanding “your” country back, as if the rest of us are not American, when you hold up signs invoking slavery and images of monkeys, we hear that too.

When you are such navel gazers that you believe your party doesn’t appeal to us because we, African Americans, don’t value freedom, we hear you.

But mostly, E Pluribus Unum, when you write screeds that invite me to check off a racism bingo card—black people are emotional, sensitive, vain, childlike/easily led, angry, unapproachable, ungrateful, unable to recognize their best interests, looking for handouts or special benefits, illogical (and those are just a few of the tropes you recycled and spat forward)—we hear you.

When the comments of said problematic post further tokenize/exceptionalize black people—“Alas, there are a few intrepid, noble savages; we call them black conservatives,” we hear you.

The many African Americans who believe, like me, the words of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, “Nobody’s free, ‘til everybody’s free,” also hear other things.

We heard you positing building a fence and criminalizing people because you are selfish enough to believe that trade can flow across borders, largely to our benefit, but labor will not follow.

We hear of your exploiting them and tossing them aside, dehumanizing them by making words like “illegal” a noun, casting them as a threat to our economic well-being, our culture (which, despite your self-deception, has never been singular), and our health.

We hear you fighting to continue the deprivation of civil rights for members of LGBTQI communities and continuing to vilify and dehumanize them as well. We hear your rhetoric as members of those communities and as allies.

We hear you—and black women hear you acutely—as you continue to try to define, in the words of Stephanie Shaw, “what a woman ought to be and do” including what we “ought” to do with our own bodies.

So, I suggest you listen, if you want to figure out how to approach the “unapproachable” black strawman monolith you've constructed. This list is in no way exhaustive, and in fact, really only details a fraction of my issues with the Republican Party:

1. Acknowledge and remedy the fact that your party’s strong in the old Confederacy for a reason. Where I’m from, the Republican Party is a refuge for racists. You can dismiss that however much you want, but I’m not the only black woman who sees that.

2. Acknowledge and remedy the fact that a portion of your party’s platform rests upon “misogyny, homophobia, [and] transphobia,” as well.

3. Realize that your glorification of the individual (and the lie that successful people primarily pull themselves up, with no help, by their bootstraps) may not play well in communities with a more community-oriented ethos.

4. Stop pretending that only conservative white people value self-help and entrepreneurship.

5. Recognize why some of us are not as wary of a government that intervenes as you are—and, no, it’s not because we all secretly long to laze about on “taxpayers’ (wink, wink) hard earned money.” You know some other occasions when the government intervened? During the 1870s when the Klan was terrorizing and slaughtering us. During the 1960s, when, despite previous efforts and laws, it was federal officials who had to register us to vote in many southern locations.

6. De-center for a sec. Just look at your party from the point of view of someone from a marginalized community. Prepare yourself by purchasing Dramamine before hand, though.

7. Don’t ever, ever again write racist bullshit such as this.

(crossposted)
________________________________
I am not writing this to position the Democratic Party as the site of some sort of racial utopia.

*I think Humphrey pegged Nixon adroitly here

** Many studies done around the time of 1996's so called welfare reform, demonstrated that most mothers who received welfare worked.

*** And yes, I do criticize the Democratic President who signed the 1996 PRWORA.

I Never Thought I'd See Rodney King Invoked Like This...

To my beloved friends of color (well, except other black folk--do I have a surprise for y'all!)*

I don't mean to leave you behind as I march forward toward a racially utopian U.S., but I'm sorry; I have got to get to the Red House!!!!

Where black people and white people by furniture!


I'm so looking forward to going where black and white folk can "just get along."

A white person might hug me. Or shake my hand!

And I can get credit and possibly a chance to rock in a nice rocking chair!

Some background: mrs. o tipped me to this commercial:



Now, we didn't know what to make of it. I'm not going to lie like we didn't laugh until we cried, but we were debating:

"Were they serious?"

"Girl, I hope they were being funny"

"That can't be real!"

"Friend, I'm telling you... it's real."

(Hysterical laughing)

"Girl, that cannot be serious."

"But they look so sincere!"

(ROTFL)

"Look at the hand gestures."

"Big Head know he pumps about as much iron as I do!"

"Do you hear them singing like they're in church?"

"Did you know white people and black people used to need different kinds of couches and beds?"

(At this point, I screamed)

So, yeah, no real commentary here. I keep thinking I'm going to here this was a huge joke, southern satire maybe?
________________________________________
* Nevermind! They threw in a blanket "Hispanics and all people!" at the end. Whew!

Dear Lord

I haven't done the bargaining prayer--"Dear God, if you let 'a' not happen, then I promise I will never again 'b' "--in a long time, but I'm on the verge.

As soon as I can figure out what "b" will be.

I have the beginning worked out, though:

Dear God, please don't let this woman become a martyr, sacrificed on the evil altar of teh radical homosekshul agenda.

I realize that it might be easy for her to overlook the absolute lack of clarity or logic in her I-am-brave-enough-to-stand-up-against-political-correctness answer, or the competition she faced in Kristen Dalton, Miss North Carolina USA, but dear Lord, if you will 1) disabuse her of the notion that her answer "did cost me my crown," and 2) stop marriage equality opponents from spreading the meme, I promise that I will never again...

That's where I get stuck.

Really, Steven?

Trigger warning

Dear Mr. Ward,

I will admit that I don’t watch your show, Tough Love. I think I am exceedingly glad that I don’t.


Still, I was quite nonplussed when I read that you opined that one of the women on the show, Arian, was going to end up “getting raped” if her present pattern of behavior—raunchy and inappropriate, I believe were your words?—continued. She enjoys taking risks, said you, putting herself “in that position,” and there are consequences! Arian should be more “classy!”

Hmmm, I thought, is Mr. Ward really suffering under the ildelusion that “classy” women don’t get raped? That rape occurs because “raunchy and inappropriate” women “ask for it?” Surely not!

But, in case you are, I’d like to point you here (or here or here) and here, where the entirety of the blog deconstructs and proves the fallacies of rape apologies like yours.

And I’d like to challenge you, Mr. Ward, to realize that “in that position” often means existing as a woman or anyone perceived as weaker or more vulnerable in a rape culture.

Yes, a rape culture.

How else would you describe a culture in which the logical consequence of acting a certain way or wearing a certain thing is understood to be the violation of one’s bodily autonomy?

xoxo,

elle

P.S. Oh, and expect more letters.

H/T Alessia via belledame on twitter

Really? Could You De-center for a Moment, Even?

What I think she really wanted to say:

"See, this is why I mumble and grumble about 'indigestible immigrant blocs' (and I don't give a damn if you've been here five generations, you're still not really American) and the fragmenting of America and how our totally homogeneous culture is being lost.

You expect me to learn your name? That'd be like learning your difficult language, and I totally don't have to learn another language, cuz I'm American and we are the center of the woooooooooooooooooooooooorld!!!!!!!

God Bless America!!"

Via