To White Women For Hillary Threatening to Vote McCain

The following is by Tim Wise. It's not a coincidence that his last name is "wise." He is a brilliant antiracism activist and the author of "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son." This comes from http://www.timwise.org/. Emphasis, where used, is mine.

Your Whiteness is Showing:An Open Letter to Certain White Women who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November

By Tim Wise

June 6, 2008

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.

That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.

First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

Your whiteness is showing.

When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.

If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people.

So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?

And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...

Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?

See, I told you your whiteness was showing.

And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before.

How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing?

See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man.

And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?

Your whiteness is showing.

Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.

But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act.

Historic Moment

I wrote this last night and have yet to recover from the Obama-tinis - guess I lied when I wrote last night that "tomorrow we get to work." More later.

It's done.

We have a nominee.

Major, major happy dance at our Obama house party, including cantaloupe martinis.

I knocked on lots of doors in hurricane ravaged parts of New Orleans for him. I drove to Texas and knocked on more. Then I drove to Mississippi annd walked mile after hot mile, knocking on doors and getting out the vote there too.

More on this historic moment later.

But for now, major, major happy dance.......

Congratulations to fellow Obama supporters and to the Obama family. Eight years ago, Obama was a delegate to the national convention, but found that his Visa card was denied when he tried to get a cheap hotel room. A mere eight years ago, he and Michelle were as deep in student loan debt as I am. Now, he's used the earnings from his two books to pay off the student loans and - with a name most of us could hardly pronounce at first - risen from utter obscurity to defeat a former first lady with 100% name recognition and the entire Clinton party establishment.

Enjoy tonight, Barack, Michelle, Malia, Sasha, all of the Obama and Robinson clans, and fellow volunteers.

MySpace Comments

YES WE CAN!

Tonight we celebrate.

Tomorrow we get to work again - to put an end to Bush-era crony capitalism, Tom DeLay and K Street influence peddling, and "heckuva job, Brownie" incompetence; to try to get affordable health care like other industrialized countries have (the planning for which Obama vows to have broadcast on C-Span for citizen input); to have a foreign policy in which we are not afraid to meet with foe as well as friend; to finally address gas prices, global climate change, mortgage foreclosures, the weak buying power of the dollar, and a relentless squeeze on middle class people; and, finally, finally to end this unnecessary war that has cost us so much in blood (over four thousand American loved ones and tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi) and in treasure (as of this moment $525 billion - LOUISIANA'S PORTION, $1 billion for 2007 alone, could have bought health care for 312,527 people for one year, 30,277 public safety officers for one year, 21,217 music and art teachers for one year, 235,464 university scholarships for one year, 12,587 affordable housing units, 813,135 children covered by health insurance for one year, 21,379 elementary school teachers for one year, or 17,869 port container inspections for one year - and, again, that's FOR LOUISIANA'S PORTION ALONE).

YES WE CAN!

Update From Stop Porn Culture - July Conference

from Stop Porn Culture

Dear Supporters,

We've had overwhelming interest in scholarships to the summer institute on Media Madness. In order to accommodate as many people as possible, we are offering a two and a half day training as an alternative to the full institute. This training is free, though if you can give $50 we would appreciate it.

We will start on July 9th at 1PM and go until July 11th at 4PM. We will be covering many of the same things as the full institute but focus more on fighting the porn culture and hands-on training in giving the anti-porn slideshow. Though we will be using space at Wheelock, there is no college credit available for this training. You can sign up tos tay at the dorms, which are $45/night for a double and $35/night fora single.

If you are interested in attending this modified version, we need to hear back from you ASAP.

PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT call Wheelock as they are not handling this training. Contact us here are at the SPC email account.

If you want college credit, then you have to register and pay for the full, four-day Media Madness institute through Wheelock. If you want to attend the four-day Media Madness institute without credit, then you will also need to pay and register
through Wheelock. There are NO scholarships available for the four-day institute.http://www.wheelock.edu/professional/prof_institutes_desc.asp

We hope that one of these options will work for everyone. Feel free to email if you have any questions.

Hmmm...I had asked about a scholarship - apparently me and everybody else, eh?

Ah, well. I had been planning on driving, but that was before gas was $4 a gallon. I'm not driving across town if I don't have to, let alone cross-country.

Misogyny is Alive and Well

What the hell? Is this supposed to be funny??

Boys Vs. Girls from Amir on Vimeo.

H/T Shakesville

Well, luckily, Shakes also offers something fun:

I guess my musical tastes give me away; I'm getting old. The other day, my daughter and I were riding in my car and she was looking through my CDs for something she could bear listening to. I found a Led Zeppelin CD and said, "Oh, wait, you'll like this one."

She listened to it and pronounced it "old lady music." Led Zeppelin for old ladies? Sigh....

Finally, on a more serious note, AlterNet has the following:

...According to former Sgt. Adam Kokesh, who served in Fallujah during the height of the siege, post-traumatic stress disorder can be attributed to three things: "lack of confidence in equipment, lack of confidence in leadership, and lack of confidence in the mission." He added: "In Iraq, we have all three." The alarming rate of veteran suicide -- which has only recently begun to be reported -- loomed heavy over the hearing. Former Marine sniper Sergio Kochergin's voice strained as he told the story of a roommate who had been placed on suicide watch "on and off," only to be taken off in anticipation of "family day," so that he would not say anything to his parents -- "and he did not say anything to them." He was deployed not long after, only to shoot himself in the head in a shower stall, one month after arriving in Iraq. "The Marine should have never been deployed to Iraq in the first place," Kochergin said, "and nobody was held responsible for his death." On the same day of the hearing, a story broke that revealed a disturbing new strategy for dealing with the influx of veterans reportedly suffering from PTSD: Stop diagnosing it. In an e-mail dated March 20 out of an office of the Department of Veterans Affairs (subject header: "suggestion"), a VA employee wrote: "Given that we are having more and more compensation-seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O PTSD."The National Institutes of Health defines adjustment disorder as an "abnormal and excessive reaction to a life stressor, such as starting school, getting divorced, or grief" and says that symptoms "usually do not last longer than six months." Compare that to the definition for PTSD, which "can occur after you've seen or experienced a traumatic event that involved the threat of injury or death" and which, in some cases, "can last for many years." Now, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which broke the story, has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests seeking "all records pertaining to any guidance given regarding the diagnosis of PTSD." "It is outrageous that the VA is calling on its employees to deliberately misdiagnose returning veterans in an effort to cut costs," said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan.

"If you want to do something about PTSD," said Kokesh after the hearing, "stop sending people into unjust wars...."

CALLING DEBS AT BURNING TIMES

Debs, suddenly your blog is invite only!

Let me back in!

And One More Thing

To the Hillary supporters who claim those of us who are disgusted with the Clintons now are just Clinton haters and always have been, I've decided to share this photo. I covered my full first and last name, but I go by "ceejay" on this blog and you can see the "C" and the "J" here. Does this LOOK like I was a Clinton hater in the 90s???

It's Official - Hillary Clinton, CHEAT

Today, Barack Obama counseled his supporters to be respectful toward Hillary Clinton. After all, he said, she has, among other things, broken through this amazing glass ceiling.

Then, Clinton appeared on my television and compared the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegates to women's suffrage and Seneca Falls, the emancipation of the slaves, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Oh, really, Hillary, dear???

Let's see. Florida and Michigan were told what the rules of the Democratic Party were - no one was allowed to move their primaries before those of Iowa and New Hampshire (hey, look, I don't understand the "Iowa and New Hampshire always get to go first" thing either, but for the time being, it's the rule). If those states violated the rules, their delegates would not be seated.

They DID violate those rules.

All of the Democratic candidates except for Hillary Clinton removed their names from the Michigan ballot, just as they were supposed to. Now, Hillary claims she "won" there. Right - because she was the only person on the ballot. Everyone else followed the rules.

None of her opponents ever campaigned in Florida, just as the Democratic Party had requested. Now, Hillary claims she "won" there. Right - because only she made appearances there.

Hillary Clinton, you are a CHEAT. There is no polite way to say this, sista' - YOU ARE A DAMN CHEAT. Changing the rules partway through a game just to suit YOU is CHEATING.

So, what is this glass ceiling of which Barack Obama speaks?

Is it the one in which a woman proves she can be as much of an ass as the men in charge ever have been? That she can cheat? That she can seek power at all costs? That she can be as militaristic as the men, voting to send other mothers' children to die in a pointless war and never apologizing for that vote as the mistake it clearly was?

Really?

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a doctor. A teacher of mine told me I could aspire to be a nurse, but not a doctor. My mother, appalled, mentioned this to Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, who got to her knees, took my face in her hands, and promised me I could be anything I wanted to be. Back then, Boggs had gotten her seat in Congress the way most women there had - by having a husband in Congress die and then running for his seat (basically winning with a "widow's sympathy vote").

So I've always dreamed of having women in all sorts of places, all sorts of jobs, getting paid what men get paid and being judged on our abilities - you know, our real assets rather than our asses.

Still, I had hoped that as women we might also bring a new ethic, a different one, to those places and jobs. I hoped women doctors would be gentler, wouldn't make absurd understatements like "the insertion of the IUD may cause mild cramping" and "yes, a ruptured cyst on the ovary does cause some discomfort." I had hoped women lawyers might help single moms get the financial support to which they are entitled, that women judges and prosecutors might take domestic violence seriously. I wished for women police officers who would treat rape victims with respect, who would never think to ask, "Well, what were you wearing?" or "Why were you drinking without using the buddy system?" or "What were you doing out alone / after dark / in that part of town?" And I had hoped that women with political power would positively rock this world. I thought of women like Patricia Schroeder of Colorado and Barbara Jordan of Texas, women who cared about making the right policy decisions TODAY - for women and kids and working people and the poor and the elderly and the disenfranchised - far more than they cared about whether they would win their next bid for reelection, and I longed for dozens and eventually hundreds of them in D.C. I campaigned for some women along the way too - and some men of conscience as well.

Now, Hillary Clinton claims credit for shattering a glass ceiling - the one in which the path to the highest levels of political power involves cheating the electoral process, voting for the war on Iraq, saber rattling when it comes to Iran, chastising Obama for his willingness to meet with foreign leaders currently hostile to the United States (um - hello - isn't talking things through something in which most of us women are trained and pretty skilled? why NOT meet with those leaders, Hillary?). And she has the gall to invoke the abolitionists and the suffragettes and the civil rights agitators as she makes her case for cheating her way to this nomination.

Honest to God, Hillary, you shame me.

You shame all of us.

This isn't the feminist sisterhood of my dreams. You aren't my sister. I can't be sisters with a cheat.

I know the life stories of women like Alice Paul and Elizabeth Caty Stanton. Women like Alice Paul and Elizabeth Caty Stanton are feminist heroes of mine. And, Hillary, you are no feminist hero.

end of crabby rant

For Memorial Day

I wrote this for Memorial Day last year. There have now been 4000 American military people killed in Iraq (along with tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis). I guess I will republish it every year until the madness stops.

The Promise

He was a surprise, actually, or "unplanned," as they call such things, but in the coming years, no one ever really remembered that part.

She read Doctor Spock, just to get ready, to wile away the passing months. She monitored her eating habits, wondering if she was ingesting the right blend of proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals...the monstrously huge prenatal vitamins that made her nauseated, but she held them down, for his sake; spinach, which was necessary because of spina bifida; no caffeine or, at the very least, less than usual. For months, her mouth tasted strangely metallic, which wasn’t in any of the books, and she was tired, so very tired, as if her body had taken on some mysterious, otherworldly work without her and there was little energy left for herself. He grew until it seemed he would explode her skin, until she worried how he would ever emerge, whether he could ever emerge. Meanwhile, he kicked and spun as if starring in his own unseen circus.

And, finally, finally, he came, pink and squirmy and utterly miraculous. Over time, the horrifying pain, the white-masked medical people, all of that stuff faded into faraway memories, the big birth day captured on photographs as if that part had happened to someone else. Those things were not what mattered. What mattered was his smell, sweet when he nursed, from the milk and from the sweat formed in the fuzz on the top of his head where it nestled in the crook of her arm; the soft, bleating cry, becoming louder and more insistent as the months passed and the lungs grew; the ten tiny fingers and ten perfect toes; the blue eyes, so clear, so different from hers, a contribution from his father’s side, no doubt.

And just as he’d come into the world a little whirlwind, so he remained, eager to walk, to explore his world. For him, everything was new. Empty boxes were the parts of the yearly Christmas bounty most worth exploring. The Easter Bunny was real, the melted chocolate leavings equally useful for decorating both the bathroom tile and the hallway wallpaper. Flowers and dirt proved equally palatable, his mother nonetheless doling out healthy human fare as carefully as she had for herself back when he was still on his way to becoming.

It’s amazing, really, how quickly a child grows, how only a parent knows the speed with which two full decades can fly. And so, the tricycle gave way to a scooter, the kiddie pool swimsuit to a team uniform, the unruly playground shouts to the strains of a saxophone. The "behavior reports," thank God, stopped being sent sometime around junior high. Around the same time, as the volume on the stereo in his room seemed permanently set to the ear-piercing level, he grew to a size she had never actually imagined, back when he was small and...hers. Now, he wasn’t anybody’s really, although he was legally still a child. Oh, sometimes he still acted like a child, certainly, but he had a man’s body now, one a foot longer than her own, one that often swept her up easily in huge, teasing bear hugs. As when he’d been a newborn, she often found herself wondering who this person was, where he had come from, this strange yet familiar source of endless joy.

His career decision was a shock. She’d been prepared for anything, or so she’d thought: doctor, fireman, baker, banker. True, they didn’t have money to pay for college, but there were loans – and such promise, such endless choices ahead. Why this, why? He was equally determined, for reasons she never fully understood. The only answers she could remember, later, years later, had to do with "money for college," "job training," and variants on "Mom, I just have to do this."

And so he did. Long past were the days when a motherly "no" could have stopped him, his stubborn pursuit of what he wanted. No phone calls were allowed, those first months. And when he came home on leave, he was different, although it was hard to say precisely how – an adult, more focused maybe, more self-assured. After that week, that all too short week, he left again, leaving on the end table a framed 8 X 10 photo of a uniformed and unsmiling young soldier. It was strange, really, how the eyes, so blue, so clear, were familiar while nothing else about the photo was.

Iraq. Something about how "they hate us for our freedoms." Something about how "we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here." Something about "weapons of mass destruction," about not "waiting for a mushroom cloud." Some far-off place she hardly knew anything about, actually. A desert. Moslems. "Mom," he would say on those rare calls home, "Don’t worry. We look out for each other." She never told him about the sleepless nights, the Zoloft for day and the Xanax for sleep, about the nightsweats and the bad dreams. And in turn, he never told her about the things he’d seen, how at nineteen, he too had turned insomniac, had seen people he thought he was there to help drive car bombs past checkpoints, how he had carried a baby out of a shelled home, the still, silent body wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket. These things were better left unsaid, better left unheard. So, during these calls they chatted casually about family and old friends. And both counted down the months.

It would have been impossible to tell anyone, later, how she’d heard the news, even if she could have remembered. This, too, was one of those things best left unsaid, best left unheard. Much like the day he was born, the worst of the pain and the faces of the people in uniform faded from memory and the things left to her were snapshots. Shots, yes, shots, 21...a 21 gun salute, American flag neatly folded, bullet casings tucked inside. Something about "on the half of a grateful nation" (which made no sense - and for a horrifying moment, she thought she might laugh and then, that if she did, she might never stop), but she hadn’t moved to take the triangle of fabric from him – what was she supposed to do here, what did he want from her - so he’d gently placed it on her lap before stepping back to execute a crisp salute. There was no way her son was in that box. That box was so still, so unlike him to stay still, and it would get cold. He was always so warm, would sweat against her when she nursed him, would make her too hot to sleep on those nights when thunder drove him to her big bed.

All of that promise – that he could be something, anything, that he would bring her joy always, that his parents would die first because that’s the natural order of things....

For Memorial Day – for those who have served, for the family members and friends of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and for Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son and birthed a peace movement.

Missing From Blogland

Well, look what tax season and prepping for the LSAT has done to my blog - a month without any new posts.

Damn.

The stupid LSAT, which I took and scored fine on a few years ago, is only good for four or five years, so, as a formality, the school is making me retake it. It's around $125. Oh, and if you have to register late (because you're an especially forgetful person or something - ahem!) - "late registration" during the final month before the test is ANOTHER $67, bringing the total to nearly $200.

Bastards.

What a racket they have, huh?

Still planning to write about V-Day. I can't believe it's been a month already! The older I get, the faster time moves, I swear!

V-Day

Well, V-Day in New Orleans starts at 10 Friday morning. There is going to be a special blessing ritual to cleanse the Superdome of the energy of those awful post-Katrina days. There will be lots of speakers and panels. Also, there will be massages and yoga and other such relaxation-related goings-on for the women of New Orleans (fabulous - I just wish some of the visiting counselors would be staying for good, since we now have only about 1/4 of the counselors we had here pre-Katrina - and we have LOTS more need now).

Alix Olsen, whom I LOVE, is going to be there tomorrow afternoon.

I will be attending the actual Monologues Saturday night with my cousin, which is truly in the spirit of sisterhood because I adore her and she's one of those busy, busy superwomen with whom it's difficult to schedule social time. So this will be a rare treat.

On top of that, I was expecting cheap tickets in the upper nose bleed section, but Mr.Me surprised me with more expensive tickets near the stage - for me and my cousin.

He also surprised me yesterday by setting up what had become a junk room into a real office. I have a desk, an adding machine with tape, the printer/copier/fax right there, four file cabinets. He set up files for all of my genealogy stuff, which had been in boxes for three years. I can now find all the tax stuff, all of the bills. Geez, I'm in danger of becoming a grown-up! Somebody save me from myself!

I guess maybe the office thing finally got done because Tuesday night at 7:30, the law school to which I recently applied called. There are one or two more things they need (proof that I paid my speeding ticket!?), but it sounds like I'm in. This school offers a public interest concentration, which could lead to some great non-profit, political, administrative, or other advocacy work. The school also has several different clinics in which third year students can work - and one of them does nothing but domestic violence work. Another does environmental justice work, which is just huge here in Louisiana. Not only do we have these terrible environmental problems caused by the petrochemical industries, but because the companies in those industries bought up land along the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that was once all sugar plantations, there are these African-American populations there, descendants of slaves, who are suffering the health effects of the pollution. Most of the white people who want to leave have left. In this area, around the antebellum home called "Oak Alley," has sprung up "Cancer Alley." The locals - primarily African-American people, sometimes living in relic "freedmen's" shacks - suffer shocking rates of miscarriages, leukemias that are rare in the rest of the American population, skin rashes, eye and nose irritations, and birth defects. I would love to do some environmental advocacy work. The law students at Tulane have actually won some cases in this region, have managed to keep some new industries from locating here. Of course, the evil state responded by changing the rules under which law students can handle these cases - requiring that the citizens form a non-profit BEFORE coming to the clinic (no, they need lawyers FIRST to help them form the non-profit!), that they prove the average income level of the plaintiffs is below poverty level, all kinds of hoops, things unheard of in other states - all because some law students won some cases against the petrochemical industry!

Ramble, ramble, ramble. And to bed.

Addressing the Issue of my Middle Name, Part II

About a month ago, I addressed the issue of my middle name (here). Since that time, someone has posted a response asking if perhaps "Kaye" is French, as in "que." Here was my reply:

Sigh. I'm sorry you apparently received that email. We see such smear efforts time and time again, my New Orleans roots met with cries of "Frenchie" much like the stories of Senator Obama's having attended a school in Indonesia and being Moslem. Some think the "Frenchie" issue may have been part of the reason for our neglect during Katrina - that, plus the fact that we have lots of poor and black folks who don't vote Republican. As is usually the case with such rumor and innuendo, there is a kernal of truth but it is presented in the worst possible light.

The fact is that, yes, while I am a product of a mixed marriage between a New Orleans woman and a young man visiting from the relatively underdeveloped part of the north American continent known as Mississippi, here in search of an education so he could improve his station in life, my family has not really even spoken French in three generations. Although New Orleanians take pride in their French ancestry, many Louisianians of French descent have served nobly in the War of 1812, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars, proving themselves as willing to offer themselves up in America's armed conflicts as any other true patriots. My grandfather belongs to a New Orleans VFW post (yes, we can - and do - have them), and, all rumors to the contrary, he does indeed salute the American flag (in that one photo, he was just distracted by a mosquito bite, which is also part of our culture). Flag wielding honor guards even lead Mardi Gras parades, although I do denounce the periodic efforts to undermine our Katrina recovery through the selective leaking to the news media of locals in their Mardi Gras garb (it is a proud tradition, to be sure, and one we embrace, but we question the way such photos - ones that might look silly to those in the heartland - are circulated, and we really want to know who is sending them to Matt Drudge). In modern NOLA, we even have McDonald's, WalMart, and Starbucks now right alongside our po-boy joints, Rousse's, and CCs, inspiring real multicultural pride with which all Americans, red-staters and blue-staters, can be comfortable.

To return to your original question, Glinda, I think my mother went along with "Kaye" out of a desire to honor my father's anglo-Mississippi heritage and that her own French roots were just not as big an issue. It's hard to be sure what my father thought, as he left us when I was young and returned to his native land of rural Mississippi, where he is now buried, so we can't get a definitive statement from him on this issue.

New Orleans Museum of Art - "You Can't Handle the Truth"

From June 28 to September 21, 2008, the New Orleans Museum of Art will exhibit works by Columbian artist Fernando Botero (at Artnet, at Artcyclopedia).

There is one series of his art, however, that you won't see at NOMA. You won't see it at any American museum.

Why?

Well, when Botero read about American soldiers' abuse of prisoners at abu Ghraib, he immediately began sketching out what he was reading about - right there during his cross-country flight. That effort led to Botero's creation of more than 50 graphic paintings of the events described in Seymour Hersh's New York Times expose.

Although a few American galleries have shown this collection, no American museum will do so.

Here is Fernando Botero's youtube video of what NOMA won't show you.

Americans are so often told that we are the freest country on earth. If, however, you've lived abroad for a few years, you quickly discovered the other news, the stuff our media won't tell us. It turns out there is "other" art too. And you won't find it at NOMA.

I Interrupt This Blog to Announce...

Big ovaries, baby!

2008 - Solidarity

released on February 14, 2008:

African-Americans to Conduct Citizens' Arrest in Louisiana of employer accused of modern-day slavery practices:

Today, a group of African Americans in Amite, Louisiana will stand in solidarity with about thirty Mexican farm workers who have faced an on-going situation of forced labor and indentured servitude, providing another example of temporary foreign workers enduring modern-day slavery in the US.

These men, originally from San Luis Potis, Mexico, are documented workers who came to this country on an H2A (agricultural) guest worker program. They paid recruiters in their homeland, were transported to Louisiana and delivered to a prominent farmer and storeowner whom they have been working for since September 2007. The delegation of African Americans, along with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ), will conduct a citizen’s arrest of the yet to be identified local farmer and storeowner....

The group of African Americans conducting the citizen’s arrest will seek to arrest this tyrant and interrupt the slave-like conditions in the undisclosed town close to New Orleans. Organizers will demand the return of the workers’ passports and seek the intervention of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Labor.

Louisiana has codified the citizen’s arrest, allowing private persons to conduct an arrest if they become aware of an ongoing felony. Citizen’s arrests were popular in the reconstruction era, when many Southern governments encouraged white and black citizens to act as law enforcement to stop groups from committing atrocities. Local organizers, in voicing their disbelief, have said that the proprietor is not only operating without a permit, but has been sued before by workers alleging violation of the federal minimum wage law.

Now if working class and even middle class whites would connect the dots, we would truly be a force to be reckoned with, all of us - at long last. It's several centuries past time for working whites to realize that our common cause is to be found not with white elites by virtue of a shared trait as illusory as "whiteness," but rather with all workers by virtue of our survival depending on our ability to organize in resistance to exploitation by the megagroupthinkcorptocracy.

Viva la revolucion, my white brothers and sisters. Tim Wise wants St. Bernard residents to march over to the Ninth Ward in solidarity, then for all to march together on Baton Rouge and the headquarters of the Corps of Engineers and places beyond:

Today, I was in a small town and got hungry very suddenly (the old hypoglycemia), so I stopped at a Taco Bell. I hadn't eaten there in a long time. When I lived up North, I would eat their tacos once in a blue moon because I liked them at least better than fast food burgers, but the last few years, I made sure to stay away because of the boycott and hunger strike against them. The action was started because the suppliers of Taco Bell's tomatoes were keeping the immigrant farm workers in slavery conditions.

So, woo-hoo, the boycott has been over for more than a year, and today I ate two tacos there. So, um, what's with the bell near the door, with the sign that invites customers to "ring the bell" if they've enjoyed their meals? So, what are we, Pavlov's dogs now? They're training us to train ourselves to associate that ringing bell with cornmeal shells stuffed with mystery meat and cheap tomatoes picked by underpaid migrant laborers? And I couldn't believe it, but several people rang the damn bell on their way out the door. Have we no dignity left whatsoever? We're doing their advertising for them now, in front of the other customers?

Then, an employee went from table to table offering people a coupon for a free combo meal IF they immediately took out their cell phones and called Taco Bell headquarters to answer their customer service survey. People seemed so thrilled to get their combo meal freebie, which has a street value of, I believe, about $4. They took out their phones mid-meal, calling as the employee stood guard and made sure they completed the corporate bidding before she would hand over the golden ticket. It was the middle of the day - don't they pay for their weekday/daytime minutes? I do. Also, no one questioned for a second what they were being asked to do, why, and by whom. I mean, I wanted to know, for example, would those bastards have my cell number for telemarketing purposes after this (in many cases, accepting a free offer of any kind does indeed give telemarketers a legal "in" to annoy you unlimited times in the future - that's why you see those ads for free ringtones; what they want is to get your cell phone number into their telemarketing database). Would they be asking for my name or address?

Why aren't more people skeptical about this stuff? Recently, I went to a website that sells women's clothing, a very reputable company. I wanted to track some items - you know, haul them around in the virtual shopping cart for a bit - and to do that, I had to register. I, however, believe in evading and sabotaging the information gatherers whenever I can. After all, Wendell Berry said so:

Manifesto:The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

To that end, I use made up names. Strangely enough, these alter egos of mine most often can be found at 555 Main Street (and they like the 90210 / Beverly Hills zip code). Every once in a while, I use my real name but with the wrong address, to throw them off in case they get close to pinning down the real me. Oh, and the woman who made my life hell at my previous job - I use her name for CVS cards, for Winn Dixie cards, all kinds of stuff. She's been places she doesn't even know she's been! Still, I figure, while I'm indulging my adolescent grudge I am also doing her a favor by confusing the information keepers about where she really is and what she's really buying - so, you know, it's a win-win.

Anyway, so back to the women's clothing company. On this occassion, I needed to give my real adddress - for some purpose that I can no longer remember - so I decided to name myself "Violet William" (there are Williams on the family tree, and I was kinda in a purple mood). Mind you, there was no reason for them to send me anything. Eight weeks later, I receive three women's clothing catalogues in the mail, all on the same day, all addressed to Violet William. And the first thing I thought was, "Who the hell is Violet William?" And then I realized, "Ooooh, right, one of my information-age alter-egos." And the second thing I thought was, "Those bastards sold my information to some database," and I was quite annoyed. Finally, however, I rememberd that the whole point of the consumer alter-ego is to try to keep the information gatherers off my trail, so, hey, let them try to compile their multi-source consumer profile of Violet William.

So, soon after having eaten at Taco Hell, I had to make a stop at Wal-Mart - NOT because I've lost the stomach for fighting the megagroupthinkcorptocracy but because my body was engaged in its own struggle post Taco Bell (TMI? Sorry, trying to give the context). This Wal-Mart was so rundown. The bathroom was all torn up, the stall doors scratched up and hanging crookedly. On the way past the makeup section, I saw a display for some cologne and on the display it said something like "That's why she's yours. Because you're the king."

We are such a nation of consumers. Consumers rather than citizens. I mean, someone offers a free coupon and people give up their right to privacy, since the data collectors are mining EVERY bit of information they can get on every one of us. You know what my brother-in-law's argument is in favor of the congressional telecom immunity law? "There is no point in lawsuits that award damages, because the corporation will just pass on the cost of the damages to me, their customer." Even if the guy is right and assuming a request for a rate hike from your phone company were immediately approved, it might be, what, thirty cents a month? A dollar? He can afford that; it won't mean his sweet babies will have to go to bed hungry. I was horrified by his point of view on this - his first thought is how will this affect me, the consumer rather than how will this affect me, citizen of the republic. Are your civil rights worth a dollar a month added to your phone bill, to make it clear to the telecomm companies that they are under no circumstances to cooperate with illegal government spying on citizens? This kind of consumer-think would preclude ANY corporate tort judgements, since, according to my brother-in-law, the corporations will just pass on the cost to him, so he doesn't want any judgements against big companies. Let Taco Bell enslave tomato pickers. Let the telecoms sell our private data. Let chemical companies pollute the groundwater. Let Wal-Mart engage in the most wide-spread sex discrimination yet documented. But no damages should be awarded, says the brother-in-law, because we consumers want our cheap shit as cheap as possible. No accountability please.

Meanwhile, back in the car, the only talk shows on the radio at the time were Dennis Miller and Rush Limbaugh. Nothing local. No signs of intelligent life coming through the airwaves. Limbaugh was bragging about the success of "Operation Chaos," which means voting for Hillary just to keep Democrats busy plucking each other's eyes out. Hateful bastards. I would never bother trying to screw up their primary - partly because it's just wrong and partly because I don't want ANY vote for a Republican on my soul when I die. They CAN NOT WIN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS and they know it, so they resort to distractions and dirty tricks.

Also in the car, I heard that a movie crew shut down the bridge so the city could serve as their Hollywood set and, as a result, there would be traffic jams. You know, finish filming, then come in and just tear the place down - it's all cardboard, right? New Orleans is the adult Disneyland, Hollywood South, JazzLand, GumboLand, yes ma'm, souvenire shop is up ahead to the left in what was once known in this neighborhood as Miss Riti's house.

I've been brewing this rant about tourism ever since Katrina and I think the brew will become a blog post very soon. Today I saw a book I REALLY want to get (next payday) called "Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture, and Race in the Big Easy". I'd like to mix that author's academic insights with some of my own experiences and write about it. I'm pretty well fed up with putting the "New Orleans brand" out there for tourists. I mean, is this a city or a zoo? A home or a theme park? Let the tourists puke in their own backyards.

Viva la revolucion.

Rape STILL Isn't Funny

Last December, a disturbing column appeared in the publication produced by engineering students at the University of Ottawa. The "advice" column included the following:

When asked about dealing with a messy roommate, the columnist advised the inquirer to “reach back like a pimp and smack that hoe [sic].” Another column suggested that ESS President André Sponder “is a cheap drunk with Rum and Coke,” and included a rundown of her weekly office hours.

The editor's response:

"I found that people took things out of context,” said Brunet. “I was aware that [the article] was a little bit pushing it, but it was our first time writing a paper. I had no guidelines to follow; I didn’t know what the line was [and] if we were crossing it or not.”

One might hold out hope that men as human beings will someday have guidelines of personal integrity telling them not to publish such things.

Said the coordinator of the Women's Resource Center:

“You kind of get a sinking feeling in your stomach,” she said. “We’re coming up on Dec. 6—this is the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre—which makes [the comments] especially inappropriate.”

You remember the massacre don't you?

Gamil's father had contempt for women and believed that they were only intended to serve men....

On December 6, 1989, Lépine walked into the École Polytechnique de Montréal. There, he entered a second-floor classroom where he separated the men and women and then ordered the approximately fifty men to leave. Claiming that he was fighting feminism, he shot the nine women who remained, killing six and injuring the rest. After this, Lépine moved to other areas of the building, including the cafeteria, corridors and another classroom. A total of fourteen women (twelve engineering students, one nursing student, and one university employee) were killed, and four men and ten women injured before Lépine turned the gun on himself.

A three-page letter (see below) was found in the pocket of his jacket....In his suicide letter, Lépine claimed political motives, blaming feminists for ruining his life. He considered himself rational and expressed admiration for Denis Lortie, who had mounted an attack on the Quebec National Assembly in 1984 for political reasons, killing three Quebec government employees. The letter also contained a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine apparently wished to kill because of their feminism. more

The incident led to Canada's declaring December 6 each year a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Okay, so back in December, young mister editor claimed he hadn't known what the ground rules were (as far as publishing misogynist bullshit at an engineering school). Lesson learned? Let's see, a summary of what was published next:

After counselling men on the biological irrelevance of the female orgasm, the authors offer “tricks that will get her to think twice about finishing faster than a pedophile at a preschool.” They encourage, “jerking off on her after she’s finished: if she doesn’t get the message after the first or second time, she’ll sure get the message when you start aiming for the eyes.” Finally, they recommend anal sex in language that evokes rape. They say: “Don’t stop: Hey, if she’s screaming and moaning in pleasure, just keep thrusting harder and don’t let her get away…remember, you two aren’t finished until you say you are.”

Asked to comment, the vice-president of social affairs for the Engineering Student Society said:

“For myself, personally, I think some of the content in the paper is meant to be humorous,” he said. He added that engineers “have taken a lot of flak for being engineers,” and are often the subject of jokes about engineers rarely touching women or getting laid.

“I believe that when we take this sort of thing in stride and that sexual harassment, if we dish out a little bit of our own, who’s to say who’s more right?”

He, a dood, has taken some razzing for being an engineering type, so what's a little harassment of women? If you can't get laid, might as well hate women, cuz what else are they good for??? If you can't get laid and the other boys say you don't measure up, degrade women so they will recognize you as one of the men - because nothing says male bonding quite like woman hating. And rape's funny, right? And woman-hating, that's not dangerous to women engineering students, right, well, except for that one time in Montreal and all.

The school has shut down the paper for now.

via "The F-Word"

This reminds me of the Auto Admit case in which male law students targeted female students with such awful online commentary that the women, Yale law school grads, became unemployable.

This is what being a woman in law school or engineering school is like - in 2008. But we're all so post-feminist now.

My Comments Policy

Some very disturbing readers' comments at a blog I frequently read prompt me to offer the following:

I blog mostly about New Orleans; antisexism activism and theory; antiracism activism and theory; and liberal/radical politics. Sometimes, I just write about being a mom and being me.

I very much appreciate visitors to my blog and welcome their comments on all subjects.

When it comes to racism and sexism though, I am really not interested in debate with people who deny that those things are institutionalized and ubiquitous. As I see it, we exist within social structures, and the social structures in our country are deeply informed by racism and sexism (and agism, ablism, and heterosexism too). Arguing with me about the existence of these things and their profound impact on individual lives would be like arguing with Neo about the existence of the matrix - because once you know, you know. Exchanges about these things are not going to change your mind or mine - and would not be productive for either of us.

My blog is not a free speech zone (I couldn't believe the men who swarmed the site I mentioned above, called her a bitch and a cunt and then insisted on their right to free speech! "What about my sacred right to abuse you...."). When it comes to racism and sexism, the purpose of my blog is to faciliate networking with other activists and theorists in these fields, and perhaps also to reach out to those who are somewhat interested in these subjects but still kind of on the fence. If you find that you profoundly disagree with me about something as rudimentary as racism or sexism being rampant in our country, your time would probably better be spent commenting at blogs hosted by people who share your worldview. I respectfully encourage you to have your free speech and activist networking in those places. There is room for lots of opinions in the world, but this blog comes from a particular perspective. I've heard all the arguments many times before about how the so-called tolerant are actually so intolerant because we won't entertain viewpoints that we see as sexist, racist, or homophobic. Whatever.

Yes, too many times I have seen viciously misogynist comments offered at feminist blogs. There are men who swarm women's blogs with threats of finding women bloggers in real life, cutting off their heads, "grudgeraping" them, even kidnapping their children because feminist bitches must be bad mothers - just horrible, monstrous, crazy stuff (more about attacks on women's blogs here).

I'm also on to the whole "concern trolling" thing that so often shows up in the comments at feminist blogs. Too many times, I've seen these comments derail conversations. The poster pretends to be interested in debate, but really intends to silence women (or - even if that wasn't the intention - that is the effect).

So, I'm setting up rules for comments. When the subject is racism or sexism and if I think someone is just playing games or wasting my time, the submission will be deleted with no comment from me (I know that attention is the mother's milk of trolldom; you won't get that here, ever).

If you have GENUINE questions about racism, sexism, or homophobia, and you are white, male, and/or straight, the best way to start becoming an ally is to begin by educating yourself rather than asking a woman or a person of color to take time from their own work to debate you. Please understand that members of minority groups have lots of work to do when it comes to protecting and healing their own communities. If you really want to delve further into these subjects and want to become an ally, the best way to start is by spending time educating yourself rather than asking someone else to explain the basics; please recognize that this work is not and can not be focused on you. There is so much great educational material out there, and if you are genuinely concerned and are not just a concern troll, you will indeed educate yourself.

On the subject of racism, here are some great sites for white people to begin examining race and race privilege:

For White Folks: How to Become an Ally

WhitePrivilege.com

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Tim Wise's "White Like Me"

On sexism, here are some sites for beginners:

Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog

XY: Men, Masculinities, and Gender Politics - an especially good resource for male allies

How Not to be an Asshole

Anti-Feminist Bingo

Anti-Feminist Bingo 2

Another note: any comments offered that can already be found on Anti-Feminist Bingo or Anti-Feminist Bingo 2 will be deleted without reply. The reason those things are ON those bingo cards is because what you're saying is so unoriginal and predictable.

Also, women bloggers may find Blogging Feminism: (Web)Sites of Resistance a supportive resource.

One final point: This blog is also 100% anti-porn. I used to be one of the sex positive, "fun feminists," and a lot of horrible, painful stuff in my own life, leading to my SO being in treatment for sexual addiction - together with the brilliant analysis of so many radical feminists - changed my mind. I won't post a pornography apologia of any sort. The pro-porn position utterly dominates in our culture now. Ads on city streets are pornified. Television is pornified. Highway signs promise "adult entertainment" just off the next exit. Women who publicly challenge pornography consumption have their names (and in one famous case, a private email to a peace rally organizer in which the woman questioned the event's being partially underwritten by Flynt publishing) sent to Larry Flynt, who uses his mass-distributed publications to viciously attack them with photos and cartoons of them dismembered, bound, raped in every orifice. These days, "we're oh-so enlightened about sex now" academic panels on pornography usually don't include any members who bring a critical feminist analysis. Women's Studies departments have been taken over by the sex-pos cool kids, so that anti-porn feminist academics are having difficulty getting hired and getting published. In fact, "feminist" journals these days won't even accept porn-critical articles (they also ask would-be authors not to use the word "patriarchy" - WTF? When did we sell out to the rest of the academy, and how much did we get paid?). So, this blog is my own space; pro-porn arguments, which dominate everywhere else, are not allowed on anti-porn blogs like mine. It's where women - and male allies - against porn can safely speak our minds; they are precious few such spaces. I hope you will check out the many anti-pornography links on my blog; there are many thoughtful, bright people out there eloquently explaining exactly how pornography is not good for us - men, women, or children. If you disagree, that's fine, but just realize pro-porn comments will be deleted without publication.

Thanks again for visiting my blog.

What Even Schoolchildren Know

Even schoolchildren know - the best all-purpose insults involve calling someone homosexual or female.

A study by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found that the top insult in UK schools is "gay," with 83% of teachers reporting hearing it. The others were Bitch (59%), Slag (45%), Poof (29%), Batty boy (29%), Slut (26%), Queer (26%), Lezzie (24.8%), Homo (22%), Faggot (11%), and Sissy (5%).

So the insults go to gays, women, women, gays, gays, women, gays, gay women, gays, gays, and feminine gays.

I'm noticing a trend.

Of course, the misogynist slurs (bitch, slag, slut) center around women who don't conform to sexual puritanism. The common thread between all of these is that it's an insult to be penetrated or to be accused of liking to be penetrated.

Volumes can and have been written about our culture's anxiety around penetration and hatred of anyone perceived as enjoying it. What's particularly interesting here is that nothing else made the list - not "stupid" or "dumb" or racial slurs. (study)

via "The F-Word again

The Fuzzy Math of Racism and Sexism in Recruiting

What does putting the focus on recruiting minorities - into a firefighting service that is over 95% white male - add up to in the minds of the dominant majority? Discrimination!!! That's right. White males are already 95% of this profession, yet taking the focus off of them, just for a couple of days, is "discrimination."

Got that?

Let's do the math.

training session 1 - ethnic minorities only +
training session 2 - women only +
training sessions 3 and 4 - women and ethnic minorities +
training session 5: everyone, including white males
= total new recruits -
already existing total force of over 95% white and male
= SCREAMING HEADLINE - "WHITE MEN ARE BANNED"

Note this was not even an example of affirmation action (which apparently is called "positive discrimination" in England). Nope, this strictly had to do with who attended the recruiting drives. Once the sessions were over, there were no promises made about who would get hired.

Results?

Hysteria ensues. Cries of "discrimination" reverberate through the chambers of the British Parliament.

And one writer offers the following in a letter to the Daily Mail:

As I watch my blond, curly haired, toddler grandson I feel sad that his genes, and mine, will dissapear but it is inevitable unless we take a stand and demand England for our own.

Yep. A couple of days of targeted minority recruitment = the end of the Aryan race.

Fuzzy math indeed.

via "The F-Word"

Tennessee Williams Fest - STEEEEELLLLLLAAA

Tennessee Williams Festival





(lightening up from yesterday's post!)

Mission Accomplished

Back during the South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton tried to marginalize Barack Obama by comparing the latter's victory in that state to Jesse Jackson's decades before.

Most white Americans can not stand Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I'm sure about this because I'm around white people a lot, what with being white and all. Bill Clinton's putting Obama's name out there with Jackson's was calculated - and despicable.

Bill Clinton is a sharp pol. From what I've read, even direct quotes over the years, the man can calculate electoral percentages quicker than you or I can figure up how much to tip a waitress (Catholics plus X percent of Protestants on this issue, X percent of red state support on that issue). He knows the different demographics and how they will break around various issues. He knows these as well as he knows the insides of his own eyelids. I am certain of it.

Bill Clinton knows the demographics - and he knows how to split them too. For instance, remember his infamous Sister Soulja moment? As recently as 2004, he was, we now know, still up to his old tricks:

Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with (John) Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that." (Pam's House Blend).

So, Clinton knows how to split different demographics for political advantage (right - and my next insightful post will be on the imporant topic of "the world is indeed round"). He is willing to throw minority groups under the bus if he sees a potential electoral advantage to doing so.

After spending my Katrina evacuation in Little Rock (which we chose so we could tour Clinton's presidential library...it beats Houston!), I decided to take a detour through Bill Clinton's boyhood home of Hope, touring some of the sites linked to the childhood of the former president.

Truth be told, there wasn't that much to see. There was Clinton's mother's home, his grandparents' home. There was the Blythe/Kelly/Clinton cemetery plot, an unremarkable looking school he attended (long since converted to another purpose). Finally, there was a little train depot that functioned as a museum.

That was it.

Still, I am so glad I took that detour. It was deeply moving, not because any of the designated sites of interest were in any way remarkable, but precisely because none of it was remarkable. As a southerner, once I'd walked around in Hope, Arkansas, I felt I understood some things about our nation's forty-second president. The southerness of the place was palpable. It looked quaint and tidy in places, shabby and unkempt in others. There was no large-scale commerce, no industry. There was poverty. And, to this New Orleans girl, the racial mix of the residents looked like that in my hometown (indeed, census figures show that the town is about 42% white and about 42% black).

From this place came Bill Clinton, this humble place, a president born of working people. I admit that tears came to my eyes because for all that I bitch about what's wrong with my country and engage in activism against the status quo, there is, truly, something right about a country in which a white man so humbly born can become president. (I know, I know. Radical critics are supposed to hate America, right? Well, actually, as Dr. King said, "I criticize America because I love her. I want her to stand as a shining moral example to the world."* No, I'm not an America hater, no matter what my brother-in-law says about me. In truth, I'm a woman whose idea of a great vacation is to go to Washington, D.C, to wander the grounds of Mount Vernon giving thanks for the light rain shower so that no one will notice that I'm crying, to visit the Library of Congress and find that I have to locate a bench on which to rest because standing just on the other side of the glass from Thomas Jefferson's beloved book collection has literally made me lightheaded. I confess to all of that even though, in the context of the rest of this essay, said confession puts me firmly in the camp of white American nationalists I'll be criticizing a few paragraphs hence - just one of the many paradoxes inherent in trying to do antiracism work when you're white like me. Please forgive me my absurdity while I flirt with radical honesty. As Walt Whitman said, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.")

In this place called Hope, Clinton has oft told us, his grandfather taught him to reject the racism that was as much an ordinary part of life for whites as were warm, ripe tomatoes and oversized, iced watermelons. Clinton's grandfather taught him by example to do business with local blacks the same as he did with whites, a habit quite different from other white shopkeepers of the day.

So, I've been to Bill Clinton's hometown. I know he and I share the same roots, roots in a beloved, schizophrenic South - a South of sweet tea and relic slave shacks, of casserole-bearing funeral attendees and still-segregated churches, a South of unfailing manners as well as fierce racism both personal and institutionalized (I've lived up North and out West too, and white people there need not check their mental compasses for due South when they think about racism).

And so I've seen where Bill Clinton grew up. And I know. I know that Bill Clinton knew exactly what he was doing when he made that comparison of Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson. He knew, and for personal gain for himself and his, he was willing to fan those racist flames, always there, always hot, always bright - and denied by whites even if maintaining that denial requires us to stay in our skivvies and wander blindfolded while denying the existence of the fire.

Oh, he knew.

And it isn't just that Clinton compared Obama to Jackson, Jackson is someone most whites don't like, therefore the association could hurt Obama. It is that, but it's also more.

Hearing about what's happening with Obama's polling numbers beginning to decline now that lots of oh-so inculpable white people have seen film of Obama's pastor speaking his truth, I was thinking today that about how this process, this process of making Obama black enough to make whites consciously uncomfortable, began with Bill Clinton's comment in South Carolina. Now, I'm sure someone - a bunch of someones - would have eventually begun doing that anyway. So this thought came to me: they intended to morph him into "the angry black preacher," to link Obama in the minds of white voters to Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton. It ended up being Reverend Jeremiah Wright instead.

Mission accomplished. Heckuva job, Billy.

And it's no coincidence that in order to morph Obama into those two "angry" black preachers so dreaded by whites, they went through....Obama's preacher.

That was the only way white culture, really, could finally go after Obama.

You see, most white people - and I am a white person - don't know black people. Sometimes, it's overtly racist whites who don't want to know black people. Sometimes, we move to the suburbs, shop at Whole Foods, vote for Democrats, and tell ourselves we just don't have that much opportunity for interracial interaction, but that if we did, you know, we're sure we would be "good" white people who are culturally colorblind. After all, in our reality, race isn't a problem, ergo racism isn't a problem in America.

And even if we know some black people, we don't know black people. How can we, running around the racist bonfire I described above, stripped down to our skivvies and blindfolded so we can deny the heat and the light that are right there? Blindfolded is no way to see. So we don't see.

And when we, blindfolded, hear someone like Jeremiah Wright, ranting apparent madness out there in the beyond, we are shocked. We are appalled. We are angry. We can't imagine why they are being so racist!**

Why don't we know black people? Simply because, to borrow from the boorish Jack Nicholson, we can't handle the truth.

I'll borrow from someone far wiser than I to explain further (his name actually is Tim Wise, but that actually isn't why I consider him a wiseman):

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock--though make no mistake, they already knew it--is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that "everything changed." To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots....

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I've seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country--when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as "Negro Barbecues," involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.

Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade--an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.

Most white people desire, or perhaps even require the propagation of lies when it comes to our history. Surely we prefer the lies to anything resembling, even remotely, the truth. Our version of history, of our national past, simply cannot allow for the intrusion of fact into a worldview so thoroughly identified with fiction. But that white version of America is not only extraordinarily incomplete, in that it so favors the white experience to the exclusion of others; it is more than that; it is actually a slap in the face to people of color, a re-injury, a reminder that they are essentially irrelevant, their concerns trivial, their lives unworthy of being taken seriously. (please for the love of god please read the rest of this***)

So, there it is. We don't know black people and Tim Wise has explained why we don't.

And what happens when we don't know or know them? Well, apparently the best we can do is to rely on what we've seen.

What have we seen? Well, each of us has been provided through American culture with a rather limited range of black archetypes. There is what Spike Lee calls "the magical negro, there is "Mammy" (yep, still), there is "the driver" a la Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy" - those are the classic archetypes.****

In addition to archetypes, whites commonly hold stereotypes of blacks and despite our being supposedly oh-so postracial, surveys show the list hasn't change much in the last sixty years.

In 1933, the top ten stereotypes of blacks were "superstitious, lazy/slovenly, happy-go-lucky, ignorant, musical, ostentatious, very religious, physically dirty, naive and unreliable."

In 1995, the top ten were "athletic, rhythmic/musical, unintelligent/ignorant/stupid, poor, loud, criminal, hostile, very religious, disloyal to family, and physically dirty." (source)

So I submit that whites individually, mainstream culture, and the media have been struggling to find a category - an archetype or stereotype, something for heaven's sake, it's all so disorienting - a hole into which we whites could peg Barack Obama because, once again, we rely on racist cultural shorthand since we don't really know black people (and we really can't recognize that we don't know because the whole system of white privilege is so invisible to us).

For months, Barack Obama was broadcasting to white America as an individual (well, who doesn't, really) and seemed to be being received as such. He wasn't Mammy (or, to be gender precise, Uncle Peter), the driver, Sambo, "the magical negro" (although some have attempted to link him to the latter). He is clearly not, to return to the list of top ten stereotypes, unintelligent/ignorant/stupid, poor, loud, criminal, hostile, disloyal to family, or physically dirty.

He is athletic, and the media has treated us to a number of "Barack plays basketball" stories, but I think white voters were also seeing in those stories the Obama who is competitive and a fighter, who is focused, who is young and vigorous (although I heard some time back that, should he be the nominee, Republicans will run campaign ads that show him playing basketball).

He did joke during one of the debates about his dancing abilities versus Bill Clinton's, and he also danced on the Ellen show.

I offer these last two items with tongue-in-cheek. The point is that I believe whites and our media have been working down a list of "black people we think we know" to try to know Obama.

One item remains on the list of top ten stereotypes - it's "extremely religious." Somehow, the (white) public has very quickly begun morphing Obama into his minister (even as the Clintons previously tried with Reverend Jesse Jackson). And if the (white) public can successfully do that, can think "angry black minister" when they think of Obama, then we will have finally, after these long months of bumbling around, found one of our holes into which he can be fitted. "Angry black minister." Then maybe Obama too is "angry." And then maybe he hates us. In fact, maybe he can't be trusted; maybe he's acting nice around us and hating us behind our backs and plotting against us (these were the big fears during slavery, obviously, and I think we still fear these things today). AND, Hillary is here to explain to us that he isn't even qualified for the job he seeks - she will give that much to the likes of John McCain, experienced political whore in more ways than I care to list at the moment, and not to Barack Obama. I notice too that the red phone ad has lots of racist fearmongering potential - nighttime, white kids sleeping sweetly all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums dance in their heads - virtuous white women of America, can you entrust this man with your precious children? (NY Times noticed too).

THERE! I think that'll do it. Yep, he's finally fitting in that hole! Whew, what a relief, my white brothers and sisters. Life as we understand it can now continue! We now return to your regularly scheduled oblivion.

Enjoy your recession. Buy a bikini to celebrate global warming. Keep those kids safe and send them to America's fine institutions of learning; McCain says we'll be needing them in Iraq years from now. Keep a month's supply of, well, everything in case there is a levee breach near you (yeah, you, non-Louisianians, I AM talking to you too; check out the links). Stock up on the duct tape because it looks like for the indefinite future they will be hating us for freedoms (apparently "they" haven't heard that our freedoms ain't what they used to be).

Submission accomplished. Barack who?

UPDATE: A WHITE FRIEND WHO READ THIS SAYS HE HAS A BLACK FRIEND WHOM HE BELIEVES HE REALLY KNOWS. WHEN I WROTE THAT WHITES DON'T KNOW BLACK PEOPLE, I GUESS I WAS THINKING PRIMARILY IN BROADER, CULTURAL TERMS. WHEN IT COMES TO INDIVIDUAL FRIENDSHIPS, I CONCEDE THAT I MAY HAVE OVERSTATED THE CASE. I GUESS I WOULD HAVE TO TALK TO HIS FRIEND, WHOM I ALSO KNOW, AND ASK HIM WHAT HE THINKS.

* Tim Wise's essays don't seem to have individual URLs, so I can't link to them directly. All I can get is the URL to his homepage. From there, click on "essays" and then "A Dream Distorted: Reflections on the Hijacking of Martin Luther King Jr."

** from the link, click on "essays" and then "Another Batch of White Whine:
Obama, Black Voters and the Myth of Reverse Racism"

*** from the link, click on "essays" and then "Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia:
Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth"

**** It occurs to me that in each of those examples, African-Americans are defined strictly according to their utility to white people - mammy, driver, "magic negro." This is also the case with female archetypes - wife (in relationship with a man), mother (in relation to a child), virgin (not yet penetrated by man), slut/whore (penetrated by too many men), femme fatale (man can't resist), damsel in distress (needs protection from or rescue by a man), and so on. This tendency toward what I'm calling for the moment the archetype-in-relation illustrates the extent to which women and people of color are still viewed through the lens of the dominant culture (women as seen by men, people of color as seen by whites).

Gay Scientists Isolate the Christian Gene

Ha!

Hat tip The F Word.

The other day this New Orleans talk radio program did a whole show on Obama's pastor and some of McCain's buddies (Haggee?) and about what people thought. So, on the topic of some people's religious views, this woman called in and said that in the aftermath of Katrina, she worked sorting food donations that were coming in from around the country. The donors apparently didn't realize that the food bank would break packages down into the smallest possible units (I guess to get widest possible distribution). Time and time again, when this woman opened the packages, she found that people had tucked notes inside their food donations, notes telling the already devastated recipient that Katrina was the wrath of god visited upon a sinful people.

I really do hope those gay scientists, now that they've isolated the gene, can find the cure.

(with apologies to any REAL Christians out there; I get so frustrated with the other kind)