The weekend is here, and that means I am having too much fun to blog! Instead, I’ll highlight some of the very interesting comments people have made in the past week or so. If you’re reading the posts but not the comments, you’re missing out on some great discussions.

From Black Hair Etiquette Guide

My response [to “Can I touch your hair?”] would be more like “Sure! Can I touch your ass?”

But that’s me.
HexyHex

Beside the racism and ignorance of that particular move in that particular way, all i can ever think with that sort of thing is,

“Goddam. Were some people raised in a barn, or WHAT?”
belledame222

From We Will Not Be Silent in any language

Airport official: “White female with Arabic tattoo… pass. White male with Arabic script on cap… pass. Arabic-looking male with an ARABIC WORD on his t-shirt?? Hold it right there, sir! Remove the explosive shirt, sir, or I will have to use force! Code Red! Code Red! We have a hostile t-shirt! ”
A.R.Yngve

From Sexism. Racism. Dogs.

…let’s look at what Caesar was saying: woman always applies affection before discipline

Given that his show revolves around pushing a punishment/domination method over a reward/non-domination based one, this is is a put down.

His argument is one of a gender essentialist, too. He says women always use affection and contrasts that with men, who he says apply discipline and are “more psychological than emotional”.

He’s using the same psuedo-science that has been used since recorded history to reinforce gender roles. That is sexist. Not to mention not currently supported by science; while sexual differences do exist, we don’t currently know to what extent, if at all, it affects our behaviours and personalities.
tekanji

From Angry About Rape

I happen to disagree about the use of rape in BSG, but I take your point. Way, WAY too many writers (I’m looking at YOU, Wingrove! And you, too, Vinge!) use rape as a shorthand for These People Are Bad. It’s authorial cowardice. It’s saying, not only am I not good enough to write moral ambiguity, I’m not even good enough to convince you that my Bad Guys want Bad Things.

And, yes, far too often (you AGAIN, Wingrove!) it’s clearly written to be titillating.
David Moles

The use of rape as shorthand to show how eeeevil a character is, and the portrayal of rapists as undeniable, caricatural villains, freaks of society, and so forth, has the additional consequence that it makes it harder to convict the perpetrators of the majority of rapes, who are just average men, and whose good reputations get taken more seriously than their victims’ words.
Ide Cyan

From Black People and 9/11

whenever i say to white people that white america only wants solidarity when america gets bombed on one day but when it comes to sharing resources and benefits fairly after the day of terror, they go what? no we ain’t changing anything.
I am not Star Jones

From Wednesday Link Roundup

Mr. “Critique” there would clearly be dumber than a sack full of hammers even if he wasn’t flat stupid wrong. “People should do X because X would be a good thing for people to do” — no one who starts an essay with that kind of construction should be allowed to use the word “epistemological” anywhere in the essay. Or, for that matter, to graduate from the third grade.
David Moles

Dr. Helen is right that there’s a double standard between men and women. She just doesn’t understand that that’s the problem.
aaron

From Things You Need to Understand #4

I had a conversation the other month with a guy who insisted that there was no male privilege, only, uhm, the opposite of disbenefit. Which was not privilege. I think. I was a little woozy at that point, having slammed my head into the keyboard so many times.
Piny

I do know white privilege exists and that I benefit from it, I’m not quite sure how to deal with it, however. I am trying to avoid the “white liberal guilt” syndrome right now and to be aware when I am unconsciously acting on that privilege. It’s hard, it’s like the fish in the ocean asking “what is water?” It’s a training of one’s awareness.
Amananta

When I was a young teenager I would have disagreed with this, because growing up white in a black neighborhood, I didn’t have many of the advantages McIntosh lists. I felt so persecuted! And yet the twenty-odd years of discomfort before I moved away had so little consequence on my life, my brother’s life. Now THAT’S white privilege: it doesn’t matter if people of color treat you poorly, even if you grow up with them! After I lived in other places I realized how incredibly privileged I was and always had been.
anonawhite

Link Roundups this weekend.  Then, on Monday, something new: Monday Debate.