(crossposted from my personal blog)

I know that pointing out RoF Fail is a little like kicking a puppy, but you know how it is when Nick Mamatas sends you a link clearly meant to induce blog-worthy rage — you just have to accommodate him.

So, LJ user torrain was reading the latest issue of Realms of Fantasy and didn’t get far before the facepalm reached epic proportions. Inside the magazine’s movie review of The Last Airbender ze found this awesomeness:

However, The Last Airbender has already caught flak for “whitewashing,” meaning, the casting of white actors (or actors who appear to be white) to play non-white characters, especially when those characters are heroic. It’s a hot-button issue that dredges up memories of images like Al Jolsen wearing black-face makeup. Of course, there are two sides to this coin. On one hand, whitewashing can feel insulting, disrespectful, and disappointing to movie-goers. Many may label it as politically incorrect. On the other hand, anyone who has run a casting call will tell you that when you find the right person for the role, something magical happens. Time seems to stop, and you feel as if the character comes to life right in front of your eyes. The character is no longer ink on paper; the character begins to live and breathe. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the individual human being reading for the part. Adding to the mix is the fact that some roles written for white people have been won by actors of color, and some roles written for men have been played by women. In other words, whitewashing isn’t a one-way street. It’s a difficult situation that places filmmakers between the goal of finding magic and not offending audiences. At the end of the day, most directors simply want to tell a good story.

There’s a lot of obvious fail going on here, and it’s hard to know where to begin, but I’ll start with this notion that “something magical happens” when the right person comes along for the role, even if that person is white and the character is not. Even if this was ever true somewhere in the world, it’s not true in this movie. Let’s quote Roger Ebert talking about the casting, specifically:

Shyamalan has failed. His first inexplicable mistake was to change the races of the leading characters; on television Aang was clearly Asian, and so were Katara and Sokka, with perhaps Mongolian and Inuit genes. Here they’re all whites. This casting makes no sense because (1) It’s a distraction for fans of the hugely popular TV series, and (2) all three actors are pretty bad. I don’t say they’re untalented, I say they’ve been poorly served by  Shyamalan and the script. They are bland, stiff, awkward and unconvincing.

Entertainment Weekly:

The trouble with The Last Airbender is that Aang, as a character, is a saintly abstraction (Noah Ringer plays him with a sensitive pout that grows cloying), and he’s surrounded by generic young actors who are like place holders for real stars.

Variety:

Shyamalan has worked wonders with child actors before, but Ringer is no Haley Joel Osment, delivering some fancy footwork but zero charisma in the pic’s key role. Most dialogue scenes are framed in tight Sergio Leone-style closeup, emphasizing the actors’ wooden nature. At that proximity, we notice that Rathbone never blinks; nor can he be counted on to deliver any of the comic relief of his animated counterpart.

I could go on. The issue here is not that M. Night just happened to find these amazing kids to play these roles who just happened to be white. This is what he or the producers or the studio set out to do from the beginning because, even though millions of people love the cartoon and its clearly Asian characters, they felt that audiences just can’t handle brown and yellow people as the heroes. As the evil villains, sure. But protagonists must be white, right?

Whitewashing, no matter how much you pretty it up with the magical casting feeling of amazingness, is still just damn wrong.

The second half of that paragraph, which you probably didn’t even read because the first part was so rage-inducing with its faily wrongness, I shall paste again, because it also needs addressing:

Adding to the mix is the fact that some roles written for white people have been won by actors of color, and some roles written for men have been played by women. In other words, whitewashing isn’t a one-way street. It’s a difficult situation that places filmmakers between the goal of finding magic and not offending audiences. At the end of the day, most directors simply want to tell a good story.

Jesus. Okay, deep breath. First of all, the conceit of having women play roles written for men is usually about deconstruction more than it’s about some magical audition process or someone being “right” for a role. And I can’t come up with any examples of people of color playing roles “written for white people” unless you’re talking about classical theater or something. Maybe they mean Sam Jackson as Nick Fury? But again, when POC play, uh “white” roles, that actually has a different weight and purpose behind it than whitewashing. The power differentials there are NOT equal. Are POC overrepresented in Hollywood movies and American television? No. Are white people? Yes. So when whitewashing occurs, do you know who it hurts and disrespects and diminishes? POC.

The fact that this Realms columnist doesn’t understand any of this is already major fail. The fact that his or her editor doesn’t understand any of this is even bigger fail. And it’s leading many people to question why they would even bother to save such a magazine from its impending cancellation when all they have to look forward to is a bunch of racefail in the non-fiction section.

I’m just going to bottom line it for you: Whitewashing is never okay no matter what. If you don’t agree, then you’re really too far gone to exist in polite and cultured society and perhaps you should do us all a favor and go back to the cave you most certainly crawled out of.

Is that too harsh?

Realms of Fantasy Columnist Condones Whitewashing When “Magic” Is Involved -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

The next time you’re in a situation where a person says something racist and then says “But I’m not racist why would you say I’m racist?” don’t even bother trying to talk them down from the failtree. Just point them at this clip from VH1’s Bad Girl’s Club and walk away for a little while. If they don’t see where they’re going wrong after watching this classic, yet unbelievably insane trainwreck of human interaction, you might not be able to reach them just now.

Hat Tip To Blame: sparkeymonster

Constructive Ways Of Administering The Cluebat -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

The recent incident with the Arizona elementary school mural and the city councilman who hated it with his racist, racist ways got me to thinking about how it always feels to me that no matter how many minds I change via this blog or through personal interactions, it still may not be enough. There are too many people who are mired in their mindset and never have it challenged because of where they live, or who they associate with, or whatever. It might be possible to write those people off except they have children, and they teach those children either directly or by example. And the cycle continues.

So how do you combat this? One of my thoughts was that if we could teach young people about the concepts we discuss here — privilege, unpacking the knapsack, the different levels and manifestations of prejudice, bias, and bigotry — could we give them the tools to combat them or, at least, change on an individual level?

I know such efforts occur on a college level. I have a piece in a book about key debates around race (though I’m not sure when that book is coming out). Though I wonder if this is too late? Or even enough?

Kids in elementary school deal with or perpetuate bias, so shouldn’t we start with them? Of course, kids that young might not be able to fully grasp concepts of privilege (adults seem to have a hard time). What I envision is a multi-step, multi-grade curriculum designed to teach different aspects of anti-prejudice thinking and behavior appropriate to the age level. Elementary, middle school, high school, then college. You’d have two tracks — one for kids who progress from one level to the next, starting in elementary, one for kids in middle and high school who get these lessons for the first time. As far as college goes, I think every school needs to have a mandatory freshman class on Understanding the Other.

This learning scheme will not only be about race but also gender as well. And higher level materials will also include sexual orientation, class, religion, and more. And there should be discussions and lessons for kids who are likely to be the target of prejudice on how to deal with it effectively. I would also love to see materials for kids of color that specifically deals with intra-POC relations. because it’s not as if there aren’t issues there, too.

There are three aspects to this curriculum that I see as key.

1. Books. We need different ones for each learning level as well as teacher materials and activities. While my choice would be for each child to have a book they can keep, it might be more effective to aim for each school getting books they can re-use.
2. An online component. Since there are always new essays, blog posts, and amazing discussions online, there should be a repository for links or full text that teachers and students can also access. This way the books won’t have to be updated as often, but the curriculum can remain fresh. I feel a wiki would be the most useful in this regard, as that would make it easy to categorize posts, articles, and essays and make interconnections between them.
3. Independent teachers. As much as I would wish that existing teacher could implement this curriculum, I know this would not always be the case. For many schools, it might be more useful if outside teachers came in and taught during one class period — perhaps for the one devoted to social studies? — for one week twice a year. Obviously the optimal situation would be throughout the year and all the time. But you have to start somewhere. The teachers wouldn’t have to be full-time in this case. Professionals who get the training necessary and could take a week off from their job or part of the day for a week to teach. I expect this would work best in any area where the program is just getting started.

To get started on something like this one would, of course, need money. We’ll need folks to come in and help design the curriculum for each age level, we’ll need folks to write, design, and print the books and materials, we’ll need teachers. And since all the news I hear about public schools is how people keep taking their money away, I assume that the best strategy for getting this into schools is to offer it at no cost. So, privately funded.

The whole time I was thinking about this, I was sure that I can’t have ever been the only one with this idea. And someone must have implemented it somewhere. i’d love to know, if anyone out there is aware of such things. I’d also like to know how they pulled it off, what the results have been for the kids.

This idea and the structure I’ve envisioned may not be perfect or exactly right. But it’s an open source idea. Build on it, improve it, whatever. What I want the most is for people to get together and make it happen. How? I am not even sure. I’m willing to have someone tell me. Or even just to go out and do it. I don’t need to spearhead.

Thoughts?

Get Them While They’re Young: An Idea Toward Creating An Anti-Prejudice Future -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So apparently this month is LGBT Pride Month. I therefore snagged this from ontd political which gives the info that it was first put together by students of Earlham College and then link-enhanced by the current poster. Do I need to mention the part where ‘phobic assholes of any kind will be summarily deleted and banned? Oh who am I kidding? Homophobic, transphobic, any ‘phobic assholes of any kind will have their comments summarily deleted and be considered for banning depending on the severity of the offense. That having been said…on with the show.

I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation. (Example: “Gay bulling in schools ‘common’” – BBC | Campus Climate for LGs – The Task Force).

If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented. (Example: More gay characters on TV now than before – Variety | LGBT Character Shows May Lose Tax Credit – SD G&L News).

03. When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.

04. I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences. (Example: PFLAG Rejection Statistics – PFLAG)

05. I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer). (Example: From Bullies to Heroes: Homophobia in Video Games – Student Pulse.)

06. I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation. (Example: “Camp that ‘cures’ homosexuality” – Times Online.)

07. I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation. (Constance McMillen Wanted to Take Her Girlfriend to the Prom, So the School Board Canceled it – CBS News.) It’s also worth noting that CBS probably chose the worst picture of her to pair with that article. It’s hard to say if that was motivated or not.

08. I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.

09. I can be sure that my classes will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my sexual orientation. (Example: Banning Gay Books – Alternet).

10. People don’t ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.

11. People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.

12. I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.

13. My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.

14. People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.

15. I don’t have to defend my heterosexuality.

16. I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual. (Example: Homosexuality and Religion – Religion Facts).

17. I can count on finding a therapist or doctor willing and able to talk about my sexuality. (Example: Rekers and the Barbarism of Anti-Gay Therapy.)

18. I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for couples with my sexual orientation.

19. Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me. (Largest Ever Study on Anti-LGBT Harassement – GLSEN).

20. I have no need to qualify my straight identity.

21. My masculinity/femininity is not challenged because of my sexual orientation. (Examples: Are Gay Stereotypes true? – ABC).

22. I am not identified by my sexual orientation.

23. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my sexual orientation will not work against me. (Example: ‘Doctor Shock’ – Huffington Post.)

24. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has sexual orientation overtones.

25. Whether I rent or I go to a theater, Blockbuster, an EFS or TOFS movie, I can be sure I will not have trouble finding my sexual orientation represented. (Example: Before ‘Bruno’: A brief history of gay characters in movies and TV – NY Daily News).

26. I am guaranteed to find people of my sexual orientation represented in the Earlham curriculum, faculty, and administration.

27. I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare. (Example: Kiss Off: A gay couple cited for holding hands on Main Street Plaza – Salt Lake City Weekly).

28. I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.

29. I do not have to worry about telling my roommate about my sexuality. It is assumed I am a heterosexual.

31. I can remain oblivious of the language and culture of LGBTQ folk without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

32. I can go for months without being called straight. (I suppose this depends on where you are and who your friends are.)

33. I’m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.

34. My individual behavior does not reflect on people who identity as heterosexual.

35. In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my sexual orientation. For example, sex inappropriately referring to only heterosexual sex or family meaning heterosexual relationships with kids.

35. People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation. (Example: GLBT Stereotypes – GLBT Social Sciences).

36. I can kiss a person of the opposite gender on the heart or in the cafeteria without being watched and stared at. (Example: Is Main Street USA Ready For Gay PDA – ABC News).

37. Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness. (Example: John Mayer’s Apology Wanted for Use of Gay Slur – Aceshowbiz).

38. People can use terms that describe my sexual orientation and mean positive things (IE “straight as an arrow”, “standing up straight” or “straightened out”) instead of demeaning terms (IE “ewww, that’s gay” or being “queer”).

39. I am not asked to think about why I am straight.

40. I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job. (Example: Bias in the Workplace: Consistant Evidence of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination [.doc download] – UCLA).”

Can you add more?

Linkspam: Unpacking the invisible knapsack Straight privilege edition -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

The Linkmistress would like to interrupt her regular linkspams to bring you an actual blog. With words. As usual, civility is requested and will be enforced. Iron fist, velvet glove etc.

crossposted. The following critique is based on the media I have consumed and the experiences I have had. Feel free to rec media in which the things I am complaining about have been fixed. Except that Pullman fellow. I tried. I tried. But.

Pharyngula is linked to my old blog, and thus, when I go over there, I sometimes check his feed. I say sometimes, because the writer thereof is like many white middleclass atheists in that FAIL! on race issues, and the difference in scale between religions affected by the past how many hundreds of years of colonialism and Christianity is constant and unremitting (and the comment section is WORSE.) This post however Letting go of gods is a reason for joy…like being free of prison, sparked an annoyed rant that I had been turning over in my mind for a very long time.

I am an atheist. A black atheist at that. And I am HAPPY AND FULFILLED ABOUT THIS. I do NOT run around wistfully gazing after religious people, feeling sad that I am missing out on the experience of faith. Nor do I run around feeling nihilistic and angry at the world because there is no God and therefore LIFE ON EARTH HAS NO MEANING !!!!!!!!!!!!! And I sure as hell do not run about committing crimes and hurting people left, right and center because God isn’t in my life. I have ethics. And morals even. And NO that it NOT because God is in my life and I don’t know it, WHAT!!! Hell I formed my ideas of ethics and morals in direct opposition to some of the things in the Christian Bible (fer instance, the idea of a god sending his people to go kill people and take their possessions reminds me of European colonialism and is WRONG WRONG WRONG in my ethical universe. Women are intelligent and sensible and should therefore have been in on the equal human rights from the beginning of time, no excuses. In fact, in my ethical universe, strict instructions about the equality of EVERYONE from transpeople to disabled people to poc to people with alternate sexualities to people in different classes to anyone who has a mix of these identities, plus anyone else who might have been left out of this list would be MY FIRST FREAKING COMMANDMENT. And that’s just the beginning.)

I am SICK AND TIRED of encountering those tropes in most of the tv, movies and books which even deign to acknowledge the fact that people who don’t believe in gods exist in the first place. Almost every black movie and tv show or book mentions God somewhere. If a character does not believe in God, the person is taught a firm lesson, which is usually accompanied by humiliation of some sort, so as to bring them back into line (praise ye the Lord!!) For white characters in tv shows, more latitude is given in that there are atheist characters, but we end up with people like House, or atheists who are made to accept that the fact that someone has faith makes them a better person. (I think I have seen that dynamic in Bones but I may be wrong. Anyone watch the show and can clarify?) Which. It doesn’t. It makes you a different person. Good for you. But my lack of faith is just as good as your abundance of it and gives you no moral cookies over me, kthx.

So. I want proudly atheist characters who are happy about it in my media. Minorities of every kind, even. Because we exist. And our stories deserve to be respectfully told.

The myth of atheists being “less” than religious people -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

TRIGGER WARNING

NO VICTIM BLAMING IN THE COMMENTS OR YOU WILL BE BANNED. WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE. AND MALICE AFORETHOUGHT. I HAVE. NO. PATIENCE. PERIOD. you have been warned.

Because you cannot trust them. No really.

Of course, not all of them do that. But how do you know that your cop won’t?

And even when you get a good cop, the system and society itself is really, really, really really, fucked.

And then to top it off, POC face the extra burden of cops deciding to frame men of color instead of investigating to find out the real rapist. (And do not even BEGIN to think that you can use that last sentence to start propagandizing about how all women are liars and how all rape cases are made up etc. I will delete your comment and ban your ass so fast your head will spin. Just go read this: The Duke Lacrosse Case: Exploiting the issue of false rape accusations Thanks Alas a Blog). The point of the comment is that race and class sometimes intersect in the criminal justice system so that instead of properly investigating crimes, the police will go after vulnerable populations because it is easier.)

I have not even begun to consider the maelstrom that is domestic violence and abuse. Nor have I begun to look at stalking. Or street harassment. Never mind  the subject  of how state violence intertwines with and perpetuates violence between individuals.

To say nothing of the truly complex and so important issues when class and race and disability and various sexualities and whatever else intersect. Think the police response to transwomen of color who have been raped and beaten and killed by boyfriends and sometimes the police themselves. Think the police response to undocumented gay immigrants being abused. Think police response to poor POC vis a vis rich white women. think police reaction to poor white gay domestic violence and rape, never mind gay  POC domestic violence and rape. Think police response to disabled people who might be communicating though American sign language, or be blind, or mentally disabled. Think about religion fer instance. How might police respond to Muslim couples, what with the widespread prejudice in America now? As compared to Christians? And exactly WHEN is the federal gov’t going to fix the  total fuckery that has made Native American women among the most battered and raped community in the united states? If police pay little attention to rape, how much do they pay to street harassment? And those threatening behaviors that are not illegal, like forcing someone to stay in a room and watch sex acts? And what happens when domestic violence and rape touch down in the middle of activists fighting the prison and police industrial complex? Call the police? Really? And what about sex workers Never mind sex workers who happen to be transgender? Hell trans people when murdered are regularly assumed to be sex workers even when they are not, and this is one more brick that is used against them. And then we have male POC survivors. Exactly how many of those, having been on the butt-end of police racially profiling them, immigrant raids and all the other manners of BS, are going to overcome that, plus societal pressures that say that men do not get raped because they always want sex, men don’t get beaten up because they are stronger than women, all of this; to report domestic violence and rape to the police? Precisely how do you think the police would respond?

See also :Types of Sexual Assault and Biblical Battered Wife Syndrome: Christian Women and Domestic Violence

And i can’t remember if I linked this and I am too tired to look through that thicket in html We Are the Dead: Sex, Assault, and Trans Women

*sigh* I am tired but I know I have missed stuff. So drop links and debate in the comments but again I warn you that victim blaming of any sort will result in comments being deleted and me resorting to banning if you insist on being an asshole.

ETA: Remember when I said our society was really fucked up? What about the Menz Indeed

In what is one of the most deplorable examples of “What About the Menz” I’ve ever seen, Milwaukee County’s chief mental health official, John Chianelli, decided to placate violent male psychiatric patients by housing female patients in the previously sex-segregated locked ward. When the integrated ward resulted in a surge of sexual assaults against the female patients, Chianelli then defended the decision as a “trade-off.” MORE

Our society is FUCKED.

linkspam: Why didn’t you call the police? Part One -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

There is an astonishing amount to read at these links, so there won’t be a lot:

Blogging against Disabilism Day 2010 Just read everything. No really. Read everything.

And then the BP Spill pulls up news about how Western thirst for oil plays out in one country in the Global South. First there was this:

A spill of our own

THE history of American oil spills is the history of the environmental movement. The 1969 blowout of an oil platform off Santa Barbara, Calif., gave rise to Earth Day as well as President Richard Nixon’s National Environmental Policy Act, and led to a moratorium on new drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Twenty years later, the spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker near Alaska quashed the first Bush administration’s ambitions for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and ushered in the laws that made oil shippers liable for damage caused by their cargo.

….

Oil, however, is too complicated for simple solutions. Whether this spill turns out to be the result of a freakish accident or a cascade of negligence, the likely political outcome will be a moratorium on offshore drilling. Emotionally, I love this idea. Who wants an oil drill in his park or on his coastline? Who doesn’t want to punish Big Oil on behalf of the birds?

Moratoriums have a moral problem, though. All oil comes from someone’s backyard, and when we don’t reduce the amount of oil we consume, and refuse to drill at home, we end up getting people to drill for us in Kazakhstan, Angola and Nigeria — places without America’s strong environmental safeguards or the resources to enforce them.

Kazakhstan, for one, had no comprehensive environmental laws until 2007, and Nigeria has suffered spills equivalent to that of the Exxon Valdez every year since 1969. (As of last year, Nigeria had 2,000 active spills.) Since the Santa Barbara spill of 1969, and the more than 40 Earth Days that have followed, Americans have increased by two-thirds the amount of petroleum we consume in our cars, while nearly quadrupling the quantity we import. Effectively, we’ve been importing oil and exporting spills to villages and waterways all over the world.

The Deepwater Horizon spill illustrates that every gallon of gas is a gallon of risks — risks of spills in production and transport, of worker deaths, of asthma-inducing air pollution and of climate change, to name a few. We should print these risks on every gasoline receipt, just as we label smoking’s risks on cigarette packs. And we should throw our newfound political will behind a sweeping commitment to use less gas — build cars that use less oil (or none at all) and figure out better ways to transport Americans. MORE

Which leads to this:

Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta PDF The  report is long, 143 pgs. But read it just the same. It is comprehensive, dealing with the tribes that have been affected, the history of the region, pollution and human rights, pollution and its impact on the environment, the complicity of the government and how the problem can be fixed.

The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy’s 81st Precinct

Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors.

He recorded precinct roll calls. He recorded his precinct commander and other supervisors. He recorded street encounters. He recorded small talk and stationhouse banter. In all, he surreptitiously collected hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs.

Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes—made between June 1, 2008, and October 31, 2009, in the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and obtained exclusively by the Voice—provide an unprecedented portrait of what it’s like to work as a cop in this city.MORE

Basically, if you thought the NYPD was crooked and corrupt, well. It might be worse than you thought.  Or it might confirm what you thought. Gotta read to find out!

When I saw this I practically danced with glee.  I am SO SICK and SO TIRED of the OMG YOU NEED TO GET MARRIED !!!!! drumbeat.

Quoted: Dani McClain on Fierce Single Black Women and Activism

That panic is rooted in the sense that too many professional women (of any race) not getting married means too many people pushing back on sex-based pay disparities in the workplace. It means too many people questioning the logic of tying health care benefits, property rights, hospital visitation rights, etc. to marriage. To me, these articles and “news” programs are being published and broadcast in an effort to stem this coming tide. And those of us black women who feel offended and mischaracterized by the media onslaught should take this as our cue to claim our rights and our rightful place as trailblazers in the 21st century reconfiguration of family and adulthood. Rather than take the bait and feel terrible about ourselves when some media outlet tells us we’re both cause and victim of an “epidemic” or “crisis” in the black community, let’s assert that we are grown-ass human beings, and thus deserving of the same social, economic, civil and political rights that married people can access.

A vocal segment of the LGBTQ activist community has been making this argument for a while now. People like Kenyon Farrow, Jasmyne Cannick and Yasmin Nair have long been arguing that rather than making marriage the be all end all, we should be supporting each other in creating custom-made families that work for us. They’ve pointed out the folly of fighting to mimic and reproduce the patriarchal, nuclear families that continue to be held up as the only legitimate model in this country. These writers argue – and straight, unmarried black women would be smart to join the chorus — that rather than focusing on getting more people married, we should be de-linking human rights from marriage and creating space for a broader acceptance of the cobbled together, nontraditional families that many of us came up in.MORE

And to close off:

Earl Greyhound Shotgun

Linkspam : Short and Sweet -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Adviser for Americans arrested in Haiti suspected of Child Trafficking in El Salvador. So am I supposed to believe they just happened to find someone connected to human trafficking and hired him? Don’t answer that. In other “I hate the world” news this shit right here? Prime example of what happens when groups get so focused on their pet interest that they throw all logic and common sense out the window. The reality is that abortions are not happening because Planned Parenthood exists. Long before Margaret Sanger was a notion in her mother’s eye women had ways to end a pregnancy. And they did so (and still do so) for a lot of reasons having nothing to do with race, though as with everything else racism does play a part in the underpinnings of some of those reasons.

First up, there’s the purely financial aspect of things. We live in a country that begrudges people a living wage and health insurance. For some reason these are viewed as things you have to earn, and if you don’t manage to secure them then it’s all your fault for not using those magical boostraps. Never mind pesky details like limited educational opportunities, a sagging job market, and the overall lack of boots or straps that plague much of our population. Attitudes toward public assistance are ugly and filled with all sort of ridiculous myths about recipients. Especially recipients of color. That Welfare Queen schtick is alive and well along with an idea that more money = better parents. Not true.

Then there’s the reality that not every relationship that produces a child is a safe healthy long term one. That’s not exclusive to any race, but the reality is that a WOC in an abusive situation is going to have an even harder time getting help. And more kids can make it harder to leave. And of course there’s the simply reality that not every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy for a whole other host of reasons. But hey, why let facts get in the way when you can fin all new ways to pretend that WOC don’t love their children. After all, if they breed them but can’t feed them then the answer is to steal save them right? Right. Oh wait, I was supposed to be outraged at the idea of abortion wasn’t I? Sorry, I reserve that emotion for stupid manipulative ad campaigns that ignore reality.

Evaluating the Outrageous -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So this whole thing with Chris Matthews “forgetting that Obama is black” falls into that same range of racism as “Pretty for a black girl” and the “You’re not like those other black people” claptrap often espoused by the “I’m not racist, but…” crowd. They’re coded as compliments, but the subtext is still an ugly one that frames racism as being the fault of the oppressed. After all, if we’d all just be a credit to our race then our problems would go away right? Right. Oh wait, no that’s completely wrong.

Let me give you a quick history lesson on American race relations and what can happen when black people in this country are just going about their business. We can start with Rosewood, Florida. Now let’s move on to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and of course the riots that broke out right here in Chicago. What’s that? Oh, you think the early 20th century is ancient history? Okay. Let’s talk about a Baptist church in Selma, Alabama. Still too far in the past? Okay. Let’s come forward to cases like Lenard Clark’s or Abner Louima’s. Or this one on New Year’s Day 2010.

This incidents are as much a part of America’s racial history as the “I have a Dream” speech, traffic lights (invented by Garret A. Morgan, peanut butter, open heart surgery (successfully pioneered by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams), and all the other positive moments like the election of President Obama. I’ve heard people that claim to be colorblind (or post-racial) insist that the future hinges on seeing people without including race. Of course their future seems very…pale with some of the same people complaining about the continuing existence of institutions like the NAACP, HBCU’s, and other organizations that predate the Civil Right’s Movement.

I’ll buy that part of the problem is the failure of our educational system to teach history comprehensively, but that’s not the only reason for these attitudes. America’s efforts to “transcend” race are still about America’s efforts to forget the past entirely and of course to ignore anything happening right now that might require confronting reality. Racism isn’t going to go away as long as we try to pretend that ignoring race is a solution. The idea that race is something for POC to overcome is the equivalent of buying racism a new costume to replace the old hood.

Transcending Race…A History Lesson -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So, you want to help? Great. Here’s a list of charities. However if you feel the need to sound anything like Pat Robertson I’m going to need you to go sit down somewhere and be silent. The last thing anyone needs after a crisis is the bigots swooping in with lies to bolster their racism. And after all the things that have been done to Haiti over the years in the name of U.S. Foreign Policy the last thing they need is white American missionaries handing out condemnation and vilification in the guise of help. Aside from the major logical flaws in these arguments; what makes anyone think offering a helping hand in a crisis is dependent on approving of someone’s religious or social status? Oh wait, if you think that way then you’re a bigoted asshole. Stroking your ego by paying lip service to the idea of assisting victims while bashing them for some imagined sin isn’t true charity or particularly Christ-like. If you’re going to claim to be a Christian you might want to act like one.

On Haiti, Helping and Hurting -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman