Yesterday we learned that Mitt Romney, in addition to being a vulture capitalist and a rank political opportunist, was also a schoolyard bully. This is my unsurprised face.

John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend…

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

… “It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said.

… “He was just easy pickin’s,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it.

… Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened.

Read the entire article for more exciting tales of Mitt’s teenage years.

Romney claims that he doesn’t remember the incident, but we all know that he does. We know this not just because the man is a proven liar, but because when a person carries out an act of violence like that, they remember it. Probably with a lot of pride.

The only way I would accept that Mitt doesn’t remember that particular incident is if there were so many times that he bullied and assaulted classmates he didn’t like and thought were gay that he just can’t separate one from another. Either way, the picture is pretty grim.

And not all that surprising.

Consider the kind of man Romney is. He has not a bit of compassion, empathy, or regard for people other than himself and the people he holds dear¹. He casually destroys people’s lives, makes their jobs disappear, then laughs and makes jokes about it. His ever-changing political stances prove that he doesn’t hold values, he pretends them, and says whatever is politically expedient no matter who it hurts.

And he knows he can get away with it, because he’s been getting away with imposing his will on others in a violent manner since school. No teacher, no principal, no student challenged or punished him for what he did to that kid. He probably went home to his family and received praise for it.

Mitt Romney is a perfect example of why the problem of bullying needs to be addressed at all times, wherever it happens. Schools need to take responsibility, parents need to take responsibility. And this is for the good of the victim of the bullying as much as the bully themselves. Because, if gone unchecked, that bully may grow up to think victimization is acceptable. Which means that more people have to suffer because of the bully’s lack of empathy or restraint.

Any time anyone wants to give me an excuse for why they won’t take steps to stop bullying, whether it be because of some myth about the victims needing to “man up” or some bullshit about not having enough resources to deal with it, I am going to point at the nearest picture of Mitt Romney and say “people like you are the reason why Mitt Romney is the man he is. If you admire him, then you’re just as bad. If you recoil from that thought, stop making excuses and address this problem.”

Mitt Romney Inadvertantly Teaches Us A Lesson About The Long Term Effects Of Bullying -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. And it is apparently limited to people. Just look at what he did to his poor dog.

Princeless has been nominated for an Eisner!

Mary Anne Mohanraj’s collection of SF erotica looks fantastic!

Charles Saunders‘ Damballa, was just awarded Best Pulp Novel of 2011! Here’s an excerpt of a review:

I Got Your Book: The Gilda Stories -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

A review of Kingdom of Gods

A review of this month’s Stone Telling

On why multiculturalism is just good writing. 

Hooray for Tayari Jones — reader demands have made her first two books once again available!

Annnnnnnnnd here’s Kindred…. as a radio drama. 

Hooray for Tor’s poetry month!

A review of American Dervish highlighting its focus on interfaith relationships

A review of the myriad influences on Mirror, Mirror

“What do we want? Books! When do we want them? Now! Who are we? Librostraficantes!” 

I Got Your Book: This Time, It’s LITERARY -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I could be Rekia Boyd. Easily. I can’t tell you how many warm nights have included me hanging out in the park with friends. Just shooting the shit you know? Have we been loud? Probably. But there’s a reason it was an off duty cop “new to the neighborhood” & not a patrol car.

People who grew up in the area wouldn’t call the cops over something as mundane as people hanging out in the park. Because they know that Chicago police can be trigger happy, and no one wants that on their conscience over some hollering. I don’t buy the idea that a large group of black bodies = crime, but I know a lot of people who trumpet on & on about the joys of gentrification do. Lawndale is definitely facing gentrification as the West Loop gets to be the newest hot spot. Garfield Park & Lawndale are right there & full of big cheap houses that could be worth millions in a few years.

So, there are new neighbors who talk about how great the properties are & how scary the long time residents are even if they never quite say why they find them so frightening. The cop mistaking a phone at someone’s ear for a gun? That’s part of the same system of scary black man myths that killed Trayvon Martin. It’s so embedded in America’s collective psyche that we’re criminals that it probably didn’t even occur to this cop that black people could be out enjoying one of the warmest March days in history & that not be a reason to suspect anything more than an impromptu block party. No weapons were recovered at the scene, a woman is dead, a man is injured & has been charged with assault for standing outside on his phone. That’s what it means to be black in America.

Black in America -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Had a conversation with kid #1 (12 years old), about how to handle himself if he’s been stopped by the cops, or someone like Zimmerman. Somewhere in the middle of explaining how to protect his head & neck if a cop decided to kick his ass (happened to my husband when he was 13), and how to respond if a cop calls him a nigger (happened to me at 12) I had this sudden ridiculous urge to start screaming. I didn’t.

I kept talking to him, and he mentioned racist kids at his school & how there’s one teacher who lets them get away with it, but who threatens to write him up if he says anything back. And I asked him if he wanted us to get involved & he said no because he’d already handled it. How did he handle it? He told the teacher to go ahead & write him up and then they could all talk to the principal about the things she lets kids say to him. She left him alone after that so he doesn’t want me to come wreck shit.

Which…says a lot about my kid & about our family I guess, but the reality is that it’s good that he’s learning to defend himself against the system. And shit like that is why we stay in cities & don’t live in suburbs. My parents moved me to burbs in high school, and it was a lot more than one teacher turning a blind eye to racism. I don’t have any answers for other parents of young black males. None. I’m muddling through & hoping that this can all be life lessons he never needs to use.

But, his 19 year old cousin is planning to come over & talk to him about dealing with the cops because he’s been there and done that. And I just…we’re passing down through the generations life lessons on how to handle/avoid police brutality because it’s just that necessary. And people want to claim that America is post racial, or racism isn’t widespread. How many individual acts does it take to make up a system? How many beatings, rapes, & deaths will it take for that system to be acknowledged by everyone?

Life Lessons -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’m posting this here on ABW even though the conversation originated on Tumblr and most of the context is there because I think some might find it illuminating. I often come across white people who are convinced they are not racist and warriors for social justice but, by their actions and words, reveal themselves to be… not that.

This type of person can usually be found railing against angry blogs like mine and the one under discussion below because in said blogs we say bad things about white people. And it’s just not fair, you know? Not right. Not all white people are racists, and I’m a racist for even suggesting such a thing!

You know the type.

Thing is, people like are using the tools of racism and oppression (sometimes without knowing it) to bolster their claims of being against racism and oppression. All white totally assured, in their own minds, of being the true good person in the scenario.

One such person goes by ReasonableBro on Tumblr. He first came to my attention because someone reblogged this post from the Tumblr Dumb Things White People Say. The original post discusses harassment the blogger’s mother (who is of black Caribbean descent) has had to deal with for two years. ReasonableBro responded by saying that racism was not a factor and also DTWPS is a terrible, racist blog.

I sent him a message filled with my usual snark, and at the end of a long, nonsensical chain of craziness, he asked me to explain exactly why people keep calling him a racist. I decided to oblige and this is the result.

ETA: After my response to him went live on Tumblr Mr. Reasonable went back and deleted all of the posts in relation to my conversation with him and his original reply to DTWPS. I don’t know if maybe he doesn’t understand how Tumblr works, but his deleting his posts does not delete the reblogs of his posts, which quote him. At any rate, I have updated this post to point to said reblogs but not one word of his posts have been changed, just so you know.

It’s taken me a few days to get to this because of work. But your repeated reblogging in my direction has not allowed me to forget that I promised you answer to the question of why I and others have called you a racist. The answer is long. If you choose not to read it all the way through I can’t force you. But I suggest that you do.

To begin, I’m quoting you from here.

That isn’t a racism thing, it’s a sexism thing.

Most of the beginning of your rant is a further expanding on this thesis, but I don’t need to quote any more of it in order to say: you’re wrong.

The first assumption you made is that the post in question was attempting to say that the kind of harassment the OP’s mom faced was due only to race. The OP did not say that. The OP did say “This is the upper level workforce for black women” but just because she said Black doesn’t mean that it somehow erases Women.

Yes, sexism is definitely at play here. Your assertion that race has nothing to do with it because this kind of thing happens to women of all races betrays your ignorance. You can’t erase the fact that this happened to a black woman. And you can’t erase that the motivators for the harasser acting the way he did are likely rooted in race.

If you understood any kind of sociology about how black women are seen by white men due to both historical bullshit baggage carried in multiple cultures and present societal climates then you would know that part of the reason this harasser thought he could lay claim to the OP’s mom is that he didn’t see her as a full person, and that’s more than likely to do with a combination of her race and gender, not just one or the other.

It doesn’t matter that this kind of thing happens to white women as well. That still does not erase race from this equation. It does not even mean that if we were to somehow “solve” sexism that same woman would not have that same problem with that same man.

Beyond all that, by attempting to dismiss the OP’s lived experience, not to mention the lived experience of her mother and millions of other women of color by claiming that race really has no role in this particular issue you’re being ignorant and an asshole. You, a white man, do not get to decide for women or people of color where sexism and racism happen or where they happen together. Not your experience and not your call.

I have feels for your mum, you on the other hand are a cunt.

Earlier in your screed you called America the most sexist country and seemed to feel that sexism is wrong. So what’s up with throwing this gendered insult around? It’s just another way I can tell you’re not as enlightened as you pretend. If you’re really interested in promoting harmony and not prejudice you wouldn’t go calling someone a cunt.

Stop spreading hate and furthering racial isolationism with your shitty blog.

The irony is that people like you make people like the OP want to isolate themselves from white people because this is the level of discourse that comes from a person supposedly committed to racial harmony. Friends like you we don’t need.

Based on something you said in one of your other responses to me I am coming to understand that you have some kind of specific beef with this blog and get mad when people come out and defend it. So I’m going to explain to you where I’m coming from on this issue.

I don’t follow dumbthingswhitepplsay but I see a lot of the posts because several of my friends do. I don’t think that I know the person who runs it. In general, I find myself in agreement with the posts I see. I have no vested interest in the blog itself except that it’s always good to have more voices of color in the conversation.

So, having said all that, here’s what I think of your opinion of this blog: you’re butthurt because it doesn’t cater to your delicate fee fees. You think that because you are no fan of racism that you can’t fall prey to racist thinking, unconscious or otherwise. You want cookies for not liking racism and this blog doesn’t give them. This blog doesn’t reward you in any for being what you consider a good person and that pisses you off so much that you engage in hate speech in order to rail against this blog’s supposed prejudice and hate.

Do you see where you went wrong in there?

Whenever I see white people getting angry about the tone of a POC’s blog or stance on the issue of race, especially when that white person is supposedly an ally, it’s a huge clue that said white person is not actually an ally. I believe that you’re against racism on some level, but you’re not willing to take yourself out of the center of your feelings about it. Your fight against racism is all about you and how it makes you feel, it’s not about the people who actually experience racism.

Your anger at this blog stems from the fact that it explicitly takes you our of the center and says that it actively does not need you. Why do you need to be needed by this blog or by any anti-racist entity or person? Why must you be the center?

And how do I know you think of yourself as the center? Because you keep talking about you you you.

It’s very existence offends me, not as a white person but as a human being in support of multiculturalism and racial assimilation. I actually haven’t been as disgusted at self-righteousness since one of my dumbass facebook friends said “Victoria is becoming one of the shittiest places in the world to live” because “whites are becoming a minority”.

…Your idea of engaging in “nice dialogue with every white person who does something even mildly racist” has not made me appreciate what you do here. Australia [where I live] is arguably the most racist country in the western world, I have to argue with racist white idiots once a week at the very least. I am one of only people I know in my generation who will defend the native aboriginal populace in an argument.

It goes on. And while it’s a positive that you recognize the issues faced by people of color in your country, what’s not positive is how you seem to feel that your struggle on their behalf is just as harmful and emotionally draining as actually being one of those people. You are also desperate to receive props for it. You may not think you think this way, but that is how it comes off.

Especially when you get into “racism against whites” because, yeah: no. If you understood racism at all other than in a surface way that’s centered on you, then you would understand that prejudice against white people for being white is just prejudice. Race-based, yes, but not racism. Because racism requires a structure of societal power to back it.

Race-based prejudice isn’t good, but it’s still not racism. Any white person claiming that others are being racist toward them is trying to center the dialogue on themselves.

It’s not about you, son. It’s never about you.

Your citing of Will Shetterly¹ also marks you as being a clueless douchecanoe, because he is the King of the Clueless Douchecanoes.

My dream is to live in a world where total multiculturalism is so abundant that no country has any racial majority.

Of course you do, because you’re white.

You’re hoping for a world where the differences between peoples will be erased and we’ll all just be a cultreless, raceless blob of sameness. Making everyone the same does not equate to racial harmony.

Not least because you cannot make everyone the same. It will never work out. And even when people are the “same” in terms of the created construct of “race”, folks will still find ways to separate out others for bullshit reasons.

I hope for a world where people recognize and celebrate differences instead of being afraid or wary of them.

Living in a country where one “race” is in the majority and another in the minority isn’t the basic problem, the basic problem arises when either of those groups shapes culture in order to further the myth that the group is superior in some way. That can happen even if the jerk race in question is in the minority. See South Africa and Apartheid for more information.

In that world, the white systematic oppression machine you supremacists describe will no longer exist, and the power to promote prejudices will be ranked for individuals, not entire races.

ahahahahaaaaaaaa no. Any decent understanding of history would tell you that this just wouldn’t happen. At least, not simply because no particular “race” would be in the majority. It doesn’t always take a majority of people in order to create a supremacy, just enough power.

That you don’t get this is so very white of you. You have no idea of the real roots of racism, supremacy, prejudice, and culture. In fact, you don’t have to. You don’t deeply examine these issues because you don’t have to. You know how I know? Because of the fantasy story you just spun out right there. Clear indicator.

You have a problem with the way the american mainstream media portrays black people, take it up with Rupert Murdoch, not his entire race.

As to why DTWPS or any other anti-racist blog or person doesn’t just focus on specific media moguls or other individuals instead of just focusing on the “race” of white people, my guess would be because Rupert Murdoch isn’t the only problem.

The reason one talks about “white people” is because white people (as a group) are a problem. Unless you, as a white person, are actively fighting against racism not only by yelling at your friends for saying stupid things but by also examining your own self for the cobwebs of ingrained prejudice and stereotypical or wrong thinking, then you’re contributing to the problem. Hell yeah the media is part of it, but so are consumers of media who don’t even spend 5 minutes in a day thinking about the messages being fed to them.

When you, as a white person, begin to actually analyze the externals AND the internals and start to get it, you will cease to be offended by blogs that are like “Ahhhh white people omg!” because 1) you’ll also be saying AHHH WHITE PEOPLE and 2) you’ll know you’re not the white people in question.

You seem to be under the impression that the poster behind DTWPS and I want you to hate your whiteness and piss on your ancestors² and have white guilt. This is a vastly ignorant understanding of what’s going on here. Let me explain what I do want.

I want you and other white people to understand what racism really is, how it really harms, and how it is actually active in our world, in our culture, and in our lives. I want white people to be angry that it happens, ashamed that such a thing could happen and that they could be unconsciously part of perpetuating it, then turn that feeling into positive action. There’s no purpose for me or any other person for y’all to sit around feeling guilty and beating yourselves about the head over it. Acknowledge it, understand it, then do something about it. That’s what I want.

Part of understanding racism is to know that, as a white person, your knowledge does not trump my experience. Part of being an anti-racist ally is to know when to let voices of color speak first and loudest and when it’s appropriate for your voice to lead. It’s about understanding how to fight against racism without centering the conversation around yourself. It’s about knowing that it isn’t about you, no matter how many feelings you have on the subject.

You mentioned something about “colored superiors” here too. That made me laugh. The way in which I am superior to you based solely on my color is that I have a superior understanding of what it means to be the target of racism. That’s not a superiority anyone would voluntarily seek.

And finally, you asked:

I’m just curious as to why everyone who disagrees with dumbthingswhitepeoplesay are racist. This is never really explained. We have all been saying basically the same thing, which is that the blog does nothing but make PoC angry at white people for no reason, rather than actually fighting racism by targeting actual racists.

For No Reason. Really? There’s no reason for people of color to be angry at white people? When we have you, who is supposedly fighting racism by telling people of color how they’re allowed to express their anger and lived experiences, by dictating to us how we’re allowed to relate to white people such as yourself, by claiming that racism doesn’t affect a situation that you yourself have never been in? I think that’s plenty of reason to be angry at white people, if we are angry.

Your feelings are hurt by her blog? Got three words for that: BOO FUCKING HOO. A blog that spells out actual things going down in the world that hurt people of color both physically and emotionally and YOUR feelings are hurt? GOSH.

My feelings are hurt on a daily basis by racism, usually by people who don’t even think they’re being racist. And on a rare day when I’m not being hurt by racism I get to contend with sexism, or maybe some homophobia for extra fun. That is the reality of many people’s lives, not just mine. So don’t fucking talk to me about feelings, son.

You want to know why you’re labeled a racist? For me, it’s not even because you disagreed with DTWPS, it’s because of the way you disagreed, the words you used in disagreement, and the attitude you’ve displayed throughout the entire arm of the interaction I’ve seen. It’s not about that blog or my need to defend it — I don’t have one — it’s about your stupid ass somehow thinking that you’re really against racism when all you are is against that which makes you feel uncomfortable. You don’t care what makes those affected by racism uncomfortable at all.

And that’s the last thing I have to say to you ever.

Why Do People Keep Calling Me A Racist? An Explanation For (Some) White People -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. Do Not Engage! ::throws salt and sage at her digital borders to ward him off::
2. I had to change this link to point to my Tumblr blog because this is one of the posts Mr. Reasonable deleted.

I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about OWS, police brutality, race, gender, & intersectionality. Many of those posts include links to the famous stories of police brutality. And those stories are important & should be told. But, by only talking about those stories I worry that we’re giving the impression that police brutality is relatively rare in communities of color. I’ve posted in the past about the cop who called me a nigger when I was 12 & the time my (then) 13 year old husband was beaten up by a cop. But, those weren’t our only run ins with abusive police officers. Experience has taught me to worry about the cops. I think of them as a risk to navigate more than I think of them as people who are here to protect me or my family. My husband & I have already had the talks with our oldest son about how to act when he’s stopped by the cops. Notice I said when he’s stopped.

That’s because I have been stopped while doing everything from taking a walk to grocery shopping to helping someone move. My father in law runs a Medicar service that primarily caters to the elderly who need help getting from their homes to doctor’s appointments. My husband used to ride along to help him out, since it’s a family business. One day they were stopped by the police because some cop decided a white van leaving a hospital on the West Side of Chicago fit the description of a tan truck that had been involved in a robbery in the Loop. They forced them out of the vehicle at gunpoint while a bunch of elderly people watched & worried. When it became clear that they didn’t fit the description? The cops told them they were free to go and left. That’s it. No apology, no consideration for all the people in the vehicle, but then everyone involved was a POC.

Matter of fact, let me tell you about Kourtney Wilson. I’ve known her since she was a teenager. She’s a nice young lady who unfortunately has lupus. Two years ago she had a seizure, her roommate dialed 911 & when the paramedics came (despite being told about her health status), they manhandled her & had the police arrest her.  As if that wasn’t bad enough they took her all over the place (two different precinct houses & two different hospitals) so that she was denied medical treatment for 9 hours. Think about that for a second. NINE HOURS after she had the seizure she finally got the help she needed. And that’s a case that only made the local news & the blogosphere before vanishing into the Wayback machine to be dug up by people like me with a reason to know her name. Imagine being afraid to call an ambulance when someone you love needs one because they could be arrested for being sick. Imagine being killed in your own home like Kathryn Johnston or Aiyana Jones. Imagine being harassed or having a gun pulled on you just because you’re going about your day while being of color.

We don’t have to be at a protest, or actually fit the description of a suspect to have a negative interaction with the police. Officers like John Burge have tortured POC into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit & gotten away with it for decades. We know the police cannot be trusted. So, to see the police using pepper spray on protestors, or going out dressed in riot gear to evict them from encampments? Not at all a shock. I know some will say “Well now we know, & we’re trying to fix it for everyone” but you’ll pardon me if I don’t buy that the changes OWS is fighting for will extend to POC. Not when every time someone brings up race and OWS there is invariably a “It’s not about race, it’s about class. Why are you being divisive?” response from multiple people. POC of every class have to be concerned with the possibility of police brutality, & until OWS addresses that reality, how can it represent the entire 99%?

On Police Brutality, Living While Of Color, & Why Brutality At OWS isn’t Shocking -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

If you can  spare a few bucks (every dollar helps) please consider kickstarting this great film project!

Help Increase Nuanced Racial Representation in The Media -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I meant to post this yesterday, but work things got in the way. Then the ever-wonderful Cleolinda posted the long, long post I was going to write and said everything I was going to say. So I’ll keep mine short. I suggest you click over to Cleolinda’s blog for the full story. Seriously.

A few days ago Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith wrote a guest post for the Genreville blog over at Publisher’s Weekly about their experience with an unnamed agent who asked them to make changes to their YA manuscript to erase the fact that a main POV character was gay. At least for the first book in the series. The pair went on to say that they’d heard that this thing with erasing gay characters in YA was something other authors experienced and thus they felt the need to write about it and bring the overall issue to light.

They did not name the agent or agency. They moved on from their specific example to the broader issue. They pointed out that this seemed to come from a concern over market forces rather than labeling anyone Homophobic or Gay Hating. If you don’t believe me, go read the original.

The post sparked a big conversation about the issue and I saw in the comments and on blogs and social networks that several other authors, published and not, talk their stories of having agents and/or editors tell them to remove gay characters from their YA.

Then Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, an agent with Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation, posted on Colleen Lindsay’s blog, The Swivet, outing her agency as the one in question (though claims she is not the specific agent in question) and essentially called Rachel and Sherwood liars. Under the guest post part, Colleen added this:

FACT: Both these writers already have their own agents. At least one of those agents reps YA books. So what does it say when the respective agents for both these well-established writers advise them to find a different agent for the book in question because neither of them wanted to rep it themselves?

It tells me that homophobia was most likely not the reason that this book has thus far not found representation.

And that made me see red because that just looks like a personal attack and an attempt to dismiss what Rachel and Sherwood said by saying that their book is no good. Further, on my Facebook page, Colleen claimed that she knew other agents who turned the book down because it had structural issues.

I like and respect Colleen a lot, but I’m calling bullshit on this. Though she says she didn’t mean for the above words to be an attack, that’s what it looks like. And, even if other agents passed on the book for structural reasons, that does not mean that the conversation as represented by Rachel and Sherwood didn’t happen. One does not preclude the other.

Putting that aside, at this point we’ve reached He Said/She Said, and it comes down to which side you believe. Stampfel-Volpe said that at no time did they say they wanted to eliminate the character because of the gayness. Rachel and Sherwood maintain that this is indeed what was said.

For my part, I believe Rachel and Sherwood. My main criteria being that my interactions with Rachel online and the interactions and friendships she has with people I know and trust do not lead me to believe she would lie in this way. I don’t know Sherwood well, but nothing I have ever heard from her good friends leads me to believe she would perpetuate a hoax for publicity or lie for profit.

Rose Fox of Genreville apparently felt the same way. Colleen mentions something about how the piece wasn’t fact checked, but how was that supposed to happen? The agency wasn’t named. And even though there are claims that the gossip identified the agency, the majority of us wouldn’t know without their self-outing. These are not the kind of “facts” that can be easily checked because the other party can say “That didn’t happen” and they could be lying just as easily as the authors. Rose used her judgment based on what she knows about the two women and, so far, I haven’t seen any reason for her to have doubted that.

Additionally, Stampfel-Volpe’s post is filled with the kind of red flags I see every day as an anti-prejudice activist. The tone is too defensive¹ and unconvincing. Plus, what exactly do you expect the agency to say? “Yes, we did that”? No. Hell no.

Think about it. If they did request the changes Rachel and Sherwood claim and did so because of market forces and such, they wouldn’t admit to it especially if they aren’t homophobic themselves. It’s just like the whole cover controversy with Justine Larbalestier’s Liar. I’m sure that her publishers are not racist people, but they put a non-black person on the cover of her book at first because they assumed that systemic racist attitudes would hurt sales. That is not something you want to admit in public, because it’s gross. It happens, though. We all know it happens. And thanks to #YesGayYA we know that the erasure of gay characters in YA happens, too. And it’s still gross.

No one wants to admit when they give in to prejudiced bullshit.

The other reason I just don’t believe Stampfel-Volpe is that she made this whole thing personal:

One of our agents is being used as a springboard for these authors to gain attention for their project. She is being exploited. But even worse, by basing their entire article on untruths, these authors have exploited the topic.

Someone explain to me how the agent in question is being exploited when he/she wasn’t named. Also, bringing a topic to light is not exploitative. The kind of people I see using language like that are the folks who try to tell me that by bringing up racism or “inventing” it when it’s not there, I am the one being racist. This is a classic defense. It may even be on the BINGO card. When I see people using this kind of language, I immediately distrust what they have to say. I’ve been on the receiving end of this too often to not recognize it.

I suggest you read the original Genreville post and the other excellent links at Cleolinda’s blog before you come down on one side or the other, especially if you don’t know any of the people involved. The readiness of some people to immediate jump to HOAX! based on absolutely nothing but one person’s word would astonish me if I didn’t already have plenty of experience watching people readily dismiss real prejudice that exists right in front of them as not-prejudice. It’s so much more comforting to think that someone is just a lying liar than that there’s a serious problem to tackle.

Tackling problems requires thought, effort, and often sacrifice. Who wants to deal with that?

My Thoughts On The Latest #YesGayYA Developments -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. Especially the parts added by Colleen, who emphatically claims that the agent is a good friend and not homophobic, even though Rachel and Sherwood didn’t say he/she was. A person might not be personally homophobic, but still perpetuate the idea that mainstream readers are too homophobic to deal with gay charcaters. It’s a systemic problem, and one need not be personally prejudiced in order to bow to the system.

TRIGGER WARNING for descriptions of abuse of people with disabilities. Hell, the whole darn book is a trigger warning for abuse, rape and other triggering stuff.

Description: Photo shows the cover of a book. Two people of color are drawn, holding hands and looking at each other on a balcony. The person on the right has short curly hair and brown skin and is wearing a green t-shirt and jeans. The person on the left has long curly hair caught up in a hair tie at the back of the head and also has brown skin. The person is wearing a light purple t-shirt and yellow belt and brown pants. Both people are wearing bracelets. In the distance are electricity poles and houses. The background colour is a warm orangey red. The text says: “The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Partner Violence within Activist Communities. Edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna- Smarasinha. Preface by Andrea Smith.”

Attempts to deal with intimate partner violence for able-bodied folk are pretty woefully inadequate. However, as Peggy Munson testifies during this searing chapter in The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Partner Violence Within Activist Communities, attempts to deal with disabled persons who are surviving intimate partner violence are in many ways non-existent and at best are sadly lacking in many areas.

Description: Photo shows two pages of a book. On the left hand side is the chapter’s name: Seeking Asylum (in capital letters and black font): On Intimate Partner Violence and Disability. (in what resembles italics and black font.) The Author’s name is Peggy Munson. There is a large grey-coloured, stylized capital ‘S’ that goes almost from the top to the bottom of the page, passing through the word ‘seeking’. On the right hand side of the book, the essay begins on the lower third of the page.

Ms. Munson’s essay weaves her arguments into her personal narrative of her experience with abusers and the broken systems that kept her tied to them. She then buttresses her line of reasoning with copious examples, all testament to the fact that the social justice community is woefully unable to offer much help in terms of providing care to survivors, enabling them to report and escape abuse or holding abusers accountable. Some of the points that she makes include:

1. Societal ableism, which too many social justice seekers have not properly interrogated; makes abuse of people with disabilities much worse because abusers are often the only people who make the effort to provide proper life-sustaining care to people with disabilities, in order to exploit and abuse them:

To understand how disability functions in Intimate Partner Violence, one has to shelve denial about how deeply inaccessible US culture can be to people with some disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act … polarizes disabilities into the “reasonable” and “unreasonable” by using the term “reasonable accommodation” to denote just how far requisite allowances must go. … Some disabilities cross a line by becoming — by cultural standards– too unwieldly to accomodate, resulting in a warped and deadly triage of the “reasonably” disabled who get some human rights, and the “unreasonably disabled” who don’t.

…

People from social service agencies frequently tell me that my disability would place unreasonable demands on everyone else.

…

In a culture that shuns and penalizes human vulnerability and provides at best an inadequate and spotty caregiving net, people with disabilities often rely on their abusers for food, bathing, toileting, transportation and other survival needs. Many caregivers–not just partners–have intimate access to the lives of people with disabilities. But leaving an abusive relationship can be imminently life threatening because victims might lose sustaining care, and replacing this can be next to impossible unless their are non-abusive family members or friends willing to provide it. If IPV organizations don’t understand this pressing need for transitional (or long-term) hands on care, a disabled person will often not be able to leave.

In short, we have managed to set up a society in which the more you need help, the less human rights you are entitled to. The closer to able-bodied you are, the easier it is to navigate the world of the ablebodied in order to get care, to avoid abuse and report abuse. As you become more vulnerable however, you become less able to access proper care, negotiate abuse-reporting channels that are exhausting for able-bodied people, nevermind people with disabilities; and have to contend with ableist assumptions about what abuse is and how you should be able to deal with it; thus leaving you at the mercy of abusers.

And this cultural indifference and callousness plays out in situations like the general inaccessibility of the legal system; here represented by Ms. Munson’s experience of trying to file a restraining order against one of her many abusers, only to find herself unable to because the courthouse required that she be there in person to go through the process, even though she cannot leave her house because of extreme chemical sensitivity. In addition, society is generally reluctant to incorporate universal design when we build our buildings; with the result that domestic violence shelters are unable to properly accommodate people with disabilities, who are among the most vulnerable of abuse victims:

Many IPV organizations are in fact performing oppressive acts of neglect and exclusion that mimic those of abusers, by denying access (not providing materials in braille, not installing wheelchair ramps, not enforcing strict fragrance free polices) … using a tired social justice argument that its too hard, too expensive, or too embarrassing to ask others for accommodation requirements, so that they avoid accountability for their marginalization of people with disabilities.

Then there is the lack of accessible communication methods with IPV specialists depending on the disability, IPV organizations not knowing the laws that would protect their clients, (like the fact that the state requires that abuse of people with disabilities be reported to the relevant authorities), and appointed advocates who have not been educated as to the different ways in which abuse can manifest among people with disabilities, nor about the different methods of communication that need to be put in place to accommodate them.

By and large, it is not Stockholm syndrome that holds a disabled person to an abusive caregiver, but material and often elaborate acts of acts deprivation and torture. When some has a disability, these acts are easy to inflict (and obscure from the point of view of others): they may just be a matter of hiding someone’s painkillers, or sabotaging his TTY (text telephone), or — most insidously — becoming and indispensable aid so that he cannot function without the provided care. Disabled individuals cannot just get up and go… Whereas a safety plan for an ablebodied person may involve words like run, walk, call or drive, these action verbs may not be possible for a quadriplegic, a heart failure patient, someone with a brain stem injury, or someone with a cognitive impairment. It is naive to assume that a disabled person can be ushered into a world of safety simply be leaving her abuser, when the world at large is full of physical, emotional, economic and cultural barriers.”

(As a related aside, a commenter on a Racialicious article named Empower and Educate has similar remarks re:deaf persons and domestic violence here)

2. The idea that taking care of people with disabilities is not a communal priority in a society that equally values all of inhabitants, but a rare and heroic action, worthy of extreme pats on the back by an ableist society and gratefulness on the part of the people with disabilities who are lucky enough to receive this help. Society expects that any caregiving should be primarily the family’s responsibility. Ms. Munson’s family refuse to step up to the plate, so Ms. Munson was forced to rely on partners willing to embark on a romantic relationship with her in order to get sustained care, because caregivers who were paid to take care of her were hard to keep, did not learn about her illness in detail and did not have enough hours. Too many times, the tradeoff was that those partners were abusive. The fact that society thinks that an able-bodied intimate partner willing “put up” with a disabled partner is worthy of near sainthood means that people with disabilities are already on the wrong foot when abuse rears its horrific head. Abusers can use the perception of their work as uncommon generosity to help them delegitimize the survivor’s voice. Also, more sympathy goes to the caregiver than the the person with disabilities, who is seen as a burden. Our old friend victim-blaming makes a devastating appearance here as:

…disabled people are more likely to be blamed for their abuse, because they are perceived as difficult to be around or care for, and ‘caregiver stress’ is considered a legitimate excuse for bad behaviour.

It really should go without saying that this is not at all acceptable, but apparently it needs to be said, because people actually believe this, and act accordingly. Even those in the social justice community, who should know better!

Ms. Munson continues on to point out that nothing less than a fullscale reorganization of how we view people with disabilities is going to lead to change. When we start actually viewing people with disabilities as full members of society worthy of care and respect, then we will be able to listen to and act with them to address their concerns. She then closes by offering a number of suggestions for IPV organizations to make the drastic improvements needed to tackle the absolutely horrendous scale of the problem, and offers suggestions for intersectionality work between organizations that deal with race, poverty, sex orientation, prison abolition and organizations that work on the welfare of people with disabilities.

This wasn’t the first essay that I read this week, but it was the most wrenching, informative, lay-it-on-the-line and kick-you-in-the-pants one so far. I did get a slightly “rambling” vibe from the piece when I first read it, but after re-reading it several times, I think that its simply very comprehensive. The language is not academic; in fact, I don’t think that any of the language in the book is academic and the average reader should be able to grasp the points being made quite easily. I’d say that if like me you were fairly uniformed about the topic, this essay should serve as a good starting place for you to get your information.

I did have several thoughts about Ms. Munson’s lack of ability to acquire sufficient caregiving, but I think I will make that a separate post for next time.

Previously in this series: An Idiosyncratic Review of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities Part One

The Revolution Starts at Home Review Part 2: Peggy Munson’s “Seeking Asylum: On Intimate Partner Violence and Disability.” -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman