This pledge is titled, “THE MARRIAGE VOW: A Declaration of Dependence Upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY.” … To their partial credit, their pledge opens by acknowledging that one cannot claim to defend marriage without focusing on the high divorce rate, broken families, infidelity and other challenges (besides THE GAYS) “threatening” traditional marriage. … To their discredit, the first bullet point is:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.

This is the point at which my brain started to bleed from the anger + incredulousness + assault by batshittery.

Why stop at two-parent households? Let’s celebrate the free housing, healthcare and meal plan offered to every black slave! You know what else slavery did for black people? Exercise! Oh it was just great! We even got to work outside. Speaking of work, today, African-American unemployment is over 16 percent. In Milwauke, Wisc., over one-third of black men are unemployed. But during slavery times, every black man had a job! See, things were better in the past, and now things are bad. Ah, the good old days…

Scope whole thing over at Baratunde Thurston’s blog.

From The Angry Black Tumblr | Comment below or Reblog @ Tumblr

Right Above the lying black girl is the angry one

The actual problem with the angry black girl? IS that above all odds against all things she usually has circumvented the other stereotype plotholes prescribed to her.

She isn’t  "ghetto"

She hasn’t used militant language.

She has cited facts and figures.

Her point while sharply ( as defined by the stereotyper) expressed is valid.

If she is steaming , flipping out f-shit up angry? And the best you have is to state her emotional state , it is usually because the stereotyper’s ability to reassert dominance in any logical way has fled.

In short, the ABG has caught you in a perpetuation of injustice or insensitivity AND in doing so undermined your superiority.

ABG is the catchall!

Read the rest here.

From The Angry Black Tumblr | Comment below or Reblog @ Tumblr

Sister Song website

Reproductive Justice: 101

Loretta Ross of SisterSong on “Reproductive Justice 101″ Part 1

Loretta Ross of SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, gives a lecture on “Reproductive Justice 101″ in Miami during June of 2008, sponsored by Women’s Fund of Miami and Mi Lola. Check out their website at http://sistersong.net/

Loretta Ross of SisterSong on “Reproductive Justice 101″ Part 2

Loretta Ross of SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, gives a lecture on “Reproductive Justice 101″ in Miami during June of 2008, sponsored by Women’s Fund of Miami and Mi Lola. Check out their website at http://sistersong.net/

Reproductive Justice: Abortion

Loretta Ross: The Economic and Racial Dynamics of Abortion

Loretta Ross, reproductive justice and human rights activist, talks about the racial and economic dynamics of abortion, STDs, teen pregnancy and health care.

The 2010 Documentary “The Abortion Conspiracy

Abortion Conspiracy Part 1: The Billboard Campaign

Part 2

Episode Two of a five part series looking at a right wing conspiracy theory that abortion in communities of color is genocide. This video covers Pro Life Freedom Rides staged by Priests for Life in the summer of 2010.

Part 3

Abortion Conspiracy Episode 3: This video examines a right wing documentary which alleges that abortion in the African American community is genocide. Through fear mongoring and guilt by association, it tires to make the case that this is a conspiracy led by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

Abortion Conspiracy Part 4: Racial Uplift

Part 4 of a five part series on the right wing effort to portray abortion as genocide in communities of color. This episode profiles several African Americans who work in the field of reproductive health: an abortion provider, a volunteer at a hotline which offers counseling and two escorts at an abortion clinic in the south.

Abortion Conspiracy Part 5 The Mid Term Elections

One of the strategies of the right wing conspiracy theory that abortion amounts to genocide in the African American community is to try to fragment the Democratic base in the 2010 mid term elections. This episode asks if this strategy will have any effect.

2010: Are Black Children an ‘Endangered Species’? (The shorter version)

Reproductive Rights: Birth

Atlanta: The Doula Story

This video profiles Perez Ridley, a Doula in Atlanta, GA, who counsels pregnant teens on behalf of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention.

Northwest Doula Conference 2010

Shafia M. Monroe – Certified Midwife, founder and president of International Center for Traditional Childbearing – presenter on Full Circle Birth Traditions

The Legacy of the Black Midwife Part 1/6

The Legacy of the Black Midwife Part 2/6

The Legacy of the Black Midwife Part 3/6

The Legacy of the Black Midwife Part 4/6

The Legacy of the Black Midwife Part 5/6

The Legacy of the Black Midwife Part 6/6(end)

Reproductive Justice part 2: Reproductive 101, Deconstructing the current anti-abortion efforts targeting Black women; also, doulas and midwives. -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Today in my class we were trying to learn a camera technique. We decided to use funny youtube videos to illustrate the proper way to shoot the scenes we wanted. And my classmates decided that the Antoine Dodson videos were such GREAT candidates because man, wasn’t he SO FUNNY?!?!? I tried to point out the fact that he was talking about his sister’s rape. The response? They didn’t mind that, they were not laughing at him (o rly?) and my personal favorite…”At least he has a sense of humor about it”. And then they went on to discuss dressing up as him on fucking HALLOWEEN.

And this wasn’t just the white kids. There were the other black kids in on this, who thought it was just as funny as the white kids did. After all, isn’t he black and gay and lowerclass and acting in ways not coded masculine? Isn’t that so uncomfortable for us middleclass folk?And his actions and his way of expressing himself became the goddamn story, instead of WHAT he was saying, which was that he was pissed at his sister being almost raped. Hell his sister was written out of the story entirely, so that we the class privileged, we who act our genders as society dictates, we racially privileged, we the women who want to want to believe that rape will not happen to us because we live/work/walk/drive in the right places could laugh. because rape is so fucking funny. because standing up for your sister’s right to lie in her fucking bed without being targeted is so fucking funny. hell it’s not even worthy of note, because your brother’s method of expression is not societally sanctioned and that is much more important than the fact that this fucking culture has a HUGE FUCKING PROBLEM IN THAT RAPE IS UBIQUITOUS AND NEEDS TO BE FUCKING STOPPED. Oh i forget. women are not really human are they? Especially if they are poor. Even worse if they are of color. Immigrants. Prostitutes. Women come in classes, people and dignity and humanity are a zerosum game.

And anyway, he got money from it! (After we made it quite clear that we as a society would completely refuse to take him seriously, to busy reinforcing our class, race, gender presentation and other privileges to see the humanity in a woman being attacked and her brother coming to her aid. They are not worth society’s outrage and protection are they? Of course not.) Hell, even BET, got into the fun. They brought him on to make him perform the “Bed Intruder” Song. Yes, yes they did. A young woman’s near rape was turned into fucking entertainment for the “best and brightest” at the “premier” black awards show!!!!

Oh, and just to make this situation even MORE fucked up, Mr. Dodson is a rape victim himself.

And this is how the mainstream news proceeded to frame it:

Like many, Dodson is hoping to take his 15 seconds of celebrity and turn it into a greater opportunity. “I just want to be the voice of people who are going through similar situations that have gotten their case swept under the rug,” he says. “Most of my fans are victims of rape and molestation and they reach out to me anyway so I just talk to them and comfort them. I try to tell them the ways that I dealt with it because I’m a rape victim myself.”

Because its HIS fault that that the society found this fucking FUNNY and made him into a famous internet meme.

You know what? Other people have taken apart this situation way better than I can:

Think twice

think twice before you laugh at antoine dodson. i know everything is supposed to take a backseat to short-lived fame and exposure. but how would you feel if your sister was attacked by a rapist and people did nothing about it? officials laughed at you, police took their time coming to investigate, media crews didn’t arrive until you called them, and then your time on the news gets spoofed to entertain others instead of warn them. antoine’s taking his time in the spotlight in stride, and i think he’s doing it for kelly’s sake. i hope all the people laughing and singing “hide your kids, hide your wife” are writing all of the people in kelly’s community and state to do something about catching the rapist.

i planned to write about this at feministe, fast on the heels of the gang rape of a 12-year-old at a nearby skatepark. what does it mean when you read about attack after attack after attack, and one of the thoughts in your head is “i hope no one auto-tunes something like this” or “how can this story garner more attention than it’s gotten,” when these stories should be enough to knock ten people on their asses with grief.MORE

Flava Of The Month?: The Antoine Dodson Aftermath

By now many of us know how the story started: on the morning of July 28th, a man broke into the Dodson home in Huntsville, Ala. and, according to Antoine’s sister Kelly, attempted to assault her in her bedroom. As originally reported by WAFF-TV, Antoine struggled with the assailant, who subsequently escaped.

The first thing to note is that WAFF’s original story was not a live-shot. Meaning both the reporter, Elizabeth Gentle, and her editors had virtually the entire business day to get an interview with either a police spokesperson or the crime scene investigator shown at the scene to add to the story and respond to Antoine’s allegation about there being “a rapist in Lincoln Park” – for instance, had there been similar incidents in the area as of late? Gentle also had time to get a description of the alleged assailant from either the Dodsons or the police department, information that would be useful when the suspect in a forced entry and attempted sexual assault is still at large.

Instead, as you can see, the bulk of the story is devoted to capturing Antoine’s anger. And while the visceral emotion might have made for “compelling television,” that kicked off the most disturbing part of this entire affair. While it’s possible this is because of her own choice, Kelly Dodson, the original victim of the assault, became a non-factor in the story. In fact, WAFF aired a follow-up story that completely ignored her and focused on the online fuss surrounding Antoine, while absolving itself of any fault for its’ own reporting:MORE

On Feminism, Liberals, Black Folks and Antione Dodson

In the midst of this institutional racism are the actions of three groups that cannot be ignored:

1. the viewers and listeners who openly mocked Dodson, completely ignoring the rape survivor narrative embedded in his story
2. the white middle class hipster-nerd comedy troupe that made money off of the rape and attempted rape of poor black women and girls and the one man willing to stand up for them
3. the mainstream feminist blogs and feminist communities who have remained largely silent on Dodson’s sister despite the core issue of rape

The multi-racial viewers and listeners spent their time laughing at Dodson and mocking him and his sister in print in the youtube comments for days. The video received some of the largest hits of the week when it first went up. The auto-tune version played black radio stations and a black marching band even set did their own rendition, laughing at the “ghetto” in ways that I personally cannot excuse as black humor as survival but rather black humor as classism and internalized hate. Amongst the 100,000s of people commenting on Dodson or the autotune song, very few talked about the heinous act of rape, the existence of a serial rapist in the area that had gone unchecked for an unspecified amount of time, or the engineered tragedy of the state’s willingness to abandon poor women and girls to predators. In other words, the chance to mock an uneducated black man was more enticing than the fact of violence against women and girls. MORE

Finally we hear from Kelly Dodson video at link with full transcript

Kelly: (unintelligible) There’s really not much that I can say right now because I don’t know how to explain it to you because you really did a lot of damage to me whether you know it or not and if it wasn’t for Antoine, you probably would have got what you came in there for but you didn’t. I just want to know how you feel about the situationMORE

and The accidental fame of Kelly and Antoine Dodson has a different perspective on the subject:

Even though the whole debacle can be seen by some through the lens of “poverty porn,” this can also be viewed in another light. A light that by instead of being stoic and polished, the Dodsons actually got more attention for their plight and the issue of crime in poor communities BECAUSE people found the clip unintentionally funny. Antoine’s message was received (“Obviously, we have a rapist in Lincoln Park …”) and the community took notice.

Said Kenyatta Cheese of KnowYourMeme.com to NPR:

“Kelly and Antoine may be victims but they are fearless,” Kenyatta told me. “They both take control of the camera and call out their attacker. They issue a call to action telling people in their community to look out for the perpetrator. And yes, Antoine may not seem traditionally articulate, but he uses his time on camera to be performative and create spectacle and that gets our attention. In that sense, he’s probably more effective in getting his message out there than a more traditional community ‘representative’ would ever be.

“To me, Antoine Dodson is brilliant.”

MORE

The last time I checked, Mr. Dodson had used the proceeds of “The Bed Intruder Song” to move the entire family to a safer neighbourhood and is planning to go back to school. The spotlight isn’t on Kelly Dodson as much, so I am not not able to discern what she is going to do.

Rape is a multifaceted problem, and it happens not only because someone decides to overpower and forcefully assault a weaker person, but because society condones it. And the lower you are on US societal heirarchy, the less society gives a fuck a fuck about your safety and wellbeing. This series of linkspams will try to examine the various ways in which society’s prejudices help to perpetuate the rape culture in the US (with an occasional piece on Canada).

Rape Culture USA: How race, class, misogyny and homophobia intersected in the Kelly and Antoine Dodson story -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

(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

So I got into a conversation with someone on LJ who was determined to pretend that they knew how to be a real American. For a whole host of reasons that schtick gets on my nerves. When it comes from someone who is willfully ignoring social and historical context it really annoys me. But, this post isn’t about that person. I know, not what you expected right? No, this post is about their friend who ran to not only defend their bigotry, but to tell me all the ways I was getting being black wrong.

Not just in the actual post (which was stupid enough for three lifetimes), he also decided to private message me and went on for some time despite me saying repeatedly that I wasn’t interested in his BS. Cited credentials for telling me to change my approach to life included knowing POC and having sex with at least one at some point in the past. The exchange (which is long and kind of creepy) can be found in my Livejournal if you want to hurt yourself. But really, it doesn’t include anything new. It’s more of the same old patriarchal imperialistic BS encased in concern trolling (no, the perpetrator is not who you just thought of) and only upsetting in that way that happens when there’s someone creepy talking to you and they won’t go away, but you’re not in the mood to make a scene.

In other words, not scary enough for screaming, but annoying enough to make you hostile. Pro tip: If you say something like “That’s not really (insert ‘ism here), this is really (‘ism) and people like you are just taking things too seriously/being professional victims/part of the problem because you’re living in the past” chances are excellent that the conversation isn’t going to go anywhere good. Now I know someone’s going to say “But I’m just trying to help. If we could all just look at these things logically and not get so emotional then we could solve the problem. There’s no reason for you to get so angry.” That’s just concern trolling 102. The mindset that lets you tell someone they should turn off their emotions in order to discuss an emotional issue is so privileged that it boggles my mind. Granted, I’ve noticed that such comments come most often from people who don’t have a dog in that particular hunt, and so they think they know everything about how to handle it. But as someone with a (metaphorical) dog? None of my hunts have room for bystanders. Whether I’m discussing, race, class, misogyny, or even the parenting issues that come hand in hand with having a special needs child I don’t have the time or the inclination to give up the emotions that have me so invested in fighting the good fight. I need that fuel to keep going, because otherwise wading through whatever hot mess is in front of me would wipe me out. When you’re a bystander it’s easy to turn away from the issue and rest, because it doesn’t affect your day to day life. But for the people it does affect? There is no rest from it (other than perhaps death) because it is a integral part of their life and they must deal with it every day in order to navigate the world. So you can either shut up and listen, or just shut up.

You’re certainly free to run your own experiments (elsewhere!), but don’t be surprised if you find yourself getting the rough side of someone’s tongue for saying stupid shit and not listening. I know if you try this on me, I’ll mock you, I’ll talk about you, heck I might even talk to you…but I’m not changing a thing. Not just because I’m stubborn (though I am) or even to prove a point (though it will) but simply because I already know that the source is a bad one and should be ignored. I learned a long time ago to distrust anyone who wanted me to ignore the reality of my life because it made them uncomfortable, or because they wanted me to join them in their fantasy world. I think we need a concern troll Bingo card in the worst way. Possibly one for each ‘ism though I suspect that we could just play find and replace with key words in these conversations and it would be the same basic set of invalidating lines. Someone commented elsewhere that my latest troll sounded like an abuser, and I had to laugh because I’d already drawn the comparison in my head, and then debated whether or not it was hyperbolic before pointing it out in one of the messages. Granted no one’s come to blows (yet), but it sure felt like that stage where the abuser tries to make you doubt yourself enough for them to weasel their way in and hurt you in the name of ending racism love.

Shut Up Creep or Why I Don’t Care What You Think I Should Do -- 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

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

Walk in My Shoes: Surviving the walk to school. You know I understand the whole “If it bleeds it leads” concept of journalism. Really I do. But, we live on the South Side of Chicago too. I grew up here and all those sunny park pictures that I post of my family on my journal? They’re taken on the same South Side mentioned in this article. There’s more to this city than the blighted areas, and while we’re talking blight and violence let’s talk about how these neighborhoods (which used to be thriving healthy communities) fall apart.

Our society likes to wring its hands and bleat about the poor pitiful children once the shooting starts, but we don’t tend to pay attention to the roots of the problems before everything goes wrong. This latest spate of failed gentrification efforts are going to have brand new bad areas springing up as the residents struggle to make it with no tax base, poor infrastructure, and the same old issues of race and class. It’s ridiculous to paint these pictures of scary bad areas that are the result of some foreign event horizon that no one can understand when we know how places get this way.

For starters you get rid of the grocery stores, instead allowing liquor stores that sell food or whatever little corner stores spring up to be the only place within walking distance to get groceries. Then you take away (or never start) bus routes, and the ones that are in the area have shortened hours and limited routes so it’s difficult for the remaining population to get to work. Oh, let’s not forget schools that lack necessary equipment so the students are ill-equipped to succeed academically in a society where education is key. And of course there’s the added impact of poverty and institutional racism. Why the mention of racism? Well, how do you think we get to the place where only certain neighborhoods are allowed to turn into war zones? It’s no accident that I can get cops in my neighborhood to respond a lot faster than people living in Englewood.

Those conditions form the underpinnings of gangs and their powerful hold in these areas. As the money and the opportunity and the access fade away? People still have to eat, and despite the hype I have yet to meet a gangbanger or a street level dealer that wasn’t hungry, as in literally going to bed without enough food on a regular basis hungry when they decided to get in on the game. Drugs, crime, and poverty go hand in hand, but not for the reasons you’d think they do. It’s survival living and people do a lot of things to make it when the wolf is at the door. Generational poverty plays a huge role because these blighted neighborhoods don’t get that way in a week or a month. It takes time, and the people with resources move out relatively early in the process but there are always people left behind with no way out.

And without a proper foundation at an elementary school level, few or no role models, and of course the stress and trauma of living in an area that’s dangerous all the time the kids in these places don’t have boots, never mind bootstraps to pull themselves out. Or to pull their own kids out once they’re adults. Oh sure there’s always a success story that gets lauded, but the reality is that the combination of luck, support, and intelligence required for those stories to happen isn’t a recipe that’s accessible for every child. And to paint the South Side with such a broad brush instead of talking about the actual issues that lead to these conditions is just further exacerbating the problems. Less pearl clutching and more urban planning is the key here.

Pearl Clutching and Urban Planning -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

As some of you know I went to Montreal for Verb Noire last week. It was…an experience. See, I don’t really like conventions. They are important and necessary to the success of my business and I get to hang out with some great people. But if it weren’t for the business I probably would not go to them. Aside from not being a big fan of crowds I tend to wind up in at least one discussion of race that leaves me feeling like I need a drink. Maybe three. And that’s just not good for my liver. Case in point, I was on a panel last Sunday entitled “Writing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Geographic Terms” that went nowhere near a good place. I was a last minute substitute for my business partner (who now owes me a bottle of Riesling and a lifetime supply of chocolate) and I planned to discuss all the reasons why making the bad guys POC in epic fantasies are a terrible idea. Instead we spent the panel dealing with one L. Lamplighter and her insistence on saying awful things about race (highlights include calling someone extraordinarily black right after insisting that she literally does not see color and had to have the race of friends pointed out to her as well as whining about the difficulties of being criticized for writing POC poorly) and derailing the panel from the topic at regular intervals. The moderator and I have since been the focus of a few posts on her LiveJournal. Those posts….well I’ll link to them and you can see for yourself. The first post seemed to be particularly dismissive of Kate Nepveu and I thought “Well there goes a prime example of being a jerk online” ala my panel with John Scalzi on Sunday morning. Then I got to her post about me being called a nigger ¹ and I was a little perplexed to see just how wrong she’d gotten the details of that anecdote. Mostly I was offended by her repeated use of the word “girl” since at 32 I’m well past the point of being taken for a small child. But of course there’s a whole lot of history attached to using such language towards POC² and I’m certain she’s well aware of that history. If she’s not, then she really didn’t belong on that panel or on any programming to do with race. Or anywhere outside her narrow little bubble.

Then again anyone that feels it necessary to make statements like:

My son’s favorite friends from school are a boy the color of pitch whose family is from Africa, a Korean boy, and a Spanish boy whose family hardly speaks English.

as proof of her “colorblindness” is such a mess of aversive racism³ and outright bigotry that I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s dressed it up a little, but her real meaning when she claims to be colorblind is “I can treat you with some semblance of respect as long as I ignore the color of your skin. If you force me to see you as a whole person then you’ve brought my bigotry on yourself and it isn’t my fault. It’s yours for being so extraordinarily of color. Because I can’t handle the possibility that your reality is informed by experiences that I don’t share.”

To be completely honest I am not interested in educating her or changing her mind or even speaking to her again in my life. I am not in the mood for some aversive racist bullshit reframing of my life. I am not in the mood to be patient, kind, gentle or even brutally polite. This is not a teaching moment. She had plenty of those during the panel (so many that we never did get to have the actual discussion because she kept on whipping out the fail every time she came near the microphone and we’d have to stop to correct her so that the audience didn’t get the wrong idea) and all that effort clearly made little or no impression upon her entrenched bigotry. Let us be clear…this conversation started in a room face to face so there can be no question of body language or tone. She had all of that on hand, and she…well let’s just say that she performed mental gymnastics worthy of a Matrix movie to miss the point of the conversation. It was not that she could not hear us, instead she chose to ignore our words⁴ in favor of hanging onto her prejudices. That’s her choice and she’s welcome to the path that she is on. But, that choice doesn’t come without criticism. She has the right to hold these beliefs and I have the right to call her on them.

So, for the record I am appalled and offended and just plain disgusted by her attitude and her condescension and her racism. Because make no mistake that is *exactly* what she has proven with her own words. No need for slurs or grandiose terrorist gestures when devaluing and disrespect will do. No need to listen to the words of those “girls” that are trying to tell you that your ass is showing. Because clearly we aren’t enlightened enough to know that the best way to approach life is to seek harmony with people who will tolerate our differences by ignoring them. My hair, my skin, my entire life is not something that I can pick or put down at my convenience. And the privileged assumption that the road to harmony is to ignore the parts of my reality that make you uncomfortable? Enough to make any sane person ill. Now, I’m not telling anyone to go over there and beat their head against the brick wall of her racism. Instead I’m encouraging you to hold her up as an example of what not to do and what not to say. Because really that’s the best approach to this kind of willful ignorance. Ignore her and maybe she’ll go away. And even if she doesn’t? Just consider the source the next time you hear someone spouting off about being colorblind.

I’m about to be a jerk on the Internet or RaceFail Goes To WorldCon -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. I was 12. It was a cop who had an established pattern of harassing me and my friends on the way to school. My grandmother’s pastor was affiliated with Operation Push so we had some juice with the city. There was no rallying around by anyone, there was some phone calls and a watch commander who didn’t want the publicity that comes from such an incident.
2. aside from being dismissive and disrespectful in general, the use of the word girl has the same connotations as using boy, namely that one thinks an adult is incapable of making their own determinations and they need someone to guide them
3. Color Blind or Just Plain Blind? is a great place to read up on what’s wrong with colorblindness and why it is just a new twist on the old standby of racism
4. Not to mention the words of another panelist, a male author of some renown who was unbelievably diplomatic