Will be held at Black Looks. Submissions need to be turned in by the 17th. You can click on the link to check out Sokari’s call for posts.

It is nice to have a non-American hosting the Carnival. Black Looks is also an African blog, so this should add a greater diversity of readers to the carnival. Please submit.

Sociology professors (and graduate students) at the University of Minnesota have released to first major random sample study of whiteness. Here is summary of some of the key findings:

In fact, the researchers found that a majority of whites (74 percent) felt that their own racial identity was important to them, and that a similar majority were able to see prejudice and discrimination as important in explaining white advantage. At the same time, minorities are more likely to see their racial identities as important and to see structural reasons for racial disparities.

The research also suggests that awareness of white identity and awareness of white privilege are not the same. “The fact of the matter is that people claim white identity for defensive as well as progressive reasons,” said survey co-author Paul Croll, University of Minnesota graduate student.

Age and income have little impact on a white person’s awareness of their racial identity, the study found. But Southerners and social conservatives place more emphasis on their racial identity than other white Americans, while those with more education place less. Republican and male respondents most strongly resist claims that discrimination in legal and financial systems can explain white advantage. Additionally, respondents–regardless of their racial identity–believed strongly in the importance of individual effort, hard work and family upbringing in achieving success.

I have requested a copy for my use because I would like to see further details. In particular, I’m curious to know if the survey asks about ethnic identity, and I would like to know how whiteness, and white privilege are conceptualized in the study. Many whiteness theorists have argued that European ethnic identities have largely been replaced by a racial identity. For example, they say people are more likely to identity as white rather than Italian, Irish, German, etc. This has been a point debated in whiteness studies, and the survey may shed some light on this. One of the more interesting ideas that the study seems to suggest is that the “normavity of whiteness” is not as strong as has been theorized. Personally, I am doubtful about this claim, but I am hesitant to critique the study until I can see the actual survey instrument and statistical analysis. After all, it is hard to get everything into a press release.

There’s a good interview with Kirby Dick, director of the indy documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, in the current issue of Bitch Magazine. The film is about the ratings board of the Motion Picture Association of America - the folks who decide if each film is “G,” “PG,” “R” or “NC-17.”

Three points of interest (including a chance for you to fight crime from your very own home!):

1) Homophobic & Sexist Double Standards In Movie Ratings

The MPAA uses a double-standard for films with queer content. For example, the same year that “American Pie” — featuring who-knows how many scenes of masturbation and one scene of apple pie-bumping — was rated “R,” the lesbian-themed “But I’m A Cheerleader” was forced to remove a fully clothed, “very tame” mastrubation scene to avoid getting an “NC-17″ rating. (For most movies, “NC-17″ is a commercial kiss of death.)

According to the blog Boy Culture, the MPAA is not only homophobic but also sexist: “The film convincingly argues that the MPAA discriminates against sexual pleasure, particularly female sexual pleasure.”

2) Conflict of What?

Here’s a negative review of “This Film Is Not Yet Rated.” The review is written by Harry Forbes, Director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. From Forbes’ review:

To uncover the identities of the MPAA ratings board — ordinary parents who quite logically are kept anonymous to protect them from pressures from the studios and filmmakers — Dick hires a private investigator, Becky Altringer of Ariel Investigations, to surreptitiously stake out MPAA headquarters in Encino, Calif., snooping around the guard’s station in front of the building, going through the garbage of board members at their homes and using other similarly questionable methods.

What Mr. Forbes neglected to mention in his review is that he, Harry Forbes, is himself one of the MPAA ratings board members whose identity is revealed by “This Film Is Not Yet Rated.” (This is pointed out on the film’s blog). It’s dubious for the subject of a film to write a review of that same film, but to do so without disclosing such an enormous conflict of interest demonstrates an appalling lack of ethics.

3) Take A Bite Out Of Crime!

Have you ever wanted to be a crime fighter? Well, here’s your chance! Check out this quote from the Bitch Magazine interview:

Before I submitted the film, I called up the administration of the ratings board, and I said, “Can you assure me that there will be no copies made of this?” And they assured me, in writing, in e-mail, and on the phone, that not only would no copies be made, but that only the raters would see it. Well, I subsequently learned that an MPAA attorney had seen it. I learned that [MPAA president] Dan Glickman had seen it…

I got a call from an MPAA attorney who said “Look, Kirby, I have to tell you, we have made a copy of your film. But you don’t have to worry, because it’s safe in my vault.” [Laughs.] I can tell you that wasn’t reassuring. In a way I wasn’t surprised, but on the other hand, there’s such hypocrisy there. The MPAA has launched this huge antipiracy campaign, and on their website they define even one act of unauthorized duplication of material as piracy. And that’s exactly what they did.

I checked out the MPAA website, and it is indeed crawling with anti-piracy messages. Fortunately, they also provide a free phone number to call and report piracy to the MPAA: 1-800-662-6797. Or, if you prefer, there’s a web form you can fill out.

I’m certainly planning to call and report that Dan Glickman, CEO and President of the MPAA, conspired to illegally copy a copyrighted movie. I strongly encourage all “Alas” readers to do the same.

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where the moderation is light as a feather, stiff as a board. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

Dr. Violet Socks - who I’m a fan of - writes:

The difference between sexism and racism

One is acceptable; the other isn’t.

Imagine if the host of a popular TV show on dog training had made the following remarks:

“Black people are the only species that is wired different from the rest. They always apply affection before discipline. White people apply discipline then affection, so we’re more psychological than emotional. All animals follow dominant leaders; they don’t follow lovable leaders.”

He would probably be fired, don’t you think? But professional dog-trainer/fucktard Cesar Millan made precisely these remarks about women — substitute “woman” for “black people” in the paragraph above, re-conjugate the verbs as necessary, and voilá: the Cesar Millan Theory of Gender. Somehow I don’t think he’s going to lose his job. He’s just a crazy colorful Latino, right?

I have to disagree with this post, and particularly with the “one is acceptable; the other isn’t” way Violet framed her comparison.

Yes, Millan probably would have been fired had he said that on TV. (Although who knows? Bill O’Reilly seems to be able to get away with racist remarks, and Don Imus with anti-semitic remarks…)

It may be true that overt endorsements of racist essentialism (i.e., “blacks are just born that way”) is less acceptable in the US than overt endorsements of sexist essentialism - that’s certainly my perception. I think that’s probably because there are some biological differences between women and men (such as, who gets pregnant), and so the hard-line approach of saying “only a bigot would say that there are important biological differences between ____ and _____,” which anti-racists have used to good effect, can’t be used as effectively by feminists.

But that doesn’t mean that sexism is acceptable, and racism isn’t. The reality is, both sexism and racism are at times accepted and tolerated in our society, depending on context.

Overt endorsements of racial essentialism aren’t the only kind of racism there is. So even if it’s true that overt sexist essentialism is more acceptable in our society than overt racist essentialism, it doesn’t follow that the difference between sexism and racism is “one is accepted, the other isn’t.” There are plenty of ways in which our society is all too accepting of racism: look at sentencing disparities, look at infant mortality, look at the under-representation of minorities on TV, look at how our government has robbed American Indians of oil, look at Gwen Stephani’s backup singers, look at the not-very-subtle ways the Republican party tries to suppress minority voting, etc etc.

Finally, it should be noted that essentialist racism is sometimes accepted in our society. Look at The Bell Curve, which was well-reviewed, published by a major mainstream publisher, and became a best-seller.

* * *

I was also bothered by Violet’s offhand dismissal of Shannon’s criticism, in comments. If Violet seriously considered Shannon’s criticism, or examined if she could have chosen wording that seemed less dismissive of racism than “one is acceptable, the other isn’t,” then there’s no sign of it in Violet’s comments. Instead, Violet became both defensive and insulting - a common reaction of white people when criticized by people of color, but one that should be avoided.

* * *

I also have problems with the “replace ______ with the word black” mode of criticism - but it would be unfair to single out Violet for that, since it’s so common among (white?) progressives. (I’ve done it myself, I’m sorry to say.) That’ll be a post for another day.

* * *

See also Bitch | Lab, commenting on the same post. UPDATE: And Angry Black Woman, too. UPDATE II: BlackAmazon, too, too.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this (.pdf file) since I read it a week ago. It’s the text of a speech by Jim Elder-Woodward given to the Scottish Disability Equality Forum in 2000 that begins with a description of events at the 14th World Congress of Rehabilitation International in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1980.

At this Congress, Rehabilitation International published its own Charter, the central aim of which was to call on participating governments to take all necessary steps to ensure disabled people had full integration and equal participation in all aspects of the life of their communities.

However, at the same congress, the Executive of Rehabilitation International turned down an amendment to its constitution, proposed by the Swedish delegation, that disabled people should comprise 51% of its ruling body.

All hell went loose when this decision was announced. There were approximately 200 disabled people at the conference from America, Australia, Africa, Asia - everywhere, even the backwaters of Europe. No-one could understand the duplicity of these doctors, social workers, and officials from governmental and non-governmental bodies who comprised Rehabilitation Internationals Executive at that time.

Despite the shock over the executive decision, this sort of paternalism over the lives of disabled people is such a central issue to disability rights that the international rallying cry of the movement is now “Nothing about us without us!”

By 1980, disabled people worldwide had begun to organize specifically for civil rights. The first CIL (Center for Independent Living) was founded in Berkeley in 1970. UPIAS (Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) was founded in Britain in 1972 with what began as a round-robin letter exchange among disabled people — some stuck in institutions. The 25-day sit-in at the San Francisco offices of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare had happened in 1977. That was to demand enforcement of Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which said that any organization or service accepting federal money had to be accessible to disabled people — public transit and other public places too.

Back in 1980, as part of their rationale for excluding disabled people from their membership, the Executive of Rehabilitation International issued a statement saying that disabled people were not ready to participate in the highly complicated decision-making which they had to undertake.

RI had, at that time, been dedicated to improving the lives of disabled folks for 58 years, yet they refused to allow those same people more than token membership in the democratically-run leadership. Their rationale wasn’t uncommon, but the resulting anger at that meeting can surely be given some credit for the successes of the recent UN treaty for the rights of disabled people.

Elder-Woodward on the 1980 RI meeting again:

That night was electric. Disabled people congregated in a side room at 11 pm. There was no organisation, no format for the meeting, no leadership - just an angry mob of disabled people talking in groups and milling around the room. Then Ed Roberts got on the stage. Ed had poliomyelitis and at that time Reagan had not yet kicked him out of his job as Director of Rehabilitation for California. Puffing on his oxygen cylinder, as if he were Harold Wilson, smoking a pipe, he greeted the noisy rabble, by crying out - ‘Cabbages of world, unite!’

There was such an uproar of acknowledgement and then all went quite whilst Ed spoke about the need to develop a separate international disability movement.

Those few disabled people organised themselves there and then to draw up their own constitution and began to agree strategies and structures before going to bed at 4 am in the morning utterly exhausted.

I had never felt, nor have since, the galvanising energy which came from such a hungry angry mob of disabled people. They had come from the four corners of the world and they were in no mood to be cast aside by a load of quacks and pen-pushers.

Some of those disabled people went home to countries where the normal treatment of the disabled is beyond appalling, where constant warfare increases the number of disabled folks daily, and where to be disabled means to be sub-human.

The new UN treaty may do very little of actual practicality for most disabled people in the world. I don’t know how that all shakes out. The effectiveness of the UN is certainly a continuing debate. But symbolically the treaty is incredibly important. And in the process of hammering it out, hundreds of governments and NGOS like Rehabilitation International had to work with disabled people who were there insisting they determine their own lives. That’s a process I’m happy about.

Crossposted at The Gimp Parade

From a New York Times article about breastfeeding, class and jobs:

Doctors firmly believe that breast milk is something of a magic elixir for babies, sharply reducing the rate of infection, and quite possibly reducing the risk of allergies, obesity, and chronic disease later in life.

But as pressure to breast-feed increases, a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.

It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.

When an argument comes up multiple times in comments, it’s probably worth making my response a post of its own, if only so that I can link to the response in the future rather than having to write it again. A few months ago, in “Alas” comments, Bob Hayes (who later backed down from this position, to his credit) wrote:

If you want to talk about black disenfranchisement, how about this: most black people want school choice and they want it bad, and most people on the left won’t even talk about it with them. How non-racist can a political movement be, if it won’t even address the issues that the minority group wants to address?

Earlier today, in the comments at “Family Scholars,” “GregA,” supporting his argument that I’m a racist, wrote:

Amp’s opinion on a number of other policy areas shows his total disregard for the opinions of the black community, in favor of his own ‘enlightened’ opinions. Most notable is his opposition to school vouchers, which interestingly enough the black community says they need to improve their educational opportunities, and their standing in the middle class. Maybe Amp knows better what the black community needs than the black community its self?

Taken broadly, both arguments are based on the premises that 1) It’s undeniable that most Black Americans favor school vouchers, and 2) disagreement with this position constitutes evidence of racism. I will argue that neither premise is true.

1) Well-designed polls show that most Black Americans oppose vouchers

It’s true that some polls show that most Black Americans favor vouchers - but these are usually polls in which respondents aren’t given an opportunity to choose between vouchers and other possible reforms; and in which no costs for vouchers are mentioned. (Apparently the money to pay for voucher comes from magic pixies, rather than from cutting other programs or raising taxes).

If even a hint of where the funding comes from is included in the polling question, support for vouchers plummets. Here’s one example, from a story by the St. Petersburg Times:

The same is true in which more alternatives than just vouchers or status quo are presented:

When choices are added to polling questions, voucher support shrivels. A 2001 Opinion Research poll found that 61% of blacks and 59% of Latinos would rather see more funding “go toward public schools than go to a voucher program.” The same year, Black responders to a Zogby International survey placed vouchers fifth among options they would choose to improve schools. The more choices, the less the appeal of vouchers.

And in the poll that actually counts - the voting booth - many more blacks oppose than favor vouchers. See the exit polls from California and Michigan, for example (scroll to the bottom). When it came time to vote on voucher ballot measures, black voters were two times (CA) or three times (MI) more likely to vote against than for vouchers.

2) Disagreement, in and of itself, is not racism.

I don’t think the implicit premise of these comments - that disagreement with most Black Americans on a particular policy issue necessarily indicates racism or disregard for black people - is true. (Incidentally, I doubt many conservatives would raise this argument if the subject were affirmative action or the minimum wage, rather than vouchers).

There certainly are areas in which I disagree with the majority of Black Americans - for example, polls show that Blacks are even more likely than whites to oppose same-sex marriage. However, disagreement does not have to equal disregard or disrespect. There are many people I disagree with but nonetheless hold in high regard.

The measure to use is not whether or not I disagree with the majority of blacks on a particular policy question, but if I disagree for racist reasons, or if I show a pattern of taking contrary opinions less seriously when they come from people of color.

The idea that I should always agree with the majority of Black Americans on policy matters is a racist idea, because it puts Black folks on a pedestal. Automatic agreement, without regard to merits, is condensation, not respect.

I do think that in regard to policies and issues that strongly relate to Black people’s experiences or lives, it behooves whites to listen very closely and to interrogate our own motives and logic if we find ourselves disagreeing with mainstream black opinion most or all of the time. This is because Black people, on average, know more about racism and race than white people do; and because we should acknowledge the possibility that our opinions have been warped by unquestioned racism and racist assumptions in my thinking. However, this self-questioning does not preclude disagreement with Black people; it merely means I try to make a point of questioning myself and my opinions.¹

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where we say "I love you" with vouchers and "let's fund education" with flowers. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

1. Although the particular issue being discussed in this group is blacks and school vouchers, I favor this same general approach for ablebodied people considering disabled issues, non-fat people considering fat issues, white people considering American Indian issues, men considering women’s issues, cisgendered people considering trans issues, and so on. (back)

Connie Willis, the nine-time Hugo Award winner (more than any other author), was groped on stage as a “joke” by science fiction legend/creepy old man Harlan Ellison, at a recent convention. (This is old news to many “Alas” readers by now).

The best comment I’ve read on the subject, from PNH:

Harlan Ellison groping Connie Willis on stage at the Hugos wasn’t funny and it wasn’t okay. I understand (from third parties; I haven’t spoken to her about it) that Connie Willis’s position is that Ellison has done worse and she can handle him, but I really didn’t want to watch it and neither, I think, did a lot of other people in the audience. Up to then the comedic schtick aspects of the Hugo presentation had been genuinely funny. After that, I think, many of us just wanted it all to stop.

Just as with George W. Bush’s now-famous uninvited shoulder-rub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the basic message of Ellison’s tit-grab is this: “Remember, you may think you have standing, status, and normal, everyday adult dignity, but we can take it back at any time. If you are female, you’ll never be safe. You can be the political leader of the most powerful country in Europe. You can be the most honored female writer in modern science fiction. We can still demean you, if we feel like it, and at random intervals, just to keep you in line, we will.”

It’s not okay. It’s not funny. It wasn’t a blow against bourgeois pieties or political correctness. It was just pathetic and nasty and sad and most of us didn’t want to watch it. It’s another thing that’s going to stop.

Curtsy to Angry Black Woman and to Riba Rambles, who has posted a bunch on this subject. And if you want more reading, I think the best blogging on this subject has been at Shrub.com.

In discussions about quality of life or eugenics or disability pride, some nondisabled person often asserts that it’s obvious — despite all moral arguments on the value of disabled persons lives — that a body with impairments is just physically less desirable and not something any sane person would choose. Lacking something can’t possibly be better than having it, right? It’s an argument that always fascinates me.

It fascinates me because it seems like a very specific aspect of physicality to decide unequivocably that there is one obvious answer for when we recognize such biologically-based statements about sex or even body weight are problematic. Being one sex or the other means that each of us physically has some abilities and some lack of abilities that those of the other sex don’t. The ability to bear children versus absolute freedom from the “burden” of bearing children — we recognize the political and subjective aspects of those perspectives.

Of course a body that can do more tricks is physically superior, better, handier to have. And for past generations and people in different locations then and now, a tricksier body has been advantageous to survival. I don’t disagree with that, so far as it goes.

But often the added implication is that there can’t possibly be anything good about a body with impairments, and that isn’t necessarily true. I understand that this is hard for many people to accept. Maybe it helps if I accede that much of what I appreciate about my specific body and it’s abilities/inabilities is related to the technology that I use.

Individual physical experience is important, so my assertions of enjoyment are limited to my own experiences, which I’ll describe in a minute. But I’m not the only one. Wheelchair Dancer notes that her joy of dancing is inextricably linked to how she can make her manual wheelchair move and express what she’s feeling. And she’s certain this cannot be simply and completely mimicked by a nondisabled dancer using a wheelchair:

You can get a sense of how long it takes to turn in a chair, what it feels like to PUSH a chair, how to stroke, wheelie, etc. But you don’t know what it means to actually live in a chair and feel it melded to you as an extension of your body or, especially, what it means to actively use the chair instead of feeling it as a prop. And this means you won’t be able to move in it as we do. You won’t feel comfortable in it in the same way that we do; you don’t even see the texture and surfacing of the floor the same way. Our relationships to the space are different.

I’d argue that while a nondisabled body can eventually learn the dance moves so that they look the same as when a disabled wheelchair user does them, there is a psychological aspect to exercising the limits of your body’s abilities — regardless of what those limits are — that adds emotionally to the experience. I also believe a quadriplegic can be an athlete if she is pushing the physical limits of her body and experiencing all that goes with that. If individual experience is given value, it doesn’t matter with what body it’s achieved.

Here’s a Spanish ad with some dancing to consider. And Aaron Fotheringham’s athleticism seem obvious to me here, where his moves are similar to those of skateboarders and bikers. New Disability’s interview with Aaron reveals that he’s used a wheelchair virtually his whole life, explaining why he makes it look effortless — it’s a natural way of moving for him (not the flipping, but using a manual chair, generally).

As I said, technology contributes to all this. Even power wheelchairs provide unique joys. When I was in college as an undergraduate, my friends and I used to play around in our wheelchairs when the campus was quiet at night. I liked to drive my scooter in tighter and tighter circles until it tilted onto only two wheels. The challenge and thrill was to pull out of the circle just in time before tipping over. Also, many of the same joys people get from driving their cars can be found driving an electric chair. There’s skill to it, enjoyment of speed and mastery of a machine.

On a less athletic level, I used to have a large power chair with a tilt-in-space feature on the chair. It was a special pleasure to park anywhere on the campus quad and recline back, eyes closed to enjoy the morning sun. My portable Barkalounger and the social dispensation to do something strange like park and nap wherever I wanted were a perverse pleasure to me.

Surprisingly, I find moments of enjoyment in my ventilator and feeding tube now that I have both of them. If I exert myself doing something and get short of breath, I can simply lean back in my chair and wait until the ventilator helps me catch my breath. It’s not resting in the same way a nondisabled person does after he’s been working out. You might say it’s lazier than that, an anti-athletic recovery that doesn’t require me to do anything.

Likewise, at night, when my PEG tube is hooked up to a slow drip of liquid nutrition, there’s a physical comfort to knowing my body is getting protein while I sleep. I could get the tube pulled if I wished, now. It’s not absolutely required for my sustenance at this time. But it’s a comforting back-up, that, along with a low cholestoral count and no concern about my gaining too much weight means that I’m curiously free of all concerns about my diet that most other women struggle with daily.

It’d be easy for a nondisabled person to say these little joys I mention are really sour grapes about what my life is missing. Or that I’ve stirred up a bit too much lemonade from my supply of lemons. Fruit metaphors aside, I inherited my optimism and always find that here and there life is sweet. But the point is, there are aspects of this specific, highly-flawed body that are uniquely enjoyable, and I’m not the only disabled person to make that claim.

Crossposted at The Gimp Parade

As usual, readers are encouraged to post links to their own stuff, or even links to other folks’ stuff, or whatever the heck else you’re thinking.

Abyss2Hope presents: The Sixth Carnival Against Sexual Violence

The 2006 Black Weblog Awards - Winners Announced!
Moziltov to Blac(k)ademic for her much-deserved win in the “Best Topical Blog” category!

Language Log’s Critique Of Leonard Sax’s Why Gender Matters
Excellent series of critiques contrasting the studies Sax cites to support his arguments, to what those studies actually say. 1) David Brooks, Cognitive Neuroscientist. 2) Are Men Emotional Children? 3) Neuroscience In The Service Of Sexual Stereotypes (critique of Louann Brizendine’s book The Female Brain), 4) Of Rats And (Wo)Men, 5) Leonard Sax On Hearing, and 6) More On Rats And Men And Women. (Curtsy: Echidne).

My Amusement Park: British Government Discriminates Against Fat Women Who Need Fertility Treatment

The News Blog: If Bob Herbert Wrote About Whites The Way He Writes About Blacks

Bitch|Lab: The USA Is Not Family-Friendly
Impressive collection of statistics comparing policies in the USA to policies in most of the rest of the world.

Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty: On Fat Girls, Obesity Studies, and Terrible Reporting

Keithboykin.com: So are you a Black Gay or a Gay Black?

I refuse to participate in your Oppression Olympics. While homophobia and racism are not the same, it is at their intersection where I am forced to live. I am a Black Gay and a Gay Black. The blood of my peoples was shed at both Selma and Stonewall.

Hit and Run: Why Higher-Nicotine Cigarettes May Be Healthier

Big Fat Blog: Diet Industry Attempts To Co-opt Fat Acceptance Language

Ultimately, the goal of fat acceptance can’t be to lose weight. That’s “fat acceptance lite”, which the diet industry would love to push now: a twisted, co-opted version of fat acceptance that still promotes weight loss in the context of “loving one’s body”, even though weight loss tends to be harmful. The truth of the matter is that if you accept yourself, you’ve already won. If you don’t buy in to the diet industry, you’ve already won.

Angry Black Woman: Stop Touching My Hair, White People!

Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty: New Zealand Judge Goes Easy On Rapist Because “Complainant Was Clearly Flirtatious”
If you’re a feminist, and you want to know which one post to read that’ll make you feel very pissed off - I think this is the one.

Credit Slips: Bankrupcy Judge Keeps Executive Bonuses Secret To Avoid Morale Problem

Bitch|Lab: Comment on the “Porn Does Not Reduce Rape” Thread At “Alas”

Ginmar: Over and Over

It looks innocent, accidental except he does it again and again, and again. All your life you’ve been told it doesn’t mean anything, it was an accident, just let it go, why do you let it bother you?, why don’t you just move away?, while your instincts tell you something entirely different. He did that deliberately. He just copped a feel. That’s not enough, though; he wants to get away with it. Not only that, if you speak up, you’ll look bad. You’re the woman who made a fuss.

Language Log: A Medalist In The Bad Ad Placement Olympics

Lawyers Guns And Money: Sex Discrimination At The Supreme Court
You may be surprised to find out that Thomas has a good record of hiring female clerks. Scalia, on the other hand…

New York Times: Conservatives Fight To Keep The Fair Voting Principles of “Bush v Gore” From Being Applied To Any Other Cases

BlackProf.com: On The Recent Study Finding That Kids Learn Best From Same-Sex Teachers

My Amusement Park: Isn’t It Good If Teens Are Avoiding Unsafe Sex In Favor Of Oral Sex?
Plus, it seems that girls are receiving as often as they’re giving, which is certainly an improvement over years past.

Faux Real: On Watching “Paris Is Burning” In Indiana

New To The Blogroll: C.N.Le
Well-written and -researched blog by a sociology professor, mostly focusing on race and class issues.

Chatham House: Iran, Its Neighbours, And The Regional Crises (.pdf file)
I know that linking to a fifty page report by a British think tank may seem like a bit much, but it’s actually very interesting material, and reads quite well. This is, as the title says, a background report on Iran and Iran’s place in the region and in the Iraq war. Maybe there won’t be anything new there for foreign policy wonks, but for me it was enlightening. Read this and despair at what a lousy job American news organizations (and blogs) are doing at providing a background understanding. Curtsy: The Washington Note.

Blackfolks: Photographs of Some African Women
One or two of these photos may not be “worksafe,” although they’re not at all salacious.

Law and Letters: Male Bloggers In Stiletto Drag

David Lat and Libertarian Man of Mystery do no favors to women (and especially women bloggers) when they pose as women or caricature “female triviality” to suit their own ends. Even as they continue this “cheeky” style of writing with their genders and identities open, it never fails to be a nudge nudge wink wink at how salacious and saucy writing can be if done in the “female voice.”

BlackFeminism.org: Livish-blogging “Out Of Control: AIDS In Black America

Riba Rambles: Hebrew Hammer 2: The Hebrew Hammer Versus Mel Gibson
Oh, and versus Hitler, too.

White Man Arrested For Stealing Own Car; Cops Sell Car At Auction
Just kidding - of course he wasn’t white. Curtsy: Angry Black Woman .

Electoral Math: Regarding The False Charge That Progressive Blacks Ignore African Issues

Theology and Geometry: Regarding The False Charge That Feminists Ignore Women Under Islamic Fundimentalism

Theology & Geometry: Man Puns Save Men From Turning Into Women!
Good post on the emergence of “man” puns: Manbag, Manties, Manwash, and so on.

Campus Progress.org: America’s Next Top Model Is A Union-Busting Show
If you watch this show, maybe you should email the advertisers expressing your dismay.

Roger L. Simon: Homophobia At The National Review? What a shock!

Positive Liberty: Weird Optical Trick For Nearsighted People
If you make a tiny, tiny hole to look through, things through the hole are suddenly in focus. I tried this and it works for me, and I have no idea why.

Pharyngula: Gorgeous, psychedelic photo of a cephalopod

Cocktail Party Physics: Upcoming Book Announcement - Physics of the Buffyverse
Curtsy: Pharyngula.

The Economist’s View: No, Worker Insecurity Is Not A Myth

Brad Delong: Overview Of The Internet Debate Over The Causes Of Increasing Income Inequality
I think I agree with this comment from Graydon:

The kicker is what kinds of corporate organization are permitted, not tax policy. The relentless push for de-regulation and for restructuring law related to markets has converted a machine intended to secure the general prosperity into a machine to concentrate wealth. (This started around 1970, with the creation of the formal obligation for a corporation to maximize monetary returns to the exclusion of all other considerations.)

Organizational patterns and structures matter. Tax policy is not even vaguely important compared to, frex, what banks are allowed to do, and that is often both governmental and policy set by non-legislative means.

Lawyers Guns and Money: My Sock Puppet Says I’m Witty, Brilliant and Handsome
Recently fired New Republic writer Lee Siegel’s self-love via sock-puppet is, frankly, spectacular.

The Countess: The Stupidity Awards and The Bulwar-Lytton Awards
God, I love the Bulwar-Lytton Awards.

Best. Headline. Ever.: “ICE arrests 15 aliens in Roswell working for U.S. military contractor”
Via Riba and Daran.

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, a.k.a. yet to be decided. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

So the MDA Telethon is tonight and tomorrow. I’ve written here and here about the reasons a charity telethon — particularly one that insists on using Jerry Lewis to evoke pity for disabled people — does not help the status of disabled folks. Or, more precisely, the Telethon and the money it raises are not worth the pity.

Harriet McBryde Johnson is spending Labor Day at the 16th annual Charleston, SC, MDA Telethon protest making this point. In a press release:

Calling for an end to pity based fundraising tactics, an ad hoc group will be picketing and distributing handbills to protest the “Jerry Lewis” telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association on Labor Day morning. The group will be in the area of King, Meeting, and Market Streets downtown. They will gather at approximately 10 AM and be available for interviews at 11:00 AM on September 4.

“We don’t want pity,” says Harriet McBryde Johnson, protest organizer who has one of the neuromuscular disabilities covered by MDA. “Pity sets people apart, divides the world between those labeled as helpless and their purported superiors. We see disability as a natural part of the human continuum and believe that people with and without disabilities can and should work together to solve problems that affect us all. We want solidarity, not pity.”

Among those who will attend in solidarity is Dorothy Scott, president of the Charleston Branch, NAACP. “I believe, as Martin Luther King told us, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. When a nationally televised telethon promotes false stereotypes, that affects everyone, because it makes our world less fair.”

Street protests were galvanized by a 1990 article by telethon host Jerry Lewis that said, among other things, that if Lewis had muscular dystrophy he would have to learn how to be “half a person.” Lewis stood by his remarks and dished out more of the same in the years that followed. MDA stood by him until 2001, when Lewis told a CBS reporter, “You’re a cripple in the wheelchair and you don’t want pity? Stay in your house!” MDA finally apologized for that one, but activists said it was too little, too late. They say MDA should replace Lewis as telethon host, stop using children on the air, and provide a full and independent accounting of the telethon as a first step toward weaning itself from the fundraising vehicle.

For more information about the controversy, go to: Crip Commentary

“On a personal level,” Johnson says, “I am concerned that another generation of children should not hear the telethon message unchallenged. MDA still describes conditions like mine as ‘killers of children.’ I am now 49 years old, enjoying an active life I never imagined possible.” Johnson practices law in Charleston. She has organized a local telethon protest for 16 consecutive years. “They are still doing what they do,” she says, “so I’ll keep doing this.”

Mike Ervin, another protestor of the Telethon, speaks in a video clip from his half-hour documentary The Kids Are All Right about his growth from 1960s MDA poster child to disability activist. The clip requires Quicktime, which can be downloaded for free here.

Crossposted at The Gimp Parade

This post was removed by request of the author.

A couple weeks ago the Wall Street Journal ran an article about how textbook publishers meet diversity quotas for the photos in their books. The article covers the lengths publishers go to in order to portray diversity in race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender and disability in textbook images so that their books will sell to diversity-sensitive school districts. But when it comes to portrayals of disabled people, nondisabled children are frequently placed in wheelchairs or given crutches to stand in for actual disabled models.

[Photographer] Ms. Coppola estimates that at least three-fourths of the children portrayed as disabled in Houghton Mifflin textbooks actually aren’t. “It’s extremely difficult to find a disabled kid who’s willing and able to model,” she says. Houghton Mifflin, which acknowledges the practice, says it doesn’t keep such statistics.

Houghton Mifflin’s little-known stratagem illustrates how a well-intentioned effort to make classroom textbooks more reflective of the country’s diversity has led publishers to overcompensate and at times replace one artificial vision of reality with another.

Well, I don’t know why disabled children would be less willing or able to model and make money. It’s unlikely that the problem is caused by a particular minority group being unwilling to model and be represented. Much more likely, talent agencies are not interested in disabled children (and adults) and do not accept them as clients. That’s no doubt a result of discrimination at talent agencies (which mirror the Hollywood/high fashion aesthetic) where the concept of diversity is not yet thought to include disabled persons, and disabled children that look like they have impairments would be unlikely to be hired unless the agencies completely change their aesthetic of who makes a good model. And, of course, the book publishers have decided that the appearance of diversity is a good enough representation of actual diversity.

This prejudice that manipulates the reality of what disabled children look like is just the tip of the iceberg. It goes without saying that children with hidden disabilities (that may nevertheless alter their appearance in subtle ways) are not represented in photos — are they mentioned in the captions or text? Do the rented wheelchairs and other equipment look like what modern disabled children actually use? Do they rent, say, non-stereotypical equipment that disabled people regularly need, or just the easy symbols of disability — crutches, wheelchairs, white canes? Are developmentally disabled children represented at all? Are the fake disabled children ever played by non-white boys and girls? What must black or hispanic or asian children look like to satisfy their diversity requirements? Does a blond hispanic girl qualify as hispanic or would she never be hired to represent her people either? How girlish does a girl have to be?

The WSJ article, headlined “Aiming for Diversity, Textbooks Overshoot: Publishers use quotas in images to win contracts in big states, but they may be creating new stereotypes,” is mainly cast as a subtle critique of diversity and the standards educational systems have used to try and support diversity:

In 2004, according to federal estimates, non-Hispanic whites made up 67.4% of the U.S. population and 59.9% of the school-age population.

Under McGraw-Hill Co. guidelines for elementary and high school texts, 40% of people depicted should be white, 30% Hispanic, 20% African-American, 7% Asian and 3% Native American, says Thomas Stanton, a spokesman for the publisher. Of the total, 5% should be disabled, and 5% over the age of 55. Elementary texts from the Harcourt Education unit of Reed Elsevier PLC should show about 50% whites, 22% African-Americans, 20% Hispanics, 5% Asians and 5% Native Americans. Of the total, 3% should be disabled, says Harcourt spokesman Richard Blake.

The publishers’ guidelines are closer to the race statistics of California than the federal estimates, reflecting the markets for their sales, which are urban areas of big states like California, Texas and Florida. But the publishers’ guidelines do not come close to accurately portraying the disabled as the estimated “one in 12 children” or 10% of all Americans that the 2000 Census indicated.

It’s true that not all disabled children’s traits identifying them as disabled can be captured in a picture. This is especially true for the various learning disabilities that have caused the number of children identified as disabled to climb in the past decade. Yet, the educational point of incorporating diversity into elementary school textbooks is to teach about the world as it exists for the children reading these books and to offer them images that look like them.

For disabled children, there is almost nowhere in mainstream public for them to see disabled folks portrayed as they actually exist. In Hollywood, the plum Oscar-contending roles for the highest-paid actors are for nondisabled actors, with portrayal of disability being part of what gets the applause. The “realism” of Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, for example, is what gets attention as being truthful about disability.

When was the last time you saw a disabled person on TV who drooled, or needed a personal attendant, or used a power wheelchair and had a schlumpy body because that’s why people need power chairs? Perhaps in the inspirational story on the local news, but not with the diversity of regular characters slowly becoming otherwise more representative of our world on TV dramas like Grey’s Anatomy or 24 or Lost.

With fake disabled children the accepted practice in textbook photos, another opportunity to show what we really look like is not only lost, but distorted. Real disabled people, when they do appear in public, become less attractive, abnormal versions of the disabled people we have learned to look at, in the same way that fat women have become the less attractive, abnormal versions of women because we’ve all seen the ideal skinny women everywhere so often she’s become the accepted fake. It’s little wonder the result of this switcheroo is the nondisabled stare all visibly disabled folks are familiar with as part of their public experiences. That stare is blatant curiosity and even astonishment, and efforts at diversity in textbooks with only reinforce it.

Crossposted at The Gimp Parade

My name is Kay Olson, though most people in the blogworld know me as Blue. Or Blue Lily, or back at the Ms. Boards before they imploded I was Blue Girl. Amp has asked me to guest blog for a month and I’m thrilled to be a contributor here. My blog is The Gimp Parade, which has been linked to occasionally here.

It’s a single issue blog about disability from a disability rights perspective, but since disability issues are as diverse as topics that relate to feminism there’s a healthy bit of variation to what I write about, I hope. I do like to look at books and movies from a disability studies perspective, and most recently I’ve been sharing my personal adventures with the health care system and Medicare politics. I look forward to discussing all these things with Alas readers and learning what I can from this much larger and more talkative audience.

Check out my blogroll if disability issues interest you. There’s been an explosion of disability bloggers in the past year or two and I’m just one of the squeaky wheels. For example, there are dozens of bloggers with autism representing themselves and their ways of thinking not just from a disability rights perspective, but as a unique cultural experience too.

Anyway, thanks, Amp, for the invite! I hope what I write about is of interest here.

So can anyone let me know what I have to change in the stylesheet to make the left-hand border of “Alas” reappear? (You can see what the left-hand border is supposed to look like by viewing this image file.)

The CSS stylesheet for “Alas” is below the fold, so anyone interested can read it. I’d appreciate any help with this - I’ve been playing with the CSS, but nothing I do seems to help.


/* Edited with EditCSS */
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/* #headerimg { background: url(’http://www.amptoons.com/blog/wp-content/themes/default/images/personalheader.jpg’) no-repeat top;} */

The recent New York Times article on transracial adoption, seemed to follow the typical pattern about how transracial adoption has been covered in the media in recent years. The stories tend to follow a sort of script. First, the authors start by telling the story of a white (American) couple (either in same sex or opposite sex relationships) who adopt a black (American) child. Second, the story goes on to note how much the parents love and care for the child and want to be ethno-racially literate. Next, the stories talk about how the Multiethnic Placement Act does not allow people to be denied adoption righs solely based on race, and somewhere soon after the authors cite the now famous statement from the National Association of Black Social Workers, which likened transracial adoption to cultural genocide. Fourth, the story will cite a few African Americans who are opposed to interracial adoption or leery of it. Then the story comes back full circle to the “loving white couple” who adopt the otherwise unadoptable black child. This sort of pattern is typical of almost all discussions of interracial families whether those families are created by adoption, marriage, cohabitation, or any other sort of interracial relationship that produces children.

This structure frames the issue as

1) love vs. race consciousness–The White adoptive family is viewed as loving, kind, and pseudo-colorblind. Black people are not even discussed in a family context. Individual African Americans are interviewed to give their professional opinion about whether or not race matters. When African Americans express reservations about the idea that love conquers all, they are viewed as indirectly attacking the love and commitment of the individual white families who transracially adopt.

2) black vs. white– One thing that is rather striking is that many of these articles is that the do not talk about all of the White families who adopt Chinese, Korean, or other east Asian children. These adoptions are framed as international adoptions, which is true, but they are also interracial. By the NYT’s own admission Euro-American families adopt Black children 1% of the time. Yes folks 1%, compared to 5% who adopt Asian children. Transracial usually means Black/White.

3) white savior vs. black nationalist–In many cases, the authors present the white adoptive parents saving the black child from some combination of “drug addiction,” “incarceration,” HIV, and/or impoverished mothers. (The NYT story is actually notable for not doing this.) Those who oppose transracial adoption or express concerns about its implementation are viewed as valuing racial solidarity over the well-being of children.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term framing. It refers to how the information is presented or discussed. I think this sort of framing creates the idea that whites are progressive and blacks are not. It also portrays the whites as sympathetic people, after all it is very easy to be sympathetic to adoptive parents, who often struggle to have their own biological children and end up raising children who are not their biological kids. The black social worker who notes that many whites are unprepared to deal with the full force of racism comes off as dry and clinical, as someone who would interrupt the “only family these kids know.”

Every time I read these stories I ask myself how could this story be reframed to recognize racism. See the studies follow a “multiculturalism” model, but they do not focus on institutional or interpersonal racism. In a multiculturalism model, individuals can become more diverse, by a