UPDATE 2: The firining “is in direct violation of the city government’s own internal non-discrimination policy,” according to HRC. Curtsy: Pam at Pandagon.

UPDATE: There’s a petition you can sign to object to the firing.

Led by born-again Republican Mary Black, the City Commissioners of Largo, Florida voted to fire City Manager Steve Stanton. Stanton had been City Commissioner for 15 years, but once his intention to get a sex-change operation become know the good Republicans and Christians of Largo couldn’t bear to let him be employed a moment longer.

According to local activist Peggy Schaefer of the First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks:

I don’t want that man in office. I don’t think we should be paying him $150,000 a year when he’s not been truthful. We have to speak up. Of course, we don’t believe in sex changes or lesbianism. They have their rights, but we do, too.

And according to Ron Sanders, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church of Largo:

If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he’d want [Stanton] terminated. Make no mistake about it.

From TampaBay.com:

LARGO — City commissioners ended one of the most tumultuous weeks in Largo history Tuesday night by moving to fire City Manager Steve Stanton following his disclosure that he will have a sex-change operation. [...] Commissioners voted 5-2, with Mayor Pat Gerard and Commissioner Rodney Woods in dissent. [...]

“I’m going to be embarrassed if we throw this man out on the trash heap after he’s worked so hard for the city,” Gerard said before the vote. “We have a choice to make: We can go back to intolerance, or we can be the city of progress.”

Until last week, [Stanton] had served 14 years as the city manager, generally to good reviews. Last fall, commissioners raised his salary nearly 9 percent to $140,234 a year.

But on Feb. 21, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Stanton was undergoing hormone therapy in preparation for gender-reassignment surgery — a plan known only to a small circle of people, including his wife, medical team and a few top officials at City Hall.

Stanton and his friends had written an eight-page plan to help make his decision known in June, when he said his 13-year-old son could be out of town and shielded from the publicity.

Instead, the news came out before he told his son. Outraged residents swarmed commissioners, demanding he be ousted.

“It’s just real painful to know that seven days ago I was a good guy and now I have no integrity, I have no trust and most painful, I have no followers,” Stanton said.

There’s not much to say other than: Disgusting.

* * *

So who is this Mary Black, the commissioner who led the movement to fire Stanton because she hates transsexuals? She is (of course) a born-again Christian Republican with a chip on her shoulder about queers. Here’s what she said about firing Stanton: “I do not feel he has the integrity, nor the trust, nor the respect, nor the confidence to continue as the city manager of the city of Largo.”

A few facts about Mary Black you may not already know:

* Black is anti-abortion even in cases of rape and incest. She has said that abortion could be okay if the mother will die otherwise. (St. Petersburg Times, 10/2/1992).

* “Mary Black ran for city commissioner for one reason. She has been extremely clear about that before the election, during the election and now after the election. Her one and only goal is to stop the ‘gay agenda’ by forcing her biblical beliefs on all of us.” –St. Petersburg Times, letter to the editor, 6/14/2005

* Mary Black has a reputation for being an obstructionist and (frankly) a bit weird. From an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times (also picked up by the Largo Times and the North Pinellas Times) (6/10/2005):

She has refused to meet with the city manager or city attorney, implying there is something unsavory about doing so. She stays away from City Hall. She conducts her city business out of her home, on her own computer. She communicates with the city by e-mail memos. She seems open only to the counsel of unidentified supporters she says asked her to run and represent their concerns.

When she gets to City Commission meetings and discovers that other commissioners know things she doesn’t, she acts like there is some conspiracy to deny her information. When she asks the city manager to put an item on a meeting agenda for her and it isn’t constructed as she had intended, she blames him or the staff rather than her own refusal to communicate openly. She eschews the advice of the city attorney and writes her own legal opinions, though she is not a lawyer.

City Commission meetings have become torturous sessions where other commissioners and staff members try to figure out what Black wants [...] If Black’s intent when she entered office was to keep city government so tangled up that it could not accomplish the people’s business, she is doing that very well.

But as bizarre and hateful a figure as Mary Black is, it’s not just about her. It’s about the mob of locals, like Peggy Schaefer, who hate anyone who isn’t just like themselves, and can’t even bear the idea of a transsexual having a job in government. It’s about the four other commissioners — Andy Guyette, Gigi Arntzen, Harriet K. Crozier, and Gay Gentry — who said “me too” to bigotry. And it’s about the voters who will probably reward the five hatemongers for their prejudice.

I hope that Steve Stanton (who plans to become Susan Stanton) lands on her feet. And I hope that Peggy Schaefer, Mary Black, Andy Guyette, Gigi Arntzen, Harriet K. Crozier, and Gay Gentry all learn to find the shame they are so desperately lacking.

Via Jay Sennet and AngryBrownButch. And as Autumn points out, this case illustrates why anti-discrimination legislation needs to include transgendered people.

April sent me a link to this CNN article titled “Is black America Ready to Embrace Obama?” I just wanted to point out the absurdity of the “story highlights” listed at the top of the page. There seems to be an assumption that black people should like Obama and vote for him because he’s black–as if his other policies don’t matter at all.

The article starts with highlights:

• In a new poll, Obama leads Clinton 44 to 33 percent among black voters

• Some blacks doubt that Obama understands their experience

• Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, is the Senate’s only black member

• Polls say blacks are less likely to believe America is ready for a black president

Are you missing the irony here? The title seems to imply that Black Americans are skeptical of Obama, but then points out that 44% of Blacks favor Obama, in a race where there are a bazillion candidates. He leads everyone else, but people are questioning whether or not Blacks are loyal to Obama? The doubt angle is reiterated in the second “highlight,” and then the last highlight seems to reinforce Black Americans’ doubt in Obama, which is expanded in the text:

Blacks, in part, may be slow to warm to the candidacy of Obama because, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll suggests, they are less likely than whites to believe that America is ready for a black president.

The poll, conducted December 5-7, 2006, found that 65 percent of whites thought America was ready, compared with 54 percent of blacks. The poll’s margin of error was plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.

I think they are missing the point here; just because people may think the US is not ready for a Black candidate, doesn’t mean that they are not willing to vote for a Black candidate. My perception is that the vast majority of Black Americans are ready for a black President, but most Black Americans believe that many White Americans are not ready for a black President. (I tend to agree.) So I think reporters are confusing skepticism about whites willingness to accept a black President with skepticism about Obama himself.

The article goes on to suggest that Black Americans are skeptical of Obama because:

Part of Obama’s problem with black voters is that he is viewed by whites as the first black candidate with a legitimate shot at the White House.

“When white America has embraced a candidate — as they have with Barack Obama — there is a certain amount of distrust that goes with this among a number of African Americans,” Wilson said.

In an interview with National Public Radio, Obama acknowledged the dynamic:

“In the history of African-American politics in this country there has always been some tension between speaking in universal terms and speaking in very race-specific terms about the plight of the African-American community,” Obama said. “By virtue of my background, I am more likely to speak in universal terms.”

I am sure that there are a few blacks who feel this way, but I think this is an over-generalization that has been perpetuated by many media outlets.

This is the same problem we see time and time again with the media coverage of Obama and Black voters. Many people seem to be perplexed as to why black voters are not flocking to Obama in droves, and then they are shocked that black voters are deliberative, taking time to analyze Obama’s positions.

Imagine the tables were turned, and we were talking about John Edwards or Hillary Clinton. I personally would hope that we would see the same “highlights:”

• In a new poll, Edwards/Clinton leads Obama 44 to 33 percent among black voters

• Some blacks doubt that Edwards/Clinton understands their experience

Why am I not seeing those stories, particularly for Edwards and the other white male candidates (and to a lesser extent Clinton)? Maybe that’s because people are surprised that Barack Obama isn’t automatically getting Black support (although as Black voters learn more about Obama, he is garnering more support), but the recent statewide elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland should have shown that black voters don’t just run willy nilly to the first Black candidate that comes along. Maybe these reporters believe only whites have to prove themselves to black voters. Would we ask similar questions to white voters–why are you skeptical of John Edwards; do you feel he’s not white enough? Why are you voting for Obama when there are several other white candidates? Either way the assumption is really unfair, and it reveals some unfortunate racial double standards.

I wish the mainstream media could just accept the fact black voters don’t automatically vote for Black candidates. Perhaps black voters care more about policies than they do about a candidate’s racial identity. Now isn’t that a novel idea, voting on policy.

[This post was originally posted on September 6, 2002. It disappeared from the archives at some point or other, so I'm now reposting it. --Amp]

The excellent legal blogger Sam Heldman writes “It’s easy to disprove the thesis ‘all daily strips with talking (incl. thinking) animals are pure genius’. (Garfield. QED.) But is it possible to disprove the thesis that ‘no daily strip without a talking (incl. thinking) animal has ever been pure genius’?”

I got into an argument with Scott McCloud about this years ago; Scott had made some sort of compendium of the important comics genres, and although he included “superheros,” he hadn’t included funny-animal comics. Yet if you consider artistic worth, funny-animal comics - Krazy Kat, Pogo, Mutts, the Barks Uncle Scrooge, the Gottfredson Mickey Mouse, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and if you stretch the genre a bit Barnaby, Bloom County, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes - have been at least as important as superheroes in the history of American comics. Even my current favorite daily, the perennial exception-to-the-rule Bruno, has a cat that thinks aloud.

Anyhow, to answer Sam’s question, there’s a lot of non-talking-animal genius if you include soap opera and adventure strips. There were no talking or thinking animals in Terry and the Pirates, for example, or in Little Orphan Annie (I don’t think Sandy saying “arf!” counts). Truthfully, though… as brilliant as the classic soaps and adventures were, they also generally suffer from clichéd, stock characters. The best strips feature a level of humanity and characterization which the soaps and adventures strips - due, I think, to their extreme emphasis on plot - can’t match. I think Sam could argue that none of these arise to the “pure” genius level.

There’s Little Nemo in Slumberland, of course - but that’s a weekly, not a daily.

I’d argue that at its best, Polly and Her Pals is as good as any comic strip ever done - but Polly’s best was always the Sunday strips, not the dailies.

Some folks would argue for the original Dennis the Menace, but I’ve always thought Dennis was overrated (although undeniably beautifully drawn).

Still, there is one strip - kinda halfway between being a gag strip and an adventure - which inarguably had “pure genius” in its peak years. And although I can’t say for certain, I don’t recall any talking (or thinking) animals. Thimble Theatre (which most folks think of as “Popeye”) is about as good as comic strips get.

There’s one more strip I’d argue for - the perennially-underestimated Doonesbury. It’s now past its prime, but at its peak (which lasted a couple of decades) Doonesbury was consistently fresh and funny, with excellent characterization and reasonably good drawing (Trudeau isn’t a natural at the drawing board, but he works hard, and has his own distinctive style). It doens’t rise to Pogo or Peanut’s level, but it deserves more credit than it generally gets.

I know there’s stuff I’m forgetting; I’ll probably get tons of emails pointing out this or that classic daily with no talking animals. But for now, I’ve gotta say - damn, Sam’s question is difficult to answer! The heirarchy of daily strip genres is now clear. All other daily strip genres must bow down (chanting “we’re not worthy! we’re not worthy!”) before the talking possums, kats and beagles.

(Edited long after the fact to correct my embarrassing reference to Sandy saying “woof,” when everyone knows Sandy mainly said “arf.”)

A lot of blogging about Al Gore’s electricity, today. In a fairly typical example, Brian Doherty at Hit and Run writes:

…Gore’s whole deal is that civilization-saving absolutely and vitally requires an action on everyone’s part that he seems to refuse to do himself…

As I understand it, most of the changes that Gore calls for are more global than individual in nature. But in his own life, Gore attempts to lower his carbon usage — for instance, by driving a hybrid car, purchasing “green power,” and flying on commercial airlines when he can — and then buys carbon offsets to make up for the rest.

So that’s that Gore does himself. Now, what actions does Gore suggest everyone else take? Note the big lettering behind Gore in this screencap:

You can watch the full video here. Doherty’s accusation of hypocrisy appears unfounded; Gore isn’t asking more of the rest of us than he’s doing himself.

In addition to the Gristmill post I already linked to, which is excellent, Jim Henley and The Anonymous Liberal have good posts on this faux-controversy (or should I say FOX-controversy?). Curtsy to Robert Hayes, whose ad hom attack on Gore alerted me to this issue.

An “Alas” reader has a question for the “Alas” readership.

Our church has a rectory that is now and is expected to remain unused by a cleric. It is a single family home with 3 bedrooms, a small dining room and kitchen, one and a half baths and a finished basement. It has been proposed by one of our parishioners that we could put it to use as a battered women’s shelter. Can anyone give some guidance on the characteristics that would make it either suitable or unsuitable for such use (construction, location, whatever)? Can anyone give some guidance on what kind of organization (either government or not-for-profit) we should contact to look into the matter further?

If anyone has any advice to offer this reader, please leave it in the comments. Thanks!

When I posted last week about the beating of Billy Ray Johnson, Drydock (in comments) asked why the left wasn’t talking about the Long Beach assault.

“What’s the Long Beach assault?,” I wondered. (I wouldn’t have had to wonder if I had read Rachel’s post back in January). A short google later, I knew that on Halloween of 2006, a mob of black youths¹ beat the crap out of three young white women. One of the young women received severe injuries to her skull and eye, and all three are suffering severe trauma to this day, both physical and mental. Witnesses claim that at least one anti-white remark was shouted out, although it’s not known who shouted it (there were apparently over 30 people present). In addition, the attack caused considerable trauma to the community, making everyone (but probably white people in particular) feel less safe and less inclined to trust. In light of all that, I think whoever inflicted the beatings deserves severe punishment.

Ten black youths — one male, nine female, ranging in age from 12 to 18 (I think) — were arrested, and all but one (a twelve-year-old girl) were found guilty in juvenile court of committing assault and a hate crime.

The judge sentenced the kids to probation, house arrest, and community service. This light sentence, given the severity of the crime, has caused consternation on right-wing blogs. Rick Moore thinks its because black defendants are given light sentences, and this sort of thing could never have happened were the races reversed.

Hecubus has a similar analysis,² and writes:

Do you know why the judge gave such lenient sentences to the offenders? If you do, explain it to me because I still do not understand.

Only the judge knows for certain, but here’s my guess: The judge wanted to give the defendants very little motivation to appeal their verdicts. That way, he’s less likely to have his ruling overturned, which is a real possibility because the evidence against most of the convicted kids is very weak.

I won’t go over every reason this case is weak — Earl Hutchinson’s post does that well. But for me, one factor is paramount: The ID procedure used by police was completely illegitimate. From the LA Times:

For the field identifications, the three victims and an 18-year-old woman, Kiana Alford, who said she had witnessed the attack, were driven separately to the parking lot where the minors were detained.

Alford would testify later that officers told her, ‘We caught the people who did this,’ and that she felt it was her responsibility to identify them.

So the police didn’t include any non-suspects in their lineup, and told the witnesses before they made their IDs that the people they were IDing were the guilty parties. It’s impossible to imagine a less legitimate ID, or a clearer case for “reasonable doubt.” And that’s just the start of the weaknesses in this case — again, see Earl Hutchinson’s post for more.³

Personally, I think it’s likely that some of the convicted defendants are guilty, and others are innocent. But I could be wrong. But what I believe is beside the point; the point is, no one should be convicted in a courtroom without sufficient evidence.

* * *

So how does this compare to the Billy Ray Johnson case? Drydock implied that it’s very much like the beating of Billy Ray Johnson, but with the races reversed. But I don’t see it.

It’s true that both cases involved a despicable and probably race-motivated beating. And both involved slap-on-the-wrist punishments that are inappropriate given the seriousness of the crimes. But that’s where the similarities end.

In Billy Ray Johnson’s case, the local community (or at least, the local white community) seemingly wants the case to quietly go away, and the crime isn’t seen as very serious. In Long Beach, there is tremendous pressure from an enraged community to see people convicted and punished for the crime.

In Billy Ray Johnson’s case, there is no doubt about who did it. In Long Beach, there’s a great deal of doubt — and despite an enormous lack of compelling evidence, a conviction was pushed through the court system.

In Billy Ray Johnson’s case, members of the local white community (including a former mayor and a jury foreman) have been blaming the victim for the crime against him, and claiming that he wasn’t significantly harmed. I haven’t seen anyone, white or black, make those claims about the Long Beach case; the controversy isn’t over whether the crime was bad, but over whether the convicted youths were railroaded without sufficient evidence.

* * *

I think a more legitimate comparison could be made between the Long Beach case and the famous Central Park Rape case of the 1980s, in which — responding to a community’s desperation and anger after a white woman was attacked in a park — a group of black youths were convicted of rape, despite a lack of legitimate evidence against them. In both cases, a genuinely horrible crime happened; in both cases, there was enormous pressure from the public for arrests and convictions; and in both cases, police used lousy procedures to concoct a case against a group of poor black youths who didn’t have the resources (economic or cultural) to effectively defend themselves.

A comparison could also be made between both those cases and the Duke rape case, of course. In all three cases, the police used biased and unfair procedures in their investigation; and in all three cases, there was enormous public pressure for arrests and convictions.

But let’s not overlook one enormously significant difference: None of the accused Duke men have been found guilty in a courtroom. And — unless a genuinely damning case is put against them in a court of law (which seems unlikely) — none of them will be found guilty. The kind of railroaded conviction that happened in the Central Park rape case, and which I strongly suspect went on in Long Beach, simply doesn’t fly when the defendants are white and rich.

If the accused men in the Duke case are innocent, of course, then they’ve suffered unjustly,⁴ and I don’t pretend that’s all right. But I’m also not going to go along with the pretense that being unjustly accused and found guilty isn’t much worse than being unjustly accused and acquitted.

Conservatives imply that looking at these cases shows that white institutional power — and racism — are myths. But what I see is that the system pretty much works the way it’s supposed to for white defendants, or at least for white defendants with some money; for us, the system doesn’t convict without sufficient evidence. That’s simply not true for black defendants. And that’s why comparing these cases convinces me that institutional racism is still treating non-whites like crap, and still matters, and still needs to be fought.

(Hat tip to Happening-Here).

1. ”Youths” is a word that sounds weird and police-y to me. But I can’t think of another word that covers people ranging from age 12 to age 18; 12 is too young to be called a teenager or a young woman, and 18 is too old to be called a kid. (back)
2. By the way, the theory that the justice system systematically gives lighter sentences to black defendants — which is what I think Hecubus and Rick are implying — is exactly the opposite of what the statistics show. (back)
3. There is one solid piece of evidence — a phone belonging to one of the victims was found in a car that some defendants were in. But even if you think that’s enough for a conviction, it should only apply against whichever defendant had the phone, and isn’t evidence against the defendants who were never even in the car the phone was found in.

   It’s also been reported, via an anonymous leak, that a victim’s blood is on another defendant’s pant cuff. If that’s true, that’s pretty damning. But since the judge refused to accept this evidence — which was introduced by the prosecution two weeks after the trial began — it can’t legally be held against any of the defendants. (back)

4. I don’t know what happened at Duke, or if the accused men are guilty. But from what I know, barring some amazing new evidence, there’s not enough evidence against them to justify a conviction.

   Nor do I deny that the Duke Lacrosse team seems to have a lot of racist misogynistic scumbags. But being wrongly accused of rape is not a legitimate punishment for being a racist misogynistic scumbag. (back)

Truly Outrageous presents: The 31st Carnival of the Feminists!

The Nineteenth Floor presents: Disability Carnival #9

Righteous Sister Speaks presents: Erase Racism Carnival #9

Brownfemipower: The Women The World Requires
“…For our communities, death is not the ultimate fuck you–living is.” A bit under a year from now, I hope someone nominates this post for a 2007 “best post” Koufax. It’s that good. And also impossible to summarize, so just go read it.

Crooked Timber: Why Are Dutch Children The Happiest, Healthiest Kids In The Industrialized World?

The Agitator: Context For The SWAT Team Shooting Of Kathryne Johnson
I hope folks are reading The Agitator. One of his most frequent topics is how SWAT teams are now commonly being used for no-knock raids on homes where there’s no reason for heavily-armed no-knock raids; as a result, more and more people are dying, in most cases shot to death by police invaders who didn’t identify themselves, and whose over-the-top tactics introduce violence into non-violent situations.

This post is a stunning — and by no means complete — list of people who have been shot to death for no acceptable reason. Except in the rare case where someone shoots a police officer in self-defense, there is never any significant punishment for the killers.

I Shame The Matriarchy: My Ex-Husband’s Porn Addiction

Geek Monthly: Interview With Joss About The “Buffy Season Eight” Comic Book Series
Page four of the interview is especially interesting for feminist readers, but the whole interview makes me excited about the comic book. There is a minor spoiler about what Dawn’s been up to, though, so skip page 2 if you’d like to avoid that. Curtsy: Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty.

Alex Blase at Dkos: Gay-Bashing Is The Reason “Forcible Sodomy” and “Rape” Are Two Different Crimes

Rad Geek: How The U.S.’s Drug War Contributes To Starvation In Afghanistan

BlackProf.com: Jim Crow Laws Were The Tyranny Of The White Minority

African American-backed majoritarian governments controlled the South after the Civil War; while in power, they enacted strong civil rights laws and created a public education system. These policies were reversed, and segregation imposed, not because African Americans were a minority, destined to lose in the majoritarian political process, but rather through elimination of democratic politics and imposition of minority rule. African Americans and their white allies were stripped of their electoral majority through fraud, violence and illegal disenfranchisement.

News Story: Hybred Cars, Blind Pedestrians, Audible Signals and Noise Pollution
The Gimp Parade links to this article, which points out that hybrid cars — because they’re so quiet — are potentially dangerous to blind pedestrians.

The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum: Rosie Demonstrates What A Real Apology Looks Like

Indianz.com: Bureau of Indian Affairs Is A “Black Hole” For Tribes Wanting Land Placed In Trust

Extremely cool photo of migrating starlings in Algeria.

Shakespeare’s Sister: Jimmy Kimmel’s Anti-Transsexual Rant
SS links to a YouTube video. In the video, interviewing Rebecca Romijn (who plays a transsexual on Ugly Betty) Kimmel jokes about how he thinks transwomen are ugly and unfeminine, and jokes about a fictional character taking an axe to a transsexual. Romijn disagrees with him and says some of the right things, but I was longing to see her get angry and chew Kimmel out, and I was disappointed.

I’m unhappy with the cliched use of the transsexual villain plot-twist on Ugly Betty, which obviously feeds on ugly anti-trans stereotypes. But despite that I still love the show, and the writers are attempting to make Romijn’s character both fully developed and sympathetic to the audience.

Never Judge A Book By It’s Cover: Democrat women are ugly! Ha ha!
For Republicans, this sort of thing passes for wit. The pettiness and stupidity of this post is made even more pathetic by the blog’s name. (The joke in this post parallels the Jimmy Kimmel anti-trans bigotry linked to above, further proof that banal minds think alike.)

Newspaper Rock: Simpsons Episode Does A Good (But Not Flawless) Job Depicting American Indians

The Blind Bookworm: Ashley X And The Journalistic Challenge Of Writing About Disability
A lot of really interesting stuff here. Curtsy: The Gimp Parade.

Deltoid: Poll Shows That Most Americans Badly Underestimate Iraqi Death Toll

Dissident Voice: Palestinian Refugee Family, Including Children, Imprisoned In Texas; Daughter May Have Been Sexually Abused With Punative Body Cavity Search
Absolutely disgusting. After reading the above article, read the follow-up article as well. (Thanks to Ms. Xeno for the tip.)

Dispatches From The Culture War: Christian Group Objects To Wal-Mart Carrying Books For Queers

A Bird’s Nest: Reading The Anti-Feminist Blogs
Check out her follow-up post, as well.

The Republic Of T: Wealth, Inheritance, and Excluding Same-Sex Couples From Marriage

My Private Casbah: Feminism Shouldn’t Be An Excuse For Anti-Trans Prejudice
Bint criticizes the decision of a Canadian women’s center to discriminate against a transwoman volunteer. Shorter Bint: None of us will truly be free until all of us are free.

International Federation of Journalists Condemns US For Unprovoked Attack On Iraqi Journalists
As ePurbus Media points out, the total lack of coverage of this story — either to confirm or to debunk it — is very disturbing.

Daily Campus: If “Rape Drugs” Are Uncommon And It’s Drunk Women Being Raped, That’s Still Rape
If you run into a login wall, you can use: Login: alas@amptoons.com Password: alasablog

Washington Blade: Proponents Of Federal Anti-Gay-Marriage Amendment Will Seek Amendment Via State Legislatures

The American Prospect: How Fundamentalist Christians Think About Gays And “Recruitment”

Last fall, while doing some reporting in northeastern Kentucky, I was talking to two local activists (registered Democrats, no less!) about why they were trying to shut down anti-bullying training at the public high school. Their gripe? By teaching that homosexuality is normal, and that students shouldn’t harass their classmates because they’re gay, the training sought to recruit students into being gay.

Daily Mail: Article About Troop Of Fat Ballerinas
As Big Fat Blog correctly points out, the article contains some annoying and needless anti-fat cliches, but the dancers are great. I always love seeing good fat dancers. (That’s a photo of one of the dancers, to the right.)

Newshog: The Case Against Iran Is Extremely Weak

Eurozine: Interesting Interview With Martha Nussbaum
The end of the interview, which includes her (mostly positive) reflections on MacKinnon and Dworkin, might be particularly interesting to feminists. Curtsy: Feminist Law Professors.

LA Times: Al Sharpton’s Ancestors Were Enslaved By Family Of Strom Thurmond’s Ancestors
Holy shit. (Thanks to Bean for the tip.)

Cool Beans: Our bank donates to charity! Which charity is that? Just, y’know, “charity.”

Why Sadly, No! Will Never Be On My Blogroll
(Fortunately for them, I’m sure they couldn’t care less.)

Andrew Sullivan: Dildos, Penises, Anuses, and Texas Law, Oh My!
This is a link to an embedded youtube video. The entire thing (which includes comments from Molly Ivans) is pretty amusing, but the highlight is definitely a debate in the Texas legislature over a law making it illegal for a penis to ever touch an anus. I also liked the sex shop employee, standing in front of a display of at least 30 dildos, explaining that they don’t sell dildos. Curtsy: The Debate Link.

Angry Brown Butch: Race, Opposition to Equal Marriage Rights, And Homophobia

Slate: In Defense Of “Hooking Up,” The Latest Non-Crisis On Campus

Taking Steps: It Is Time For A Feminism Of The Monsterous

This is for the Lilim, because you forget that the next part after your co-opted icon parts ways with Adam and goes her own way is and she begat monsters, and she becomes terrifying. This is for the Gorgons and the vampires and the chimaeras, for Cybele and Baba Yaga, Hel and Ashtoreth, for Lamia and Scylla, for Kali and Kapo ‘ula-kina’u. This is for all of them with teeth.

It is time to look the monstrous in the eye. It is time. It is time to say that we are beautiful in our fierceness, and that we are our own. We are not the rejected of what we can never be. We are what we were meant to be. We are not pieces of wholes thrown together incorrectly. We are not mistakes.

YouTube: Man Testing Different Levels Of Dog Shock Collar
There’s probably something wrong with me, because I think this clip is hilarious. Via Damn Cool Pics.

My Private Casbah: Similarities Between Being A Person Of Color & A Person With Disabilities

Dispatches From The Culture Wars: The International Trend Towards Outlawing “Defamation of Religion.”
Scary stuff. Especially in light of Amanda and Melissa’s recent experiences.

Volokh Conspiracy: Yes, Athiests Are Capable Of Being Moral

Ruth Rosen: The Care Crisis

For four decades, American women have entered the paid workforce–on men’s terms, not their own–yet we have done precious little as a society to restructure the workplace or family life. The consequence of this “stalled revolution,” a term coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, is a profound “care deficit.” A broken healthcare system, which has left 47 million Americans without health coverage, means this care crisis is often a matter of life and death. Today the care crisis has replaced the feminine mystique as women’s “problem that has no name.” It is the elephant in the room–at home, at work and in national politics–gigantic but ignored.

Three decades after Congress passed comprehensive childcare legislation in 1971–Nixon vetoed it–childcare has simply dropped off the national agenda. And in the intervening years, the political atmosphere has only grown more hostile to the idea of using federal funds to subsidize the lives of working families. (Curtsy: Our Bodies Our Blog.

YouTube: Super Flexible Girl Competition.
Via Damn Cool Pics.

An Even Scarier Photoshop Retouching Site
Very disturbing, both because they specialize in photos of contestants in child beauty pageants, and because they’re not as skillful as the folks who do adult models, and as a result the retouched photos look even more artificial. Via a comment left on Pandagon (normally I’d credit the person who left the comment, but Pandagon’s down at the moment, so I can’t look it up).

Clay Cane: Gallery of Black Women On The Cover Of Vogue
Curtsy: Blackprofs.com

Spain Standardizes Women’s Clothing Sizes

Glenn Greenwald: When Foreign Policy Is Dominated By Men Wanting To Preserve Their Masculinity
Glenn doesn’t put things in those terms, but I think anyone watching politics through a feminist lens would find it impossible not to see idiotic machismo lurking behind a bunch of politiicans going on about the need to appear “strong” rather than “weak.”

Equality Loudoun: Anti-Gay Male Preacher Propositions Undercover Male Cop

2000 Bloggers: Photo Montage
Neat. Curtsy: DeviousDiva.

Slactivist: Biblical literalism, homosexuality and charging interest

New (to me) Blog: Muzzlewatch
“Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.”

(I’m only including this link to DeviousDiva in the hope that it’ll help her become a flippery fish. :-P )

I thought I would put up a graph depicting the race and gende break down of interracial marriages from the mid-1900s.  We had a debate in the comment section over at Rachel’s Tavern last week, and I promised one of my readers that I would find the studies which indicated that marriages between black women and white men were more common until the 1960s. Here is data tabulated by David Heer from 1974.  The 1960 Census was the first one to keep data on intermarried couples, and the change between 1960 and 1970 is important because laws against interracial marriage were ruled unconstitutional in the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia case.  What is most striking to me is that the race/gender make-up of intermarried couples switched in the 1960s.  I also checked several of the other studies at the time.  As Ann correctly noted, none of those early deomographic studies covered the nation as a whole.  One researchers Monohan¹ was able to get limited samples of cities or states, but comprehensive data was limited because it was not kept in many states.  What is also striking is that there still were thousands of Black white marriages in the south in 1960 even though they were illegal in many of those states in 1960, which likely means that many of these couples were acting in defiance of the law. Surpisingly, the number of IR’s decreased in the south after the Supreme Court’s ruled laws against intermarriage illegal.

Table 1. Number of Black/White Marriages by Type and Region, US 1960 & 1970

Heer, D.M. 1974. “The Prevalence of black-white marriage in the United States, 1960- 1970.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 35:246-258.))

I know many of you may also be interested in the current rates of Black American intermarriage. In the year 2000 Census there were 78,778 black woman/white man couples, and 208,789 black man/white woman couples, which means 72.6% of Black white marriages in 2000 werer between black men and white women.  For those who are curious about Black intermarriage with other groups.   Here are the stats:

Asians (BM/AF=27,520; BW/AM=4,472)

Pacific Islanders(BM/PF=2,248; BW/PM=492)

American Indians (BM/IF=7,398 BW/IM=3,751).   

(Note on Data: Remember the Census does not conisider Latinos a race, so I have excluded Latinos from this analysis.  I also exclude those people who marked more than one race.  This is only for people who marked one race. BW= Black women and BM=Black man)

I don’t have a great deal of commentary other than to say regardless of the racial group Black men are much more likey to outmarry at this point and time.

1. Monahan, Thomas P. 1970. “Interracial marriage: data for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.” Demography 7:287-299. Monahan, Thomas P. 1976. “The Occupational class of couples entering into interracial marriages.” Journal of Comparative Studies 7: 175- 192. (back)

Here you see Sydney drawing on my Cintiq, which is a monitor you can draw on directly. (Much better than using a mouse or even a tablet to draw). Sydney’s concentration can get very intense when she draws.

The program she’s using is TuxPaint, by far the best of several children’s drawing programs I tried out. (And it’s free!) I’m not sure if Sydney’s learning anything about drawing, but she’s definitely learning to use computers; I’ve been really impressed with how much she’s learned about how to navigate TuxPaint’s option menus.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of people reported that the “live comment preview” function was slowing down their browsers, so I’ve replaced it with an Ajax-based comments preview. This has the advantage of live preview in that you don’t have to reload the page to preview your comment; but since the comments preview isn’t activated until you press the “preview comment” button, people can choose to opt out if it messes up their browser.

I’m having a layout problem, though… As you can see if you scroll down to comments, the “preview comment” button is slightly lower than the “submit comment” button. I’d prefer to have them at the same height. If you know how to fix this, please clue me in. I’ve put a copy of my comments.php file here, so folks can take a look at it.

The national office of Delta Zeta Sorority was disappointed with its chapter at DePauw University, so they decided to come in and conduct a review, which resulted in them purging the sorority of all of the women of color and the overweight women.  The New York Times reported on the story.  Here is a quote:

Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.

“Virtually everyone who didn’t fit a certain sorority member archetype was told to leave,” said Kate Holloway, a senior who withdrew from the chapter during its reorganization.

The article also suggests that one of the “problems” with the sorority was that it had a reputation for attracting brainy women, who were in math and science.  In order to revamp their image the national office of the organization tried to remake the sorority in a way that would make them more attractive to white fraternity guys, which apparently in their view meant that the women had to be skinny, white, and dumb.

This is not the first time the sorority engaged in discriminatory behavior.

This is not the first time that the DePauw chapter of Delta Zeta has stirred controversy. In 1982, it attracted national attention when a black student was not allowed to join, provoking accusations of racial discrimination.

Earlier this month, an Alabama lawyer and several other DePauw alumni who graduated in 1970 described in a letter to The DePauw, the student newspaper, how Delta Zeta’s national leadership had tried unsuccessfully to block a young woman with a black father and a white mother from joining its DePauw chapter in 1967.

Despite those incidents, the chapter appears to have been home to a diverse community over the years, partly because it has attracted brainy women, including many science and math majors, as well as talented disabled women, without focusing as exclusively as some sororities on potential recruits’ sex appeal, former sorority members said.

It sounds like the sorority was doing just fine.  If they needed to get their numbers up, they should have no problem attracting other intelligent women.

Unfortunately, this story supports all of the worst stereotypes of fraternities and sororities–they’re bigoted, party animals, who don’t care about school. 

Thanks to Rory for the link!

I’ve just read two very irritating articles in the guardian. Both purport to be about feminism and dieting - but both make Linda Hirschman’s version of feminism look like it belongs in ‘Notes from the First Year.’ Zoe Williams article is called You’re Vain and Stupid and the first sentance says: “Women who fixate on their weight should relinquish their right to be taken seriously.” I don’t even know where to start with this - when did women even win the right to be taken seriously? But the real reason Zoe Williams argument is not feminist is because it asks the question ‘why do women fixate about their weight’ and answers it ‘because they’re stupid’.

Feminism’s most basic tenet is women’s problems are structural and political, not individual. “Because women are stupid” is rarely a feminist answer to any question.

Even more annoying was India Knight’s reply to Zoe Williams (who are these people? I don’t know either - apparently they’re people that guardian readers would have heard of) titled It’s not anti-feminist to go on a diet (thanks to Big Fat Blog for the link). This is a misleading start, because India Knight didn’t just go on a diet, she wrote a diet book. At least part of her living now comes in telling other women how to lose weight. If this article is anything to go by she drums up business by making fat women feel worse about themselves (she asks “Why is it good to be pleased that you look like a pig?”)

What is so awful, so anti-feminist, about her article, is the narrative she tells about being fat:

You may occupy a great deal of physical space if you’re very fat, but in everyday life, it’s as though you weren’t there. Sales assistants stare blankly through you. Men pretend you don’t exist, or start calling you “mate”. You wonder whether your children are embarrassed to be seen with you in public (the answer to that one is yes, probably). You wish you could go for a bike ride with them, but you’re too self-conscious, because you look like a potato balanced on an ant. You can only buy clothes in specialist shops, and these clothes are as undesirable as you have started to feel. Your self-esteem - well, I was going to say “plummets”, but it’s hard to plummet when you’ve reached rock bottom.

She’s right - it sucks to be a fat woman in our society, it really fucking sucks. But every single example she gives isn’t directly about being fat, it’s about how people react to fat people. Her argument appears to be that men treat fat women like shit, so the solution is to stop being fat. That doesn’t resemble any kind of feminism I know.

She reaches a low point when she suggests weight loss as a solution for an abusive relationship:

just as I cheer for the woman whose husband puts her and her weight down every single day. One of these days, he’s going to have to stop. One of these days, she and her new-found confidence aren’t going to take it any more.

On first glance this is relatively trivial issue, which reminds me about everything that irritates me about the Guardian. But it’s actually about a much more fundamental issue, which is how we define feminism. This is what happens when we suggest individual solutions for collective problems. We all need to find ways to live as best we can with the problems that living in a misogynist world creates and I’d never criticise anyone else for feeling the need to lose weight or obsess about food. These sorts of survival mechanisms are neither feminist nor anti-feminist, they’re what you’ve got to do. It’s when your survival mechanisms make life harder for other women, for example if you denigrate fat women and reinforce society’s idea about the relationship between morality and food, then that’s anti-feminism. I think Emma Thompson summed up this dilema brilliantly:

As an artist, you can choose not to sell women down the river. When I decide, for instance, not to diet myself into a starved condition to play someone like Dora Carrington, then that’s a political act. And I was being lampooned by male journalists, saying: Who would want to sleep with her? She’s not that kind of shape. So I paid the price, but I would never betray other women in that way. I just wouldn’t do it and I’ve never done it. She pauses…. God, I’ve gone on every single diet under the sun, but I’ve never got slender in a very particular way for any role.

No being a feminist doesn’t give us magic powers to exit from a world that’s obsessed with our bodies. But it does mean, at a minimum, that we have a responsibility not to add to that pressure. For Emma Thompson that means she didn’t lose weight to play Carrington, for most of the rest of us it’s simpler, but possibly incredibly different, we have to stop talking about food and our bodies in any way that reinforces the hatred other women have for their bodies.

That certainly includes writing a diet book or saying that fat women look like pigs.

BlackAmazon links to this Texas Monthly article about the case of Billy Ray Johnson, a disabled black man who was knocked unconscious by some white partiers and then dumped unconscious on a deserted roadside for several hours. Johnson lived, but with severe and apparently permanent damage. What makes the case particularly outrageous is that two juries have refused to do more than slap the perpetrators on the wrist, and now the town’s white residents are inclined to excuse the perpetrators and blame the victim.

Here’s a few quotes from the article:

And yet, after Corey, Wes, Colt, and Dallas were each arrested and charged that October with aggravated assault (Lacy, who cooperated with investigators, was not charged), they were seen, by some, to be victims as well. “These boys’ names are ruined for life,” Corey’s mother, Martha Howell, later told one reporter. “And [Billy Ray] is better off today than he’s ever been in his life. He roamed the streets, the family never knew where he was. Now in the nursing home he’s got someone to take care of him.” [...]

Wilford Penny told the Chicago Tribune one month after stepping down as Linden’s mayor that the incident had been “an unfortunate and senseless thing” but that “the black boy was somewhere he shouldn’t have been.” [...]

When I met with the jury foreman, a warehouse manager named John Reed, he explained that some jurors had thought Billy Ray—who had taken the stand to give a few halting answers—had faked his symptoms and had practiced seeming slow and walking poorly. “As far as I’m concerned, everyone’s to blame,” Reed said. “Wes Owens shouldn’t have carried him out to that party, and Billy Ray should have known better than to go drink beer with a bunch of white boys.”

Stupid racist assholes.

(Notice how, in that last quote, Wes Owens gets a last name but Billy Ray Johnson doesn’t?)

* * *

That last quote from the jury foreman (”Billy Ray should have known better than to go drink beer with a bunch of white boys”) reminds me a bit of the frequent response people give after hearing about a rape — “she should have known better than to be drunk in that part of town/ that bar/ that dorm room” etc.

But it’s not reasonable to suggest that black people spend their entire lives avoiding ever being alone with white people. Likewise, it’s not reasonable to suggest that women to spend their lives cloistered like nuns (or prisoners) for fear of making themselves vulnerable to rape. You might as well say, “well, she shouldn’t have been crossing the street; she had to know that crossing the street made it more likely she’d be hit by a car.”

Not useful advice.

We need to get to a point where fewer people, commenting on these horrible attacks, say what boils down to: “The victims should have stayed in their place, then maybe they wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

Who had a recent comment she left on “Alas” quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Apparently, many NASCAR fans have a penchant for Confederate Flags, and some of them are upset about this editorial discouraging people from flying the Confederate Flag at a race at the California Speedway.  They decided to come into the newspaper’s website and overwhelm the comments section with all the typical arguments.  The same kind of comments I delete from here nearly every day. 

Check out a few of the lovely comments. Let’s begin with this racism apologist RT:

We are constantly reading from sports writers like yourself that too many times politics are brought into sports yet here you are starting a debate that doesn’t need to be debated. The fighting of the Civil War was not about slavery but of state’s and man’s freedom to govern themselves. Once that war ended the healing between brothers started and continues. Shame on you for fueling this debate and stick to what you are supposedly paid to do and write about sports. Or better yet, transfer to the commentary section.

What strikes me about RT’s comment is how he decided that the Civil War was not about slavery, but about “man’s freedom to govern themselves.”  Geez, I guess he has forgotten that slaves did not have the freedom to govern themselves because they were enslaved. (Grammarphiles I know this is a tautology :)) )  I’m also curious who the healing was with; does he mean between whites in the north and the south?  Does he mean whites and blacks?  I’m not sure, but this is the classic, “why are you even daring to talk about racism strategy?”  Where some racism apologist minimizes racism, pretends to be a neutral/unbiased observer, and subsequently chastises the person acknowledging racism by telling them politely to shut up. Classic colorblind racist strategy.

Next we have GM.  Who decides to play the “southern heritage card,” follows it up with nice rant against California, and then argues that he is a college professor who teaches constitutional law.

No, I agree as a proud Southerner who grew up in the shadow of the Darlington raceway and knew many of the early NASCAR drivers that the Confederate flag should not be flown at NASCAR events–in California that is. We would not want the proud symbol of our heritage and coursge in withstanding 142 years of illegal US occupation of our homeland to be smeared by being flown in the most socialist and un-American state in the union. To ignorance we can only say that no slave ship ever flew a Confederate flag. Our ancestors fought for the freedoms that had been written into the Constitution. When Lincoln proposed a Constitutional amendment that would protect slavery if the South would support his tariffs that would have, and did, bankrupt the South, the reponse was that slavery was dead and they would not support him. So please don’t fly our flag. As an educated, non-racist, Southern college professor who teaches American Constitutional history and government, I do not want it desecrated by ignorance Yankees who have no idea what it means.

I love how all of these southern heritage folks very conveniently forget that racism is part of that heritage. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think racism is unique to the south, but this country was built on the blacks of slave labor (I caught this typo and decided not to change it because it is just too ironic-the word is supposed to be backs.).  The Confederacy was organized, in part, to uphold the state’s rights’ to retain slavery.  If this guy has a PhD, I would hope that he had learned this in his history classes.

Next we have LDT, who can’t find anything “racist and regressive” about the south.  In fact, I think LDT is still fighting the Civil War.

Lincoln fought against the constitution of the United States and everything that the U S stood for. He began the striping of power from the people that is so obvious today. He also did away with the only power that the people and that States had to keep the federal government within the constitution and that was the right of secession!

I wonder what LDT thinks about the Iraq War.  Ok, sorry…I just thought the Civil War was over.

Next up is the classic “you are the real bigots strategy.”  It is first used by a poster with the initials HBO, but then Charles comes in to save the day for the “you are the real bigots” racists. 

Why is OK for blacks and other minorities to display pride in their heritage but when whites (especially southern whites)display pride or even indicate that they are proud of their heritage, they are immediately labeled racist and insensitive to others? This double standard has got to stop. If you are offended you have every right to leave. Nobody is forcing you to stay. If someone were to found a White Coaches Association or a National Association for the Advancement of White People you can bet Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have a field day with the ensuing media circus. NASCAR’s roots aren’t in the north or the west or the east, it was started in the south and people should be proud of their heritage. There was a time when you weren’t anybody in NASCAR unless you had some “shine” in your background.

If you only knew, how many times I hear this crap.  The NAACP was founded for the same reasons as the Confederacy?  Well let’s investigate this. You can find more about the origins of the NAACP here, but I would just like to highlight this quote:

The NAACP was formed in response to the 1908 race riot in Springfield, capital of Illinois and birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, only 7 of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth. Echoing the focus of Du Bois’s militant all-black Niagara Movement, the NAACP’s stated goal was to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which promised an end to slavery, the equal protection of the law, and universal adult male suffrage, respectively.

Gasp!!!! The NAACP was founded by white people, gasp again!!! I guess they were race traitors, sell-outs, or anti-white bigots because giving black people their rights under the law obviously means taking rights away from white people.  Especially, their right to own slaves and fly the confederate flag. (Yes, I know I’m being unusually sarcastic and snarky, but how else do you respond to these people.)

Then, we have the “I know a black man who supports the Confederate Flag” argument.  Because if we can find one Black person who supports this, then it must be Ok.  This guy doesn’t realize it works better when the one black guy you cite is also your friend, but I digress.  Let’s get to the quote from LF:

We’ve been through this many times before: hate groups have no right to define the meaning of the Confederate flag. The flag means different things to different people. I have even heard that a black man said that he wanted to kiss this flag because it reminded him that he is probably much better off in the USA than he would have been in Africa. The Civil War is by far the greatest legend of American folklore. Without Confederate flags, America would not look like America anymore. These attacks on Confederate flags are cultural genocide. To me, the flag has little or no present-day political or social significance. I see the flag as a fun thing and also as a symbol of the South, peace, tolerance, and national unity. When we fight over this flag, we set a very poor example for places where civil wars are still going on, like Northern Ireland. Also, censorship and attempted censorship of Confederate flags impair objectivity in the interpretation of history concerning the Confederacy.

I’m not even going to bother with the rest of the argument, but I have to admit that it is rather hilarious to bring up genocide.  Dude why don’t you go talk to some American Indians about genocide.  Now that’s a real genocide.  Plus, doesn’t genocide involve mass killings.  When was the last time white southerners were killed in mass, and don’t use the Civil War because nobody was fighting to kill off white southerners.  The fight was over maintaining the Union.  And last but not least, you have to ask yourself why the KKK and other hate groups so love the confederate flag.  Which came first the KKK or the Confederate flag?

Ok, this guy GL just can’t judge time properly, and he uses the “I know a black man who supports the Confederate Flag” argument, so I had to throw him into the mix for a good laugh.

The Rebel Flag is not a hate symbol, racist, It has nothing to do with that this is all opinion not fact because it happened almost 2000 years ago and you people who want to ban it from sports and everything need to get over it! I can give you millions of people who will play sports with the rebel flag flying above and most people can and will do it because it is a flag not a hate and racist symbol. I know Cowboy Troy played with charlie Daniels with the flag draped behind them and Cowboy Troy is black too and the guy who played Sherrif Little on the dukes goes to dukesfest every year and signs General Lee’s with the flag on top and I know a black man in one of the carolina’s also had the flag on a pole and walked up and down a Highway and proved the flag does not and will never stand for racism and a lot of black people fought for that flag wether you wanna believe it or not. So leave our flag alone dang you people!

If these folks don’t think the flag is offensive and it is about southern pride, not white supremacy, can somebody please tell me why they always have to find somebody black to back them up?  However, I am very happy to learn that the US has been around for well over 2000 years! 

Now if all else fails and you can’t convince them that the Confederate flag is not a symbol of hate, you can always blame the Jews like JM:

Any sign of white racial consciousness and racial solidarity is deemed “hate,” “racism,” — evil-ism by egalitarianists, and pretend-egalitarianists, (with 99.9% of the politically correct in the latter). While Jews and nonwhites are encouraged to be racially conscious, to organize along racial lines, to appoint racially defined leaders, and to discriminate when it serves their ethnic interests — whites are punished for showing just a hint of racial aggression. Why do you think that where Jews live as a majority, Israel, they aggressively, sometimes violently promote the interests of the majority. Where Jews live as a minority, they aggressively, sometimes violently, promote the interests of minorities.

Racists, you gotta love ‘em.  It doesn’t matter what the subject most of their arguments are the same–ignore the topic at hand, chastise the person willing to acknowledge racism, deny/minimize the existence of racism in the past or present, say your opponents are the real bigots, look for a lone person of color to support you, and blame the Jews. 

Before we get to the comments, I would like to admonish people to stay away from shameless NASCAR or southerner jokes.  The problem isn’t auto racing or southerners; it is racism.  While there may indeed be survey data that suggests racial prejudice is higher among white southerners, they are by no means alone in using these arguments.  There are also many white southerners who are on the side of racial progress, and many northerners who are not; let’s not turn this thread into an excuse to make blanket generalizations about southern folks.  These kind of arguments come up every time the subject is racism.

Footnote: Several of these people put their first and last names.  I am not reprinting their names in their entirty because I don’t want them Googling themselves and trolling around this site.  I am not trying to protect their identities, and if you want to see their names, you can click on the link to the article.

Every time I think I’ve seen the limit on how screwed up this country is about sex, we retop ourselves. Case in point (via the Agitator):

On March 25, 2004, Amber and Jeremy took digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified “sexual behavior.” The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber’s house to Jeremy’s personal e-mail address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.

Court records don’t say exactly what happened next–perhaps the parents wanted to end the relationship and raised the alarm–but somehow Florida police learned about the photos.

Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.

So for that, they will for the rest of their lives be registered sex offenders. (Or maybe not - see comments.)

Amber appealed, claiming that this application of an anti-child-pornography law to her taking private photos of a perfectly legal encounter with her boyfriend violated her right to privacy (which is guaranteed in the Florida constitution). Earlier this month, a Florida Appeals Court ruled against Amber. The majority decision, written by Judge James Wolf, hinged on whether or not Amber could have had a reasonable expectation of privacy when she emailed the pictures to Jeremy’s personal email address. According to Wolf, she could not have had any such reasonable expectation of privacy, because maybe she or Jeremy would have decided to show them to other people at some point in the future, and anyway the internet can be hacked.

No, really. That was his reasoning. And that’s not even the stupid part.

Here’s the stupid part: Judge Wolf argues that the conviction must be upheld so that Amber and Jeremy can be spared trauma and smeared reputations.

Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.

Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minor’s careers or personal lives.

Try to grasp the jaw-dropping illogic in all its nonsensical glory:

1) Amber is “simply too young to make an intelligent decision.” But she’s not too young to be a held responsible for the crime of child pornography.

2) The state must prosecute Amber in order to protect her from psychological trauma. Because being tried and found guilty of a sex crime is obviously the least traumatic option for Amber here.

3) If the pictures were someday released, that might have hurt Amber and Jeremy’s careers or personal lives. So instead the court permanently brands them as convicted sex offenders, which in no way could potentially harm their careers and relationships in the future.

Sheesh!

(Curtsy: Julian Sanchez.)

Ilya Somin and Mark Kleiman have been debating prison rape.

Ilya, a libertarian, argues that it’s not politically plausible for the government to help prisoners. “Government is responsive to those who have political power, and prisoners are the classic example of a group that has almost no power, and is generally unpopular with those who do. … This is an extreme case of an important broader lesson about the nature of government: it usually can’t be relied on to protect the political powerless or even the relatively weak.”

Instead, Ilya suggests two (as he emphasizes) “libertarian” measures to reduce prison rape. First, end the drug war. No more drug war means fewer people in prison, means less prison rape.

Ilya’s second suggestion is to privatize prisons. Privatized prisons means less guard unions; less guard unions might mean less lobbying for pro-imprisonment legislation; which means fewer prisoners; which means less prison rape.

Mark responds by pointing out that prison rape is much less frequent in federal prisons, which indicates that it is possible for governments to act well. Ilya rebuts Mark’s argument effectively by pointing out that the differences in who is imprisoned in Federal verus State prisons makes it unlikely that comparisons are useful; it’s plausible that there’s less sexual violence in Federal prisons because Federal prisoners are more likely to be people who committed non-violent crimes in the first place.

But Mark also points out that looking at other industries — such as the defense industries, and I’d add the health insurance companies — suggests that privatization doesn’t make lobbying less likely. (As Rj3 sarcastically comments, “Yes, the subcontracting of military services has done a great job eliminating lobbying by defense contractors.”)

Another disturbing thing about Ilya’s anti-government approach is that its seemingly regards prison rape as an inevitable and irreducible problem; we can’t stop it or reduce it, all we can do is try to send fewer people to prison in the first place. I’d certainly agree with ending the drug war, and with many other crime-reducing proposals that would result in lower prison populations. But any reduction in prison rape that comes as a result of reducing crime is just a beneficial side effect; it doesn’t relieve us of the moral responsibility to protect those who are incarcerated from rape.

Ilya writes:

Kleiman also argues that the real way to address prison rape is to improve the quality of prison management and to elect politicians who will support reform in this area. These are worthy objectives, but he does not explain how they are to be achieved given that 1) prisoners themselves have almost no political power, and 2) most voters don’t seem to care about the issue.

It’s problematic for Ilya to claim that Mark’s reforms are politically difficult to bring about and therefore not good ideas. Is there any idea that less politically possible, in the current climate, than Ilya’s proposal of “eliminating or cutting back on the War on Drugs”? Congress took the first steps — baby steps, admittedly — towards addressing prison rape just a few years ago, when it passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. There’s a lot more to be done, but at least Mark’s approach has some demonstrated traction in Congress; the same cannot be said for Ilya’s proposal.

(Just to clarify, I agree with Ilya that we should eliminate the War on Drugs. My point is just that someone who is seriously proposing ending the War on Drugs as a way of reducing prison rape, loses the ability to credibly criticize other people for proposing solutions to prison rape that aren’t an easy sell politically.)

* * *

So how should we be fighting prison rape? There are many approaches, but here are six I’d place high on the priority list:

1) Reform laws that have made it hard or impossible for prisoners to sue for maltreatment. In particular, laws that make it financially unviable for lawyers to take prisoner cases (by limiting the amount lawyers can be paid in such cases) practically guarantee that prison authorities who are indifferent to prisoner rape will never be held accountable. (Read this post at That Lawyer Dude for further information.)

2) Research has given us a fairly good idea of which prisoners are most likely to be targets of rape, and which are the most likely rapists (see chapter IV of the Human Rights Report). As much as possible, these two groups of prisoners should not be held in the same facilities, or in the same prison blocks.

3) Double-celling — that is, cellmates — should be eliminated. Where double-celling can’t be completely eliminated, extreme care should be taken to choose cellmates who are well-matched for safety; non-violent prisoners should only be housed with other non-violent prisoners, for instance. Even in prisons which not everyone can have a single cell, those prisoners who are most likely targets of rape (genderqueer prisoners, child molesters, etc) should be given singles.

4) Current tort laws make it possible to sue prisons for maltreatment only if it can be shown that the prison was aware of the specific problem and chose to ignore it (or encourage it). This gives prison administrations a huge incentive to avoid being aware of prison rape. The law must be reformed to make prisons responsible for the safety of their prisoners without a “see no evil” excuse.

5) Guard-Independent reporting mechanisms, so that prisoners can report rape and abuse to someone other than guards. This is especially important because sometimes the people raping prisoners are guards.

6) Federal grants to help fund prison equipment and construction should be used as a carrot to encourage substantial reform; states that aren’t pro-actively acting to eliminate prison rape should lose federal funds for their prison systems and prison equipment.

(For a longer list of potential reforms, see the “recommendations” section of the Human Rights Watch report.)

* * *

Last week I did a round-up of blog posts about prison rape. Here are a few more:

Bean provides a useful overview of regulations restricting the access of male guards to female prisoners, based on this amnesty international report.

Masculinities in Media writes:

As long as power is held by one so fiercely over another, whether by men over women, or by institutions like prison over their inmates, the dynamic will be recreated in the most intimate of ways – against our bodies. Our response to rape in prison cannot be only to push for more counseling services for prisoners, or more segregated housing units, but must include questioning the way we address crime in this society, and the role of the prisons themselves in creating this crime.

Simon at Stubborn Facts comments. Be sure to read Pat in the comments, as well. From Pat’s comment:

Although a friend of mine is an executive with a private prison company, my experience with them has been that there is less oversight of violence than in state-operated prisons. The amount of supervision and regulation of private prisons required to ensure safety and prevent exploitation of a cheap labor source negates any benefit from private operations. Moreover, incarceration of criminal offenders is a “core responsibility” of the state. These aren’t janitorial services or garbage pick-up. We shouldn’t privatize prisons any more than we should privatize the police.

Finally, anyone interested in this issue should visit the Stop Prison Rape site.

The struggle in Oaxaca continues and at least 64 prisoners continue to be held incommunicado and at risk of further torture. Below is more information from Amnesty International about the case and what you can do to help.

The 138 detainees held at the remote prison in Nayarit state are now known to have been released, either on bail or without charge, or moved back to Oaxaca state prisons, on 20 and 21 December. At least 64 are still in custody. They are
in danger of torture or ill-treatment, and at risk of unfair trial.

Felipe Sanchez Rodriguez, one of the 64 detainees who works with a community education project in Oaxaca, is still detained at the Tlacolula prison, and at risk of unfair trial. He and a friend were detained on the evening of 25 November by men in civilian clothes while walking toward the main bus station. He was held at gunpoint, bundled into a car and driven to a building where he was interrogated for a day. He was kept blindfolded throughout, so he did not know where the interrogation took place. He was beaten and tortured with electric shocks by his captors, who threatened to rape him. Finally he was taken to prison, and later charged with serious offences including organized criminal activity, sedition, and damages to property (‘‘asociacion delictuosa, sedicion, y danos en propriedad ajena’‘). He claims members of the Federal Preventive Police (Policia Federal Preventiva, PFP) have constructed the case against him using false testimony.

While they were being transported to Nayarit, and while they were held there, the detainees allege they were threatened and intimidated by police and guards. According to at least one of them, a group of male detainees were sexually assaulted by police officers on the bus that took them from the airport to the penitentiary.

On 13 January, relatives of detainees and supporters of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca, APPO) held a protest outside Miahuatlan prison. They were reportedly attacked by police, who arrested eight of them and charged them with carrying firearms and drugs, and accused them of attacking a police officer who was filming them. They were released on bail two days later and claim that the charges were based on fabricated evidence in order to break up the demonstration.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In May 2006 teachers went on strike in Oaxaca state calling for improved pay and conditions, and occupied the main square and surrounding streets. State police attempted to clear them from the square by force on 14 June. This made the protesters more determined, and led to the formation of the APPO, an umbrella organization of social and political groups who supported the teachers and all called for the state governor to resign. As the climate of violence in the city increased, armed police in plain clothes started to arbitrarily detain protesters, and reportedly shot dead several APPO supporters. Protesters set up barricades in many neighbourhoods in late August, to keep the police out, and armed men believed to be police officers continued to attack opposition supporters in marches and at the barricades. On 29 October, the PFP went into the city to restore order, arresting many people. There have been repeated violent clashes between police and opposition demonstrators, with some protesters throwing Molotov cocktails, stones and fireworks, and police using teargas, water-cannon, batons and firearms. The last major confrontation took place on 25 November.

Amnesty International has received credible reports that federal and state police have ill-treated and tortured many detainees. The organization is not aware of any state or federal investigation to hold those responsible to account or investigate allegations of widespread fabrication of evidence. In December the National Human Rights Commission issued a preliminary report recognising widespread abuses of human rights in the state throughout the crisis.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- calling on the authorities to ensure that all detainees are protected from any form of torture or ill-treatment, and given guaranteed access to their families and lawyers;
- calling on the authorities to conduct impartial and independent investigations into allegations of ill-treatment and torture by federal and state police officers of those detained on 25 November 2006, including allegations that a group of male detainees were sexually assaulted on 27 November while being transported to the Nayarit federal prison, and for those responsible to be brought to justice;
- calling for an impartial investigation of all cases in which the police allegedly fabricated evidence against detainees to ensure successful prosecution;
- calling on the authorities to ensure that all detainees are given their right to a fair trial in accordance with international human rights standards.
APPEALS TO:

Minister of Public Security:
Lic. Genaro Garcia Luna
Secretario de Seguridad Publica,
Secretaria de Seguridad Publica
Reforma No.364, piso 16, Col. Juarez, Del. Cuauhtemoc,
Mexico DF. C.P. 06600, Mexico
Fax: 01152 55 5241 8393
Salutation: Dear Minister/Estimado Secretario

Minister of the Interior:
Lic. Francisco Ramirez Acuna
Secretario de Gobernacion, Secretaria de Gobernacion
Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juarez, Del. Cuauhtemoc, Mexico
D.F., C.P.06600, MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 55 5093 3414
Salutation: Dear Minister/Estimado Secretario

Governor of Oaxaca:
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, Gobernador del Estado de Oaxaca,
Carretera Oaxaca - Puerto Angel, Km. 9.5
Santa Maria Coyotopec, C. P. 71254, Oaxaca, Oaxaca, MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 951 511 6879 (if someone answers, say ‘‘me da tono de fax, por favor’‘)
Salutation: Senor Gobernador/Dear Governor

General Prosecutor of the Republic:
Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Procurador General de la Republica,
Procuraduria General de la Republica
Paseo de la Reforma nº 211-213, Piso 16
Col. Cuauhtemoc, Del. Cuauhtemoc,
Mexico D.F., C.P. 06500, MEXICO
Fax: 01152 55 53 46 09 08 (if someone answers, say ‘‘me da
tono de fax por favor’‘)
Salutation: Senor Procurador General / Dear Attorney General

COPIES TO:
President of the National Human Rights Commission:
Dr. Jose Luis Soberanes Fernandez
Presidente de la Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH)
Periferico Sur 3469, 5º piso, Col. San Jeronimo Lidice,
Mexico D.F. 10200, MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 55 5681 7199

Ambassador Carlos Alberto De Icaza Gonzalez
Embassy of Mexico
1911 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20006
Fax: 1 202 728 1698

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

Sometimes its hard not to laugh at these headlines because they are so obvious.  I guess it is nice to have some research to back up the obvious–hence this report from the American Psychological Association on the negative effects of media sexualization on women and girls.  First, they operationalize sexualization:

The provocative research included a study of published research on the content and effects of virtually every form of media, including television, music videos, music lyrics, magazines, movies, video games and the Internet. Researchers also examined recent advertising campaigns and merchandising of products aimed toward girls.

Sexualization was defined by the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls as occurring when a person’s value comes only from her/his sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified, e.g., made into a thing for another’s sexual use.

Then later they lay out the negative effects:

• Cognitive and Emotional Consequences: Sexualization and objectification undermine a person’s confidence in and comfort with her own body, leading to emotional and self-image problems, such as shame and anxiety.
• Mental and Physical Health: Research links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems diagnosed in girls and women—eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood.
• Sexual Development: Research suggests that the sexualization of girls has negative consequences on girls’ ability to develop a healthy sexual self-image.

The report also suggests families and health professionals take an active role in countering this trend.  They even suggest media literacy classes.  What is missing, unfortunately, is any direct accountability for media outlets.  The report does not suggest that media stop doing this; rather they suggest that we teach girls and young women how to cope with it. 

What do you think?  If we really wanted to take on patriarchal media capitalism, would it work, or should we focus more on teaching girls/women how to cope?  What kinds of actions could people use to get media outlets to change?  What about the good old fashioned boycott?  Is that dead?  What do you think?

Here is the link to the APA study.

Go over and check it out at Righteous Sister Speaks!! We are looking for hosts for future erase racism Carnivals if you would like to volunteer. For more information on the carnival check out Ally Work.