1. River Vices, which is a blog about politics in my hometown, has a great post about the problem of letting religious zealots control government and media.  The post is called Evanjekylls, which is how many southern Ohioans say Evangelicals.
2. I get some link love, and a personal compliment from Tereza at anti-Racist Parent in an essay about predominantly white schools.
3. Also, via Racialicious, Carmen is providing a free e-book called “How To Be An Anti-Racist Parent”
4. Migra Matters on the case of Alex and Yaderlin Jimenez (a good education for people who don’t know about immigration policy, in particular the myth that marrying a US citizen is going to solve all of your problems).
5. (Saw this one on the news, and found it on a blog.)  A New Jersey High School decided to black out a yearbook photo of two male students kissing. I also though it was interesting that the two male students are black (one guy may have been a dark complexioned Latino, but he sure could pass for black in the picture), and the school appeared to be predominantly white.¹  Now before anybody says well they don’t need pictures of students provocatively kissing in the yearbook: I actually agree with that, but that would mean that they should have blacked out the other pictures of heterosexual students kissing.  The gay black couple got blacked out,² and the heterosexual white couples were muggin’ it up all over the book.
6. Reappropriate on Black/Korean tensions in the $54 million pants lawsuit. (By the way–the judge lost the case.)
7. Racists attacked Tariq’s Mosque, and the people at the Mosque need support.
8. It looks like Isiah Washington may have gotten a raw deal.  He still appears to have made the homophobic slur, but not in the context as it was originally suggested.  Keith Boykin has the details. Here and Here.

Ok, this is getting way too long, and it’s also an open thread, so feel free to add your two cents on other issues.

1. I’m noting this not because I think racism was a motivator, but because people often treat gay and lesbian people of color as invisible. (back)
2. Ironic word choice intended. (back)

If you’re organising an anti-war demonstration in Wellington, at some point you’re going to have to talk about speakers. Generally someone will talk about how we want to have really good speakers this time. Then everyone will nod, there’ll be a long pause, and then someone will say ‘well how about Keith Locke?’¹

When I was in London in 2004 I attended an anti-war meeting, and they had a comedian who was really funny and someone who had been to Iraq recently and had specific information and two other really good speakers - just for a meeting.

Sometimes I think about the people who organise the anti-war marches in Boston, who can have conversations about whether to have Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn this time.

The left in New Zealand is generally very short of people who have knowledge, confidence, and authority which is what you need to be a good speaker, so when someone comes from overseas who doesn’t just have knowledge, confidence and authority, but also a place in history, it’s the event of the year.

When Noam Chomsky came to Wellington they had to move the event from St Andrews on the Terrace to the Town Hall. Tonight, when Angela Davis was speaking in Wellington they filled a lecture theatre that seated 300, had an overflow room that seated half as many people again, and still they turned 200 people away. That was with minimal publicity.

I plan to write two posts on Angela Davis’s talk, first I want to write about my reaction to the talk itself (and the audience), and then I thought it was about time I posted the argument for the abolishment of prisons, and why I agree with it.

But before I did any of that, I wanted to suggest that more prominent left-wing activists should come to New Zealand. We can’t offer you much, but we can promise to treat you like you’re the most exciting person to come to town since Angela Davis…

1. A Green Party MP, who is not going to inspire anyone to the barricades (back)

Ok, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about the latest crime to become a media circus.  I’m sure by now most of you have heard about the murder of Jessie Davis, who was almost 9 months pregnant and was likely killed in front of her two year old child by the child’s father.  Since Davis and Cutts were a black/white couple and I am someone who studies black/white interracial relationships and who is in a black/white interracial relationship, I know many people are wondering what I think about this case.  I’m not here to offer any opinions on the particulars of the case¹ , but I do want to talk about the media coverage of the case.

I went around to a few blogs, and I visited AOL Blackvoices and a couple white supremacist message boards to see what they were saying, and quite frankly it was horrible.  Many people were saying that the victim deserved it; that she was “white trash;” that her child was ugly; and that she was a sleazy, homewrecking whore.  Not surprisingly, the accused murderer, who is the poster boy for anti-black stereotypes, was also being trashed as a violent womanizer who lusted after white women.  I can’t tell you how many racist and misogynistic comments I read; and not surprisingly the white supremacists were giddy over this case.² 

Terrence Says has a reasonable post, which anonymous bigots tried to take over in the comment thread, and in his post, Terrence engages with the question that many folks are thinking–is the media circus surrounding this case about race? Terrence cites a recent case of a white man who killed his white wife and three children:

Today, like Bobby Cutts, Jr. who was arrested in Ohio, Christopher Vaughn was also arrested. Christopher Vaughn was arrested two hours prior to the funeral of his family in St. Charles County, Missouri (suburban St. Louis) where the family originated; yet, so far, there has not been a mention of Vaughn’s arrest that I have been able to observe on the weekend news shows.

As sad and tragic as the Jessie Davis story is, I can’t help but wonder if this story had involved a missing pregnant black or Latina woman if it would have the same media traction.

Well several of the anonymous commenters went crazy, saying that the case received so much attention because Davis was pregnant, because Cutts was a cop, because the child was left in the house alone, and everything but race.  I certainly agree that all of those things make the story more sensational, but I really can’t fathom that it is much more sensational than the Vaugh family case mentioned above.  However, I find myself having a slight disagreement with Terrence.  I agree that white women victims get much more attention than Black, Asian, Latino, and American Indian women, and I agree that race is a big factor in the media attention the case has gotten, but I would be more specific than Terrence.

It’s about interracial sex.  Interracial crimes make big sensational news stories, but crimes that involve interracial sexuality arouse the deepest passions of American bigotry.  The OJ Simpson case, the Duke Rape, the Kobe Bryant rape case, and now this one–they all have tremendous sexual overtones.  For a long time, I was surprised at how much attention the Duke case received, because I was focused on the fact that the accuser in the case was black, but I missed the mark.  It’s more than the races of the people involved; if the crime is perceived as involving interracial sex, something snaps in people, suddenly they perk up.

The truth of the matter is that the US is a culture obsessed with interracial sex, but nobody will say this in polite company.  During the slave era and the Jim Crow era, white people spoke with repulsion and disgust at interracial sex even though many white men were routinely engaging in sexual encounters with black women. In the colorblind era, people are still obsessed with interracial sex.  However, they do not publicly say, “Wow, interracial sex is: bizarre, disgusting, exciting, adventurous, morally repugnant,” and so on.  That’s part of the reason nobody in the mainstream polite media is going to openly say–”Damn that negro had two white baby mama’s.  He must have really been packing some heat below the belt.  Why else would those white women be interested in him?” ³  Nobody is going to say, “Those white women are white trash, whores for sleeping with this black guy.  They probably only did it for his big dick.”  Nobody is going to say, “Why can’t these black men just take care of their kids and stopping hopping from bed to bed.  Only a white women with no self esteem will get with a guy like that.”  They are not saying these dispargaing comments publicly, but when they get home to their families and friends, they are saying it.  When they go on line to search for interracial porn, they are thinking it.  When they can leave anonymous comments on blogs, they are expressing it.

I think my traffic at this site is evidence for the American obsession with race and sex.  Within the last week here are a select few searches I have received:

• black men impregnating white women stories
• savages on blondes
• Biracial family pictures black and white
• BLACK ATHLETE MARRYING WHITE WOMEN
• Black men breeding white girls
• black negro slave woman naked pictures
• black women with white men in adult movies
• differences between white and black women’s breasts
• blacks in bed sexing
• george lucas in love black women
• how do you feel about interracial relationship

And this was a really slow week, I’ve gotten at least 100 searches over the past few months for “savages on blondes,” which was a popular racist pornographic website featuring black men who act like “savages” who want to have sex with white women.  I mentioned that site exactly one time on this blog, and I still get people looking for it. 

For some reason, people think interracial sex is exotic and daring, particularly when it involves Black men and white women and Asian women and white men.  Numerous people, who clearly have no random sample to draw from believe that race is correlated with penis size.  They believe race is correlated with a person’s level of sexual desire.  They believe people who engage in interracial sex are deviant, rebellious, daring, gross, odd, oversexed, and ugly. But, most of them will not admit it publicly.  Instead they go home and post horrible messages discussion boards. (Probably while masturbating to interracial porn.)  They try their best to hide their discomfort, but most interracial couples can see how the stares they get in public often belie the facade of tolerance.

When it comes to interracial sexuality, the US is still not ready to come to grips with our racism, and the discomfort with the intersection of race and sexuality fuels the public obession with many interracial crimes.

NOTE TO READERS: I know this thread is going to be an ultra-sensitive subject, and white supremacist trolls will likely be coming out of the woodwork, so I am limiting this thread to anti-racists and racial abolitionists only.  Moreover, this is not a thread to debate the merits of any of the cases mentioned in the text, so let’s focus on the larger issues.  Finally, anyone who leaves bigoted white supremacist comments will be banned immediately.

Amending The Note To Readers to include feminist posters as well.  So the thread is opened to anti-racists (or racial abolitionists) and feminists only.

1. I also want to say that my heart goes out to the family of Jessie Davis and her child.  I hope they are able to get justice in this case. (back)
2. I have a policy of not linking to organized white supremacist sites, but you can check out the big ones to see what they are saying. (back)
3. I don’t know if his wife is white or not, so I can’t comment on the third “baby mama.” (back)

I wrote this after reading the various threads that were spurred by the late-term abortion ban.

Pro-Life Patter

what if he’s
the next
Mozart
if he cures cancer
could end
racism
have you
thought about
adoption
what if
you want
children someday
if not now
when?

you should
be grateful
you’re the
kind of
person who
should be
having children
there are children starving
in China
& some people can’t
have kids
of their own

real mothers
give up everything
you’re a murdering
slut you bitch
cunt spread your
legs should be
raped i’ll kill
you myself i ought
to pull you apart
joint by joint
and see
what you think of
bodily integrity then

abortion is
genocide
it’s eugenics
Margaret Sanger was
a racist
it’s a modern
Holocaust
doctors can
be wrong
have you seen
its tiny
hands
feet
heartbeat
how can you end
a tiny life
what if mary
had said no what if
your mother
had been
pro-choice?

sometimes you have to
stand up take
responsibility
be an adult
pay for playing
you said yes
once you let
him come it’s your
problem now don’t
come crying
to me for
sympathy
you spread
your legs and now
you have to
handle it
yourself.

The other day, I was at a theater event for the amazing San Jose Repertory Theater. If you live close enough, and have enough money to get tickets, I strongly suggest that you support them. They present consistently good work that borders on genius at least a couple times a season. Their new work, particularly, is often striking; for instance, they produced the world premiere of my favorite play, Las Meninas, which was a historical speculation on a possible love affair between the wife of France’s Louis XIV and an enslaved African dwarf who was brought to her at court. I don’t see evidence of it having been produced since, which is, in my opinion, a travesty. The Rep has really good deals on ticket prices for students and teachers, too, by the way, so check it out.

I arrived early for the show. My fiance and I went to the bar to have drinks with some acquaintances of his from his hometown, who I’d met before, but only briefly. We were also joined by a woman who owns a vineyard in Northern California, which she works herself. I knew her a little bit through the memoir poetry she publishes occasionally online under a psuedonym, and we’d exchanged emails, but I’d never met her before.

She — let’s call her Joanne — was glorious. She was six feet two inches tall, tan and broad-shouldered. She wore a hand-made coat, pieced together from scraps of bright fabric, over black slacks. She held her head down at a forty-five degree angle, which made it easier for me to look her in the eye. My fiance said that it made her look a bit dismissive. Her mouth had a natural downturn. When she greeted us, she skipped the conversational niceties about the weather and the play we were about to see, and started talking immediately about the sexual subtext in a book of poetry written by a mutual acquaintance.

I liked her immediately.

Now, my fiance’s friends are good folk, and I’ve enjoyed talking to them the few times that I’ve seen them, but when the conversation turned to feminism, I wasn’t surprised to see the male half of the couple start to stir in his seat. He crossed and uncrossed his arms, and spent a lot of time clearing his throat. Joanne spoke very bluntly about something that had been running through the feminist blogs — I think it was the video of the honor killings that was featured on I Blame the Patriarchy, and which I linked to the other day.

Toby set down his drink with a loud clatter and said, “You know what really bothers me is we never talk about how men are affected in third world countries. Men are circumcized too, you know.”

My fingers froze around my glass. Likewise, my smile froze.

It’s not that I’m non-confrontational in person, but well… it’s never fun. I have a whole set of submissive behaviors which I learned to emulate in college, because I found it made people more likely to listen to me, and less likely to get angry at a woman with opinions. I smile and I say “umm…” a lot, and I generally act like a ditz while I ramble through a complicated political thought, as if to suggest — hey! I just thought of this, and if it’s coherent, then it’s probably a fluke. I do this with most strangers I meet. It’s like the heavy makeup and frilly dresses I wear, partially in apology for my large body. There are a lot of ways in which I don’t conform to femininity’s norms, being fat and opinionated and - frankly - smart. I have survival strategies to compensate for that.

My smile frozen, I cut my glance over to Joanne. She met my eye and laughed. She threw up her hands. “I can’t handle this,” she said to Toby, with a tone that suggested ‘this’ translated to ‘your assininity.’ “I’m going to stretch my legs.”

I smiled and ducked my head and started in with my, “Well… you know, it’s just that if you really look at the surgeries of female circumcision and male circumcision… umm… it’s kind of misleading to call it circumcision at all, you know? Some anthropologists call it female genital surgeries, because it’s pretty different. The thing is…”

And the shy thing, the break-it-down simply thing, the I’m not threatening see-my-head-tilt thing — seemed to make the information non-intimidating enough that Toby accepted it. I even heard him repeat the argument to someone else later, which is usually a good sign. So, score one for that.

But me, I was developing a healthy admiration for Joanne.

“I really like her,” I said to my fiance as we drove home.

“Hm,” said my fiance. “She’s kind of… grumpy.”

“Really?” I said. “She didn’t strike me as grumpy.”

“Maybe she’s kind of grumpy with men.”

I thought about it. “I think she’s just grumpy with ‘what about the men?!’”

“Not just then. I felt like I had to watch myself with her.”

“Huh,” I said.

We got home. We went about dinner and television and work and whatever else. I kept chewing on the afternoon’s events. Later, I phoned an activist friend of mine who lives in NYC. As I repeated the incident, I figured out why I’d been thinking about it so much.

“I really love grumpy women,” I said. “I love it that she can just throw up her hands and walk away. I love that she doesn’t NEED his approval. I love it when feminists can say ’screw you, we’re working for ourselves.’”

“Repeating yourself is part of being an activist,” said my friend.

“Oh, I know,” I said. “But… I just really respect women who are sick of it.”

“Why? Is it because it suggests she’s already done it a lot?”

“No… I’m not sure…” I considered. “It’s because…” I trailed off, thinking.

This is what I wanted to say to my friend on the phone, if I could have found the words in time:
Read the rest of this entry »

When I went to bed last night, the Cherokee website had Chad Smith leading by a considerable margin, so I figured at that point that he was probably going to take the election. Then, I woke up this morning to this:

Smith received 7,974 votes, or 59% of the vote, beating challenger Stacy Leeds, who received 5,593 votes, or 41%.

The race for Deputy Chief saw incumbent Joe Grayson, Jr. defeating Raymond Vann. Grayson received 8,230 votes, 61% of the total cast. Vann finished with 5,205 votes, or 39%.

They also have the results for all of the districts and the at large representatives on the Cherokee Nation website. 

I think Stacy Leeds was fighting an uphill battle against Chad Smith’s $$$$$.  The fact that he is an incumbent, didn’t help either, but she fought fairly, and she tried to look out for the best interest of all of the Cherokee people.

I am fairly certain there will be a challenge to the proposed Constitutional Amendment, since it was introduced so late that many people didn’t even get it on their absentee ballots.  This is the Amendment that would make it so that the federal government will not be part of the approval process for the Cherokee Constitution.  I don’t know how the Bureau of Indian Affairs is going to react to this, but I would think they are not going to be happy. 

Then, we have this bill floating around Congress to defund the Cherokee Nation.  I have no idea where that will go.  Paul pointed me to a letter from the BIA, saying that they do not have any plans to cut funding based on the Freedmen lawsuit, unless a federal court or the Congress directs them to do so.

What does this mean for the Cherokee people?  What does it mean for Black Cherokees and more specifically the descendants of the Freedmen?  I have no idea, but I will continue to watch this.

[Edited to remove disclaimer and blog cut.]

Ilyka Damen recently left blogging.

Not long ago, she put up a post about how difficult it can be to act honestly as a white anti-racist. Systemically, this society is set up to bolster racism. It does not like people who fight against it.

That’s not to say that white people who want to be anti-racist have it easier harder [damn copy editing...] than black people. Clearly, that’s not the case. But I was interested in Ilyka’s acknowledgement that truly trying to be an ally to non-white folk will mean that one has to deal with criticism, and the loss of friends — even lefty friends who are more attached to their privilege to justice.

I’ve had the experience several times now of watching feminist discussions go down the racist toilet. Sometimes I have this sensation of standing next to some train tracks, watching the comment thread hurtle toward a mountain. “No!” I want to cry to certain white feminists. “Stop it, stop it, Oh, God, don’t say that…”

Inevitably, the train crashes.

I have this weird sense of twinned consciousness when I read those threads, because I feel like I can forecast the certain white feminists’ half of the script. Well, part of that’s because the script of racism is depressingly predictable. But it’s also because I know what I might have said five years ago. Oh, I probably wouldn’t have said it as publicly, or vehemently, but the thoughts certainly would have been there.

And, when the white feminists are slapped down, they metaphorically stand there with their hands clapped to their faces, their eyes huge with shock. Because how, why? What happened? What did I do wrong? I was trying to be nice! Why are black people so angry?

I recall that dislocated sense of confusion. The feeling of not knowing where I stood, or what drove the anger. Black anti-racists felt scary and feral and unpredictable. I understood that they were not scary and feral and unpredictable, and so I tended to stand back and shut up, but I still didn’t *understand*. I remember once crying because I didn’t understand something that Nubian said, and I wanted to so much, but the lightbulbs just didn’t go off.

And it’s not that all my lightbulbs are lit now or anything, but I tend to understand when black feminists are going to get mad, and why they’re mad. More than that, I get mad, too. I’m sure it’s a ghost of the anger that people who suffer the injustice feel, but it’s real anger.

Often, I haven’t been a very good ally. I don’t always fight. I don’t fight as hard as I can. I get distracted by other things. I am still lacking in many a clue.

But it seemed to me that in her last few posts, Ilyka was posting some things about working against racism that were fiery, and startling, and cathartic, and scary, and right. I had a sense of cleansing when I was reading her posts, the way I do sometimes when I read Twisty on I Blame the Patriarchy — a sense that the writer had, through anger, dissolved the clouding veils. To me, it seemed that she was finding some important truths.

I keep wanting to describe Ilyka as having been “on fire.” Maybe that analogy is too apt. The posts she was writing were brilliant, but not pleasant. Her words were necessary, but it can’t be enjoyable to be alight with them. She flared, and she’s burned out.

Much of feminist and anti-racist blogging seems to be about the realization and refocusing of unpleasant truths. News-oriented posts seem easier to take, with their easy, story-like narrative. Of course, I feel rage when I hear about the Indiana man who was beaten to death for being gay. But there seems, to me, to be a deeper kind of despair to uncovering the systemic cultural truths that underly patriarchy and white supremacy, because they underscore not just the horror of specific events, but an enduring horror that promises those events will keep on happening.

There’s hope in activism. There’s hope in a lot of things. There is even a strange kind of hope in seeing how embedded racism and sexism are in American minds, which is why I Blame the Patriarchy is full of black humor.

But there are walls, too. I’d like to thank those people who have spent their time identifying those walls — Ilyka, Nubian. Trying to see clearly seems to come with a high cost.

Rumors are swirling around everywhere, but the biggest news, which is not a rumor, is that the Congressional Black Caucus member Diane Watson introduced a bill (link is to s PDF of the full text) to sever federal ties with the Cherokee Nation.

The bill is the talk of the message board over at Cornsilks, and Principal Chief candidate Stacy Leeds has a statement about the bill on her site.  Time magazine is also covering the Freedmen debate, but they didn’t say much at all about the election. 

Time had a good interview with a professor, Tiya Miles who is a Native American Studies professor at the University of Michigan.  I strongly agreed with her assessment of the Native American/Black relations:

Perhaps more importantly, they (the Freedmen) have considered themselves Cherokee their whole lives. “There’s a tremendous amount of cultural identification that former slaves felt with Native tribes, of shared homeland, food, familial ties,” says Tiya Miles, a historian who runs the Native American Studies program at the University of Michigan. Cherokee had slaves. Cherokee also married, and slept with, blacks. And there were blacks who were adopted into the Cherokee tribe though they had no blood or slave ties. They all walked the Trail of Tears with the Cherokee, from the Deep South to Oklahoma.

These are the facts, but for blacks, especially, the mythology holds equally strong sway. A kinship with Native Americans has been a logical way to claim some sort of “non-black” status in a society where black is the most demeaned racial category. It’s also helped ground many black people searching for an original homeland, says Miles. “Native America was connected to freedom,” says Miles. “It was said slaves could run away to tribes and find shelter.” Clearly that wasn’t always the case, and the Cherokee controversy is, for Miles, “the end of innocence about what the historical relationship between African Americans and Native Americans really consisted of.”

The article author also made the following statement, “And it creates new complications for the relationship between blacks, who have long held a romantic view of their kinship with American Indians, and Native Americans, some of whom owned black slaves and fought for the Confederacy.”  I think there definitely is a difference in how African Americans and Native Americans view their relationships with each other.  I have very rarely heard any anti-American Indian sentiment from Blacks who I know. ¹ Most African Americans may be ignorant about the issues facing contemporary Native Americans, but I tend to agree with the professor; many African Americans do have a romantic notion of Black/Indian relations, and with this whole Freedmen issue, the romance may be over.²  I’m afraid that anti-black sentiment among Native Americans is much stronger than anti-Native American sentiment among blacks; of course, someone needs to do an actually study of this, but for now that would be my hypothesis.  I will also add that there are many Native Americans who are not anti-black and see this Cherokee fiasco and the Seminole Freedmen case as evidence of Native Americans engaging in self destruction.  The people in this group generally believe that American Indians should not base tribal and national identity only on “blood quantum” and race, opposed to culture and history.  The idea here is that blood quantum was created by Europeans as part of the genocide against American Indian people and cultures, so continuing to use it, is racist and self destructive. ³

Having followed this very closely, I think it is fair to say that the mainstream media (MSM) hasn’t done well at covering the complexities of this election and the Freedmen issue.  My first critique would be that many MSM outlets consistently ignore Native American political issues, so the Cherokee election is completely off the radar for many media outlets. ⁴  A few MSM outlets have covered the Freedmen issue, and very few (mostly local Oklahoma papers) have covered the election.  What so many of the mainstream media articles miss is how Cherokee politics play into these debates.  They usually let Chief Smith give his “we are a tribe of Indians” answer, but they don’t talk to the council members and the other candidate for Chief.  I’m glad they talked with David Cornsilk, but they also need to bring in other elected officials, so people realize that this view that the Freedmen need to be ousted is highly contentious, and it hasn’t even been supported by the Cherokee Supreme Court.⁵

With the Freedmen issue at the forefront, the election will be held tomorrow.  There has been some preliminary voting, and if I have any Cherokee voters reading this article provides a list of polling places, and a phone number to call for people who are having voting problems.  I will probably be back on Monday or Sunday to talk about the election results.

1. The same could not be said for Asians and Latinos; I’ve heard plenty of African Americans make disparaging stereotypical comments about these two groups. (back)
2. I’d venture to say that very few blacks or whites know that some Native American tribes had black slaves. I suspect many Native Americans don’t know that either. (back)
3. If you really want to see this debate play out go read the comments in this thread over at Wampum, where MB Williams and The Local Crank take on a commenter named Charlotte. (back)
4. One very obvious example of ignoring Native American politics would be the Jack Abramhoff scandal.  Many of his clients were Native American Nations, and he was caught making many disparaging remarks about his Indian clients and stole millions of dollars from them.  That angle of the story was buried in much of the coverage. Of course, there are other issues not so directly connected to white politicians, including sovereignty issues, poverty, racial identity politics, and numerous other issues that we don’t even hear about at all. (back)
5. It really makes the Cherokees look like a huge mass of racists, with only a few dissenters, but I think there are many more dissenters, including powerful political people. (back)

Three years ago Chris Hurley killed Mulrunji Doomadgee.

Chris Hurley is a police officer, who arrested Mulrunji Doomadgee for ‘Drunk and Disorderly Behaviour’ - the criminality of being drunk often depends on the colour of your skin. How you get treated when you get arrested also depends on the colour of your skin. There was Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, but 13 years later the recommendations had been ignored and Mulrunji Doomadgee died.

In police custody, he suffered four broken ribs, a ruptured spleen and a his liver was almost split in half.

Since his death, Mulrunji Doomadgee’s family has fought for justice. The first police investigation was done by police officers who had dinner with Chris Hurley while they were ‘investigating’ the case. Last year the coroner decided that the police were responsible for Mulrunji Doomadgee’s death.

On Wednesday the jury found Chris Hurley not guilty.

Mulrunji’s death is a horrific, but it’s just one of daily crimes against indigenous Australians. His arrest, his beating - they happen every day. The theft of land is what Australia is based on.

Then, yesterday, supposedly to protect children for sexual abuse the government announced a package of direct attacks on indigenous people. Most of which, like market rents, benefits, and land thefts - are simply neo-liberal attacks on people’s basic subsistence.

Jill at Feministe points out this Salon article arguing that big “rumps” are endangering black women’s health. The article is offensive in any number of ways. But it’s this paragraph in particular which struck me:

Recent press reports show why black women should be alarmed: More than half of us are obese — 78 percent are considered overweight. And, according to the American Obesity Association, the pounds are not coming off easily, due to “cultural factors related to diet, exercise and weight among African-Americans.”

Newsflash: There’s no such thing as a culture in which pounds do come off easily (at least, not in the long term). “Cultural factors” don’t make weight-loss diets hard; weight loss-diets are hard, for the vast majority of fat people in any culture.

The Centers for Disease Control finds that rates of [...] premature death¹ are higher among black women, and when we get these diseases, we’re sicker than white women.

It’s true that black women live less long than white women, on average. (”Life expectancy for white women is 79.8 years; for black women, 74.7 years.”)² But it’s simply a lie to claim that black women are dying younger because they’re overweight.

Here’s a table showing relative risk of death, by sex and by race. This table, which I’ve posted before, comes from a study³ which is frequently cited by those arguing that fat is deadly.

But if we look at the details, we see that only for the very fattest black women — the outliers — is being overweight associated with higher mortality. What the statistics actually show is that black women, more than anyone else, have an elevated risk of death if they’re in the “normal weight” category, and live longest if they’re in the “overweight” category.

The “fat equals death” hysteria in the media is dubious for anyone, but black women above all shouldn’t be taking it at face value. In fact, black women who manage to become “normal” weight may be damaging their life expectancy. The knee-jerk belief in weight loss as the cure for most ills is bad advice for almost everyone, but it’s probably worse advice for black women than for any other demographic group.

But here’s the kicker: Womenshealth.gov reports that “compared with overweight white Americans, overweight black Americans are two to three times more likely to say their weight is average — even after they’ve been told they are overweight or obese by a doctor (emphasis added).

That’s her “kicker”? This author is completely ignorant of even the basic meanings of terms like “average” and “overweight.” Being “average” and being “overweight” are not mutually exclusive.

“Overweight,” as most doctors now use the term, means having a BMI⁴ between 25 and 30. As it happens, according to the most recent NHAMES survey — the most accurate survey of American’s weight and height yet done — the average American woman has a BMI of 28.2.⁵ So being overweight is average; the people this author sneers at for being ignorant have a firmer grasp of the facts than she does.

Finally, even according to the mainstream medical establishment, what matters about fat is not only how much you have, but where the fat is located on your body. The least health place to have fat, according to mainstream medical thinking, is around your waist. Fat on the ass and thighs is, even according to mainstream medicine, relatively healthy.

1. In addition to premature death, she also mentions higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer in black women. These are legitimate concerns, but there are better ways to help women with these problems than by saying that “overweight” women should become “normal” weight, a course of treatment that will in practice not be possible for the vast majority of “overweight” people. (back)
2. ”…for white men, 74.3 years; and for black men, 67.3 years.” Source. (back)
3. Adams, K., et al., Overweight, Obesity, and Mortality in a Large Prospective Cohort of Persons 50 to 71 Years Old. New England Journal of Medicine, 2006. 355(8): p. 763-8. (Pdf link.) (back)
4. Body Mass Index — Wikipedia has an explanation of what this is, if you don’t already know. (back)
5. The average American man has a BMI of 27.6. Source. (back)

I’ll be in New York City — specifically, Manhattan — in a few days. This is a relatively low-key visit; I’m not planning to organize a big dinner, and I’ll only be in town Friday morning through early Tuesday afternoon. (Well, I actually get in Thursday, but I’ve already made plans for Thursday evening — some friends and I are going to see Company.) On parts of Saturday and Sunday I’ll be attending The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Art Festival (no, “Art Art” isn’t a typo).

And I might be having dinner with some folks Monday night, but that’s still up-in-the-air. Friday during the day is open, as is Tuesday early lunch, and parts of Sunday.

So if you’re in Manhattan those days (or could be) and you’d like to have a meal or hook up at the MoCCA Artfest, get in touch.

Josh’s older sister’s farvourite game was ‘Party Meeting’ she played it with her friend Simone. Vera and Simone were the party leaders, teddy bears and younger brothers were the rank and file:

“Tonight,” said Simone, “we will hear a report on the Negro Question from our junior member, who” - she scowled at me - “needs considerable education on the subject.” She tapped her slide rule of Vera’s desk and nodded at me to begin.

“The Negro Question’s getting a lot better,’ I said. “Because before they wouldn’t even let Jackie Robinson play in the majors. But now we’ve got five Negroes just in the Dodgers alone.” I counted them off on my fingers.

“There’s Jackie, and Campanella behind the plate, and Newcombe and Black on the mound, and this season Junior Guilliam at second base. And he might even win Rook of the Year.”

Vera and Simone looked at each other, shaking their heads and making tsk tsk sounds through their closed lips.

“I think we have to bring him up on charges,” Vera said.

“White Chauvinism if I ever heard it,” nodded Simone.

“Don’t you know that even if they let Negores play a stupid game and get traded for money like slaves, they’re still lynching them in the south?” Vera asked me. “Haven’t you read your own father’s articles on the Emmett Till case?”

“And what about Male Chauvanism?” said Simone, waving her ruler at me. “Did you ever stop to think that all your previous ballplayers are men? What about the plight of the colored woman?”

“He’s left deviationist and right opportunist both at the same time,” said Vera.

“Clear cause for explusion.” said Simone”

That is from one of the almost 50 accounts from the children of communistsin Red Diapers. Having so many short accounts, gives a real depth to the book. There’s a tapestry of experiences, with common threads, but also real differences.

I’m fascinated by the history of the Communist party of America, particularly in the 1950s, when the organisation was so persecuted. Partly because it is so foreign to the way I do politics, their way of organising wasn’t just not my cup of tea, it was clearly counter productive to growing. The party line was often ridiculous (particularly during the war, my grandfather left the British Communist Party over the Nazi-Soviet pact, and the pro-war line that followed wasn’t any better). Despite all these reservations, the Americans of the 1940s and 1950s I most admire were all in the Communist part. It was the only game in town - no one else was prepared to fight.

I loved these child eyes view of the fight. Both for the politics - in some tenements in New York everyone was either linke (Left) and Communist or rechte (right) Socialist - and for the common threads of childhood. Many of the children write about how terrified they were once Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed, they knew their parents were communists, would they be put to death too? Communist children didn’t just have common fears they developed their own sub-culture. rather than ‘pinky swears’ they’d say “By my Pioneer Honour, Touch Red” - and each child would touch something red.

There are some terrible parents, of course, and some awful hypocrisy. One girl’s father spent his time doing party work, and when his wife (who earnt all the money) was back late he asks his 11 year old daughter where the food is kept, and demands she makes his coffee. Mostly I think the communism and the parenting skills weren’t particularly related, the good parents would have always been good parents, the bad parents would always have been parents. Although I suspect for some children, the more their fathers (the most controlling, abusive behaviour in these accounts were always from the fathers) portrayed themselves as righteous, the harder it would have been for the child to understand their behaviour within the family.

There were some really sweet family moments as well. One of the writers came from a Finnish-American community, where the Party had run the annual Christmas Eve event. One year, the party leaders decided that the consumerism and Christianity of the ceremony was a problem, so instead there was a winter celebration without presents. When they got home their parents gave them presents, and told them not to tell anyone. Years later they learned that every single one of their friends’ parents had done the same thing.

The most heart-breaking memoir was from Bettina Aptheker. I’d heard of her, she was involved in the Berkley Free Speech Movement. When the right accused her of being a communist, she wrote a letter back saying “Yes, I am a communist, and I’m proud to be a communist.” She’s one of the many figures of the 1960s that I admired, without knowing too much about.

When I am in my late twenties an older comrade whom I dearly love confides in me. She tells me that in the early 1950s she had been instructed by the party leadership to question women in the Party about their sexuality. In particular she was to ask them if they’d ever had a homosexual liaison. If the answer was yes she was instructed to ask them to voluntarily resign from the Party of face expulsion. “Even if it was only once,” the comrade says to me. “Even if they had since married.” She goes on, explaining “It was to protect the Party from potential informers. If they were desperate enough to hide their sexual encounters, the FBI could force them into becoming informers.” There is a silence into which I say nothing. “I’m so ashamed of myself,” She tells me. “It was wrong.” Now as I remember this comrade’s confession I think that I must have known of this as a child. I must have heard these discussion around me known the consequences of my feelings for women as I reached adolescence: to be made an FBI informer or be expelled from the party/my family, to be cast out.

I am going to read her memoir, I want to know more about her story.

Bettina Aptheker, is not the exception, most of the contributors are still fighting for a better world, in their different ways. Communists have largely been written out of American history, and their legacy ignored. Few people mention that the almost all the young northern white people involved in the Civil Rights Movements were red diaper babies. Carl Bernstein, who contributed to the book, is rarely placed within his radical, fighting legacy. Many of the writers gain real strength from their heritage. The sense that we are all part of a long chain of resistance has particular meaning when the link is so intimate. It gives them direct access to the strength and hope we can all draw from the history of those who fought back.

I love this post at Along The Road Home. Here’s how it starts:

There’s a cycle in superhero comics(1) which I am violently tired of seeing.

Step One: Someone (in this case, Misty Lee(2) in a podcast) says something along these lines, “usually, the strongest and loudest protest ¹ over sexy things come from ugly fat girls.” Which is problematic and enfuriating for so many reasons.

Step Two: Someone (in this case, Tamora Pierce(4) in her blog(6)) responds in an articulate and often angry manner. Which is wonderful.

Step Three: Fans everywhere come out of the woodwork to prove that they are not “ugly fat girls” by showing pictures or mentioning their physical stats or whatever.

Hold up a minute.

How is that response any better than the original person calling them “ugly fat girls” in the first place?

(You’ll have to click through to the original post to read what Carla’s footnotes refer to).

Carla’s post touched off this observation at Random Thoughts:

And there is a still more vicious subtext to the idea that women who protest anything to do with “attractive women” are ugly and fat.

It is that ugly and/or unattractive women have no right to an opinion.

1. What was being protested, by the way, was the cover to “Heroes For Hire” #13; the objection was not to the three superhero women being presented as “attractive,” but that they were presented as helpless victims apparently about be raped by a tenticle monster. –Amp (back)

For those of you who don’t read John Scalzi’s blog The Whatever — the blog of the military science fiction writer who once taped bacon to his cat — I direct your attention to his latest amusing escapade.

First, the background:

Scalzi lives in Ohio, not far afield from the Creation Museum. Scalzi is also a vocal non-theist of one stripe or another (I don’t much pay attention to who calls hirself an atheist, who an agnostic), and a science-liker. One of his readers suggested that he should go to the Creation Museum and report back on what he finds there, for the amusement of all and sundry. We’ll get together and pay your way! proposed said reader.

Scalzi refused the offer to pay for his ticket, but he agreed to go if his readers would raise at least $250 for the charity Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

His readers came through with $5,118.36.

As Scalzi points out, that’s 250 times the cost of a ticket to the creation museum. Scalzi says he finds the amount “gratifying, since it means what tiny bit of income the creationists running the museum gain by having me pass through the door will be utterly swamped by the amount I’m going to send to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Would that it worked that way for every admission to that place.”

P.Z. of Pharyngula has weighed in, too — “This is brilliant. Rather than sending a scientist to that joke of an exhibit, send a comedian. Laughing at these clowns is the best way to expose them.”

Scalzi first explains why he has no desire to go to the creation museum here. (”Thanks, no. I feel I can extract sufficient comedy value out of people who believe dinosaurs lived with humans and that T-Rexes had six-inch, knife-like teeth to open coconuts from a safe, non-contagious distance. “) The escapade was proposed here, and reported on here and here. Here’s the post with the results, and here’s the post where he reports having sent in the donation. I’ll put up a link to his report on the creation museum after he goes.

–

Afterthought: The “whatever” tag on this blog has never felt so appropriate! (Why yes, I am easily amused.)

Some paparazzi took pictures of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal breastfeeding her child in public. Somehow I missed this, when the “scandalous” photos were taken a couple weeks ago. They are posted all over the place at entertainment blogs. I thought I would pick out a few choice comments from sexist pigs for your reading (dis)pleasure.

Here are some comments from A Socialite’s Life

Here’s one from Conrad:

I am sure plenty of women find this beautiful, but thats a beauty that needs to be shared between mother and child in a quiet, discreet location. She had to know 1 million plus ASL readers would be viewing this spectacle. I never had much of an opinion of her, but now I know she’s an animal. It reminds of that childhood question - “what’s grosser than gross…”

Another from What Betheny said:

Gross. I like her, but this picture is gross. There are more private ways to breastfeed your baby in this country. We’re not living in Africa. I can’t stand the self-righteous breastfeeding moms who just show absolutely everything without thinking for one minute that just maybe not everyone is comfortable with seeing their body parts and their child sucking off of them. It’s a personal bond between you and your baby, so make if personal.

Now here is the good news: most people on the thread were supportive (at least the last time I read the comments a week ago).

Then, you have this site, where they put up a not safe for work warning and blurred out her breast (But apparently the pictures in this post are A-OK). Here are a few of the comments (out of 490+).

From eva:

hmmm… imo if you want to breastfeed in public, pump your tits at home, bottle it, and feed them that way.

From combustion8:

shes so ugly… look at that puppy sag.

From Frenchie:

Ewww…not good. She could have covered up a bit with a blanket. I know it’s a natural act but that is pretty tacky. Her tit hanging all over the place is not natural. She should be more conscientious of not offending the general public by being more subtle.

From Rebecca:

Discusting! I’ve seen women do that before but at least they had the decency to cover their breasts. What a freakin peasant! Yes breastfeeding is natural but so is urinating and defecating, does this mean we’ll catch people doing that in public too? This is what I call no self-respect. (Gee where has Rachel heard this one before.)

I couldn’t bare to read through all of the comments. This thread had many breastfeeding defenders even though it wasn’t quite as pro-breastfeeding as the other thread.

The fact that this was covered as a controversy reflects anti-breastfeeding attitudes. A few sites treated it as such, and I found a few that put disclaimers admonishing people to behave. A Hollywood actress is feeding her child in a public place should be a non-issue, and I even hesitated to post this. However, people do need to be reminded that many anti-breastfeeding attitudes are puritanical, sexist, and unhealthy. I think the number of commenters who feel the need to personally attack Gyllenhaal commenting on her appearance, her sexuality, and her morality (or supposed lack there of) is indicative of why breastfeeding is such an important feminist issue.

Shout Out to Jennifer at Black Breastfeeding Blog!

It is now time to send in your submissions! All, not just white anti-racist parents, are welcome to submit work. To submit a post written by you or someone else, go here and click on “submit your blog article to this carnival”. Along with the URL of the article, be sure to include your name and email. You can also send me your submition at warpblog at gmail dot com.This is a traveling carnival. The idea is to get more people blogging and/or reading about creating a world free of racism. More info about the carnival and how you can become a host can be found here.

For More Info. Check Out White Anti-Racist Parent

I don’t expect from Joss’s openings, they’re not as strong as his endings. Every Season (except possibly Season 6 where Joss wrote neither the first episode or the last) the first episode has been much weaker than the last, and less satisfying than many of the episodes in between.

Now I’ve read all of it, I’m not that impressed with The Long Way Home. I’d say it was about on par with Lessons, possibly slightly better than the season openers not j. But much worse than Anne, When She Was Bad or Sunday, which were more concerned with letting us see where the characters were, than setting up a whole bunch of new plot. Because setting up plot is often boring, and should be done really slowly.

A lot of the on-going ideas I really like I’m really looking forward to more Giant Dawn, and the army hating them. But there’s too much that is just a little bit off. Amy and Warren bear only the most superficial resemblence to the people they were on the show. Dawn’s ’she’s like a Mom to me’ about Willow doesn’t reflect the relationship we saw, and certainly not the events of Season 6.

I’m really unsatisfied with what had happened between Willow, Xander & Buffy. Even if we don’t know now what happened to Willow (and there’s no reason we shouldn’t, except contrivance, because surely Willow would tell Buffy & Xander as soon as battling stopped), we should at least know what happened from Buffy’s point of view (remember number one rule, we should go through what the characters go through).

I hope that the writers who wrote on the show soon get tired of the thrill of an unlimited budget. Just because you can now have battles of hundreds doesn’t mean that two battles (and a practice fight of dozens) are that interesting. Likewise the five spirits added less than nothing to the comic as a whole.

I’ll buy the next one, and I’ll probably buy the Faith arc. But so far the story has been more about the cool things they can do than people, and that’s not Joss at his best.

Kellymac at “A Woman Against Feminism,” in a post entitled “Ladies, Wonder Why You Can’t Get Men To Talk To You?,” says “This is what we throw away when we embrace feminism and trample on our men.” She’s referring to an essay by “Voodoojack.” Here’s some of what Voodoojack has to say:

I don’t speak to you because I’ve tried before. I’ve tried to develop interests in the things that interest you. No matter how insipid, trivial, or dull I find the stories of your friends I’ve never met, of people I do not know, of things on TV that have no interest in watching, I try to make the effort to learn about these things. [...]

I don’t speak to you anymore because you’re no different than anyone else. You’re not unique anymore. There’s nothing special about you. The colors may vary, but you dress the same as everyone else. The names and faces of the other bit-actors and actresses in the central drama that is your life may be different, but the plots the same. You’re no different than a low-budget porno movie.

Gosh, why would a great catch like Voodoojack have any problem attracting scads and scads of women? It can’t be anything about his personality making women run for the hills, because as the above-quoted sample shows, the man is simply
overflowing with charm.

This is a devastating blow to women everywhere. Admit it, ladies: you made a mistake when you traded in the chance to date great guys like Voodoojack in exchange for feminism. If only you had known! What has feminism ever given you, compared to the unmitigated joy dating a swell charmer like Voodoojack would bring?

I wrote this in 2005, after a spate of debates about whether or not men could call themselves feminists. (I say yes!) It’s not exactly what I’d write now, but I offer it, for what it’s worth.

I have been reading on the feminist blogosphere a few potent debates. One is about the existence of male feminists, who some women believe are “rare as unicorns.” One is about the racial tensions in feminism. To these two debates, I respond:

I Am an Anti-Racist Racist.

I am Racist. I am not color blind. When I meet someone, I note their race. I make instant assumptions about people based on their race. Such as: I assume non-whites will be liberal. Such as: I assume black women to be more enlightened than other people. Such as: I assume young black men in certain styles of dress to be threatening. Such as: I assume Asian men will be nice; I assume Native Americans will understand privation and despair; I assume Mexican men will be sexist; I assume many other things. I try to correct these assumptions when contradictory evidence occurs. I try to correct these assumptions when I notice them.

Writing this list is painful. This is because I am not on easy terms with being racist.

If I believed I was color blind, I would still be racist. Being color blind is a privilege of whiteness. I would not really be color blind.

I benefit from systems of privelege, as a white woman. I operate in the world with the assumption of the absense of race. When my whiteness becomes part of the equation, it is a shock to me. I am used to being part of the majority. I am not used to beind judged on my color, subjected to violence, or viewed as property. I am used to being treated seriously at interviews. I am used to being treated as someone with the capacity to be intellectual. I am used to being treated with modern forms of chivalry. I am used to people accomodating me and making space for me, when there are not accomodations or space for everyone. These benefits make me racist, because they are denied people of color, and because they are earned from the dehumanization of people of color.

I am Anti-Racist. I believe race is a social construction. I believe race is a damaging social construction used to make people into things they aren’t, used to make people less, used to hurt people. I believe people of color deserve more assistance and consideration in the public square as part of an attempt to correct historical balances of power which have kept many people of color economically and socially disadvantaged. I believe whiteness is a form of social capitol, and that this system must be demolished.

I believe in writing and saying radical things about race. I believe in saying them in circumstances when racism is being engaged in, unnoticed. I believe in challenging racism. Nevertheless, I do not always challenge racism or do so in appropriate ways. I believe in challenging my racial privelege. Yet I benefit from it. I believe it is my duty to be informed on racism. Nevertheless, I don’t read as much as I could. I believe in writing fiction that challenges racism. I acknowledge my racism may appear in my fiction anyway.

I know that I need to be told when to shut up, when to listen to people of color and not to myself. I know that anger will be directed to me and that, in addition to reacting as an emotional being, I need to listen to the message behind that anger. I know that, because of my race, I represent many things to many people, and that sometimes my perspectives will be judged by my color. I need to acknowledge that when that occurs, people are reacting out of deep hisotrical scarring, and that reaction is reasonable. I need to expect criticism. I need to be comfortable with criticism. I need to act anyway, despite the fact that I will be justifiably criticized. I need to allow people to tell me when I have strayed, I need to allow anger directed toward me, I need to learn about the racist places in my soul depsite the fact it hurts, and I need to continue acting in anti-racist ways despite and because of these things.

I need to keep learning. I need to act more. I need to fight my racism as well as other people’s racism. I need to follow other people’s lead. I need to know when to listen. I need to educate myself.I need to be and act as often as I can as an anti-racist. I need to acknowledge I will always be racist.

I believe that contradiction is possible. I believe that it is possible for people to be not just Anti-Racist Racists, but Sexist Feminists; Homophobic Queer Supporters; Transphobic Trans-supporters; and others. I believe people should strive to be these things. I believe that these categories should be respected. I believe that ideology can be embraced by anyone, despite their physical circumstances, and despite their mental conditioning. I believe that these ideologies should not be embraced lightly or easily, but as hard mental work. I believe these identities represent a continuum of progress — I am not the kind of anti-racist I was in high school, nor am I the anti-racist I hope to be. I believe the work of Anti-Racist Racists and other contradictory identities should never eclipse the work of people of color, women, queers, transsexuals, etc. Nevertheless, I beleive that it is important to embrace a conflicted identity that acknowledges both barriers to be overcome, and aspirations to be striven for.

Within western fiction written by whites, there is always the problem of writing about other cultures. I don’t mean writing about people not of one’s own race, although that sort of diversity poses its own problems.*

I mean, writing about other people’s cultures and not falling into the many, many traps that await the unwary writer. These problems are especially acute in science fiction and fantasy, where most writers trade in describing places distant in time and space. Some of the goals of the informed writer should include:

• Not sucking
• Not including incorrect information
• Not reducing incredibly complex cultural formations to bite-sized, simplified versions that have no resemblance to the original except that they include whatever Westerners find sensationalistic
• Not sucking
• Not being racist
• Not exacerbating colonial power structures any more than is inherently unavoidable in the process of a privileged person making money off of a non-dominant culture
• Not making your characters into marionettes that wander around reciting a westernized understanding of their cultural values (e.g. a Chinese character who enjoys proclaiming, “I care a lot about family and duty, more than I do about my own individual identity!”)
• Not lazily playing into historically damaging stereotypes, such as portraying African women as not caring about their children
• Generally not reducing the other culture (or its people) to a westernized caricature
• Not sucking

That’s not a complete list.

My own preference as a reader often leans toward the slow and imagistic. I like things with careful, precise language, things that feel beautiful. However, I’ve recently begun editing for a podcast (see adendum). This has shifted the way that I’m reading stories. I’ve found myself yearning for things that are more fun — things that grab me and make me laugh.

I also hope to find and publish a good number of stories that are set in times and places other than the generic European setting filled with generic European characters that The Angry Black Woman aptly titles Blandy McWhite.

My slush pile* has thus far included a few fun medieval stories, in which Whitey McBread characters duke it out with swords, while Whitey McPeasants and Whitey McMilkmaids go for a tumble in the totally-not-English pastures. These stories are great. I’ve put a few of them on hold, and we have a few in stock from the previous editor.

My slush pile has also so far included several beautiful, carefully detailed stories that take place in non-western settings, stories that are written with a respectful, perhaps even reverent gravity.

But so far, I’ve seen very litte funny work that takes place outside of the default fantasy setting.

Now, I don’t want to criticize the stories in my slush pile. I have lovely slush. I’m mostly looking at reprints, so the stories I get have already been deemed excellent by more experienced editors than I. I’m also getting subs from some of my favorite writers, from established masters like Peter Beagle to newer writers whose fiction is funny, moving, and startling in turns. My slush is less like dirty snow than it is like a bed of pearls. In any case, the problem is with no one individual story, but with the overall pattern. The problem isn’t the excellent stories that are present; it’s the stories that are missing.

The near absence of comedic non-western stories is not a unique feature of my slush pile. It’s also a pattern that I’ve observed in many different kinds of media. Fantasy novels, especially, but also television shows and mainstream books.

When I went to the Book Expo last weekend, I heard a variety of writers whose books were set “against the tapestry of war-strewn foreign lands.” I am sure these books contain moments of humor, but the framing is about the seriousness of life outside the west. This emphasis on understanding the social and economic problems of third world nations is a first step toward anti-racism. However, it’s also a variety of orientalism, exoticism, and/or romanticism.

Binyavanga Wainaina describes this effect in an essay that was published in Granta, “How to Write About Africa.”

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

…

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

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