Great Pictures From the Streamys

A full series of them on my Tumblr.
All credit goes to: http://thebuibrothers.com/the-streamy-awards-photos/

American Idiot: The Musical!

I'm not kidding.

"Punk CD Goes Theatrical"

A new musical production adapted from “American Idiot,” the best-selling album by the punk band Green Day, is scheduled to make its debut in September at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California.

Berkeley Rep is to announce Monday that the new work, also titled “American Idiot,” will have its premiere as the first production of the theater’s 2009-10 season, and run from Sept. 4 through Oct. 11.

The musical is a collaboration between Green Day — the Bay Area rock trio consisting of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool — and Michael Mayer, the Tony Award-winning director of “Spring Awakening.”

The project is also causing some shock to the band members, who acknowledge that they had grand aspirations for “American Idiot” but perhaps not quite this grand.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Mr. Armstrong, the Green Day singer and guitarist, said of this new partnership in a telephone interview, “but that’s what I love about it. When people see it, it’s going to be my wildest dream.”

Released in 2004, “American Idiot” (Reprise) was Green Day’s conceptual response to the depressing realities of the post-9/11 era; it combines bleak lyrics with bright, thrashing guitar riffs. Many of its singles, including “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and the title track, were hits, and the album went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Among its fans was Mr. Mayer, who discovered “American Idiot” while he was still in the early stages of directing “Spring Awakening,” Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s musical about the pubescent struggles of 19th-century German youth.

“It was very much in my head all during that time,” Mr. Mayer said. “Sometimes I really would say things like, ‘Why can’t this have a groove like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”?’ ”

Following numerous victories for “Spring Awakening” at the 2007 Tony Awards Mr. Mayer and his producing partner, Tom Hulce, approached Green Day about adapting “American Idiot” for the theater. After two workshops in New York in 2008 — a summer session to try out orchestrations by Tom Kitt (“Next to Normal”), and a winter session that added choreography by Steven Hoggett (“Black Watch”) — the band gave its consent for a full-scale stage production.

For now the creative team is tight lipped about how, exactly, it will translate the libretto of “American Idiot” into a narrative. As Mr. Armstrong admitted, “It’s not the most linear story in the world.”

But Mr. Mayer said, “If you read it a certain way, you can pull out a multiplicity of voices.” He hinted that a triumvirate of characters referred to elliptically in the album’s lyrics, with names like Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy and Whatshername, would likely emerge as the central characters. All told, he said, the ensemble would include 19 performers playing characters in their early 20s, though no casting has been announced.

The motherfuckers spelled "my" name wrong! Oh well.

SQUEE!

Earth Day Spell

c/o Magic Happens Every Day

Well, I missed Earth Hour, but Earth Day is coming up next month, and that's just as good of a time to use this spell, so tuck it away till then!

You will need: one green candle
Sacred Well Earth Oil, or Love oil, or Protection Oil
(or your favorite earthy scent, like oakmoss or vetiver)
one small fluorite stone, or clear quartz crystal point

Step One: Turn off all lights and non-necessary electronics - it's Earth Hour, that's the whole idea! Light some candles to see by.

Step Two: Using a knife or a nail, carve the words "I love Mother Earth" or "Nature is our Mother" or "gratitude" or "conservation" or whatever inspires you.

Step Three: Bless your candle and your stone with your Earth oil. If you like, bless yourself as well!

Step Four: Light your green candle.

Step Five: Charge your stone in the light of the candle by repeating "What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. I live in balance with the Earth." 3 times or more. Picture the stone "broadcasting" the message of mindfulness to everyone in your community and to our world leaders.

Put your candle in a safe place, and let it burn down. Carry your stone with you, or keep it on your altar. This spell is also great for Earth Day, April 22. Why not do it twice?
(For more info on Earth Day see: http://www.earthday.net/)

Streamys!

Best Male Actor in a Comedy Web Series: Neil Patrick Harris — (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)
(Who had the single best acceptance speech ever which included: “I would say that Nathan Fillion is the nicest most genuine guy to work with…but that’s a lie! He’s a dick! And he pads his junk. Thank you!”)

Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series: The Guild

Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series: Felicia Day

Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon)

Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Joss Whedon)

Best Comedy Web Series: The Guild

Audience Choice Award: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Craft Awards:

Best Cinematography in a Web Series: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — (Ryan Green)

Best Original Music in a Web Series: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — (Jed Whedon)

Best Editing in a Web Series: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — (Lisa Lassek)

Pretty sure I got these all correct, I forget on the last one if it was best editing or best art direction. But anyway! YAY Dr. Horrible and The Guild! If I could have changed anything I would have had Legend of Neil get something too, but hey.

Does Yelp Manipulate Business Pages For It's Advertisers?

From the East Bay Express: Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0

Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.

Many business owners, like John, feel so threatened by Yelp's power to harm their business that they declined to be interviewed unless their identities were concealed. (John is not the restaurant owner's real name.) Several business owners likened Yelp to the Mafia, and one said she feared its retaliation. "Every time I had a sales person call me and I said, 'Sorry, it doesn't make sense for me to do this,' ... then all of a sudden reviews start disappearing." To these mom-and-pop business owners, Yelp's sales tactics are coercive, unethical, and, possibly, illegal.

"That's the biggest scam in the Bay Area," John said. "It totally felt like a blackmail deal. I think they're doing anything to make a sale."

Yelp officials deny that they move negative reviews, although such allegations have surfaced many times before. The issue is even addressed on the web site's Frequently Asked Questions page. Chief Operating Officer Geoff Donaker said advertisers and sales representatives don't have the ability to move or remove negative reviews. "We wouldn't be in business very long if we started duping customers," he said.

But Donaker's denials are challenged by nine local business owners and also by a former contract employee who worked with Yelp in its early days. That person, who is still close to some Yelp employees and only agreed to be interviewed if granted anonymity, said several sales reps have told him they promised to move reviews to get businesses to advertise. "It's not illegal or unethical," he said they told him. "We're just helping the little guy. It doesn't hurt them, it benefits them."

Such tactics may be legal, but they clearly raise ethical concerns. Yelp touts its web site as consisting of "real people" writing "real reviews." The allegations of business owners who have tangled with the company suggest otherwise.

If Yelp indeed suppresses honest reviews in exchange for its advertisers' money, it is cheating users who expect genuine consumer feedback. Conversely, if Yelp demands payment to remove even dishonest reviews, then advertisers are being cheated.

One thing is certain: In both cases, Yelp benefits.

Radio Tomorrow!

Tomorrow we get another edition of Blog Talk Radio Womanist Musings style!

This week's topic is: Motherhood Is An Active Choice: Looking at the ways in which motherhood is devalued in today's society.

And as interesting as that sounds, there will be yet another special guest host to accompany Renee and Monica, not an unfamiliar face at this blog, Ouyang Dan! Of Random Babble.

One feature I discovered at the first show last week, is that there is a small chat room to use while you listen! So come by and chat with me and the hosts and anyone else who shows up, it'll be a good time! :)

"There is NO SUCH THING AS A WHITE ANTI-RACIST."

So, I was keeping up with a conversation at Renee's, as I often do, and this go around we had a very angry Irish person criticizing her for discussing the "Black Irish", but what was more interesting to me was this person's claim that Noel Ignatiev (who wrote How the Irish Became White) was a racist. As usual, when a white dude tells me someone is racist I immediately narrow my eyes and ask them to tell me why. "O rly?" I said, "why don't you link me to what you're talking about." "I will not provide traffic to racist sites!" says indignant white dude. (But of course he tells me what to Google so I can find the essay...which gives the site traffic...)

So I read it, and I'm sure this will surprise you all, but I don't see anything racist here! In fact, it's brilliant enough that I felt I really should share it!

Whiteness is a social and political construct rooted in white supremacy. White supremacy is a structure and system of beliefs rooted in European and US imperialism in which certain racialized bodies (non-white) are selected for premature negation whether through cultural, physical, psychological genocide, containment or other forms of social death. White supremacy is at the heart of the US social system and civil society. In short, white supremacy is not just a series of practices or privilege, but a larger social structure and system of domination that overly-values and rewards those who are racialized as white. The rest of us are constructed as undeserving to be considered human, although there is significant variation within non-white populations of how our bodies are encoded, treated and (de)valued.


Now, for one to claim whiteness, one also is invested in white supremacy. Whiteness itself is a political term that emerged among European white ethnics in the US. These European ethnics, many of them reviled, chose to cast their lot with whiteness rather than that with those who had been determined as non-white. In short, anyone who claims to be white, even a white anti-racist, is identifying with a history of European imperialism and racism transported and further developed into the US.


However, this does not mean that white people who go around saying dumb things such as "I am not white! I am a human being!" or, "I left whiteness and joined the human race," or my favorite, "I hate white people! They're stupid" are not structurally white. Remember, whiteness is a structure of domination embedded in our social relations, institutions, discourses, and practices. Don't tell me you're not white but then when we go out in the street and the police don't bother you or people don't ask you if you're a prostitute, or if people don't follow you and touch you at will, act like that does not make a difference in our lives. Basically, you can't talk, or merely "unlearn" whiteness, as all of these annoying trainings for white people to "unlearn" racism will have you think.


Rather, white people need to be willing to have their very social position, their very relationship of domination, their very authority, their very being...let go, perhaps even destroyed. I know this might sound scary, but that is really not my concern. I am not interested in making white people, even those so-called good-hearted anti-racist whites, comfortable about their position in struggles that shape my life in ways that it will never shape theirs. I recently finished the biography of John Brown by DuBois. The biography was less of a biography and more of an interpretation by DuBois about the now-legendary white abolitionist. Now while John Brown's practice was problematic in many ways--he still had to be in control and he had fucked-up views that Blacks were still enslaved because they were too "servile" (a white supremacist sentiment)--what I took from Brown's life was that he realized that moral persuasion alone would not solve racial problems. That is, whites cannot talk or just think through whiteness and structures of white supremacy. They must be committed to either picking up arms for other people (and only firing when the people tell them so), dying for other people, or just getting out of the way. In short, they must be willing to do what the people most affected and marginalized by a situation tell them to do.

That's just a taste, go read the whole thing, really.

You Can Help!

From Shark Fu via Ouyang Dan

The Ruth Ellis Center is dedicated to homeless LGBT youth and young adults and honors the life and work of Ruth Ellis, an out lesbian of color born in 1899 who was a social justice advocate. Her life and work were chronicled in the fantabulous documentary, Living With Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @100. Among their services are a drop-in center, street outreach program, transitional living programs, and emergency housing shelter.

If you are able, please extend some assistance in these difficult economic times.

Links o' the week

Purely for fun. From a recent photoshoot at their Oakland studio. Do you think he knows he's a rock star?


Weekly Immigration Wire

The American GLBT Community Needs to Look Northward

Public Comment Period On Repealing Bush's HHS Regulations Until April 9

Traffic Stop Leads to Police Brutality

Paper Dolls

Paper Dolls is the 2005 award winning documentary film by Tomer Heymann about a group of transpinays in Israel.

Femme Or Die

Justice For the Women of Atenco

Food and Life

Look Twice

I’m not telling it because I am proud of myself.

I am telling it because between those two looks—when I looked at him as he was strangling me, and when he looked away to check if there were cops on the platform—there is a story about race in America.

Bromances and Masculinity

Cool Blocked Call Software

Fans Condemn Racial Bias in "Yellowface" Casting of "The Last Airbender"

Courts Inch Us A Step Closer to Legal Religious Entheogens

"She Doesn't Look Native!"

The Obama's Plant a Garden

Queer is a State of Mind

When a Man is the Victim: A Second Study in Rape Apology

Homophobia and Racism: The Failed Policy of Ranking Oppressions

Black People More Homophobic? You're Kidding, Right?

Marry Me Because I'm Asian?

Rethinking Walking; bfp

I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer

Walmart Rehearing has Major Implications

Playing Politics With Infanticide

Faith Based Pondering

What’s (radical) love got to do with it? Everything.

Rihanna Is Erased by DoSomething.org

Gainesville, FL Residents Defeat Anti GLBT Amendment 1

Death Penalty Is Repealed in New Mexico

Israel denounces soldiers’ T-shirts

Israel’s military condemned soldiers for wearing T-shirts showing a pregnant woman in a rifle’s cross-hairs with the slogan “1 Shot 2 Kills,” and another showing a gun-toting child with the words, “The smaller they are, the harder it is.”

I think I might be sick...

Domestic Violence In The Military

Notes from a bitch - nutrition...

Via
Reclamation

In short: I'm someone to be rescued and when I refuse to be rescued, I'm someone to be reviled and hated.

At the end, I want to call your attention to a new blog that I am just loving, and if you like art, you will probably love too. Women Painting Women. If you follow my Tumblr account, you've been seeing quite a few pieces from this site this week.

Quick Gay Marriage Update

Via Pam's House Blend and USA Today.

The Vermont Senate on Monday evening overwhelmingly passed a bill legalizing gay marriage, making the state the first in the nation to take legislative rather than judicial steps toward granting marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The state Senate voted 26-4 in favor of the measure introduced by Democratic state Sen. John Campbell. The bill now goes to the state House, where Speaker Shap Smith, also a Democrat, predicted a majority would vote in favor of the "marriage equality" act. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to begin debating the bill Tuesday. A second vote in the state Senate also is expected Tuesday.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, has refused to answer questions about whether he would sign the measure, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature. He has said that he believes marriage should be between one man and one woman.

Smith refused to say Monday whether he believed there were enough votes in the Democrat-controlled House to override a gubernatorial veto.

Vermont became the first state in the nation to enact civil unions for gay couples nearly 10 years ago, but advocates say the following decade has demonstrated that civil unions and marriage, as separate institutions, are unequal and relegate same-sex couples to second-class status.

Anti-Jewish Sentiment?

I was reading Renee's latest on Global Comment and saw in the side bar of other recently published posts a story from the anti-war march in SF yesterday entitled Police Brutality in San Francisco Takes Over Anti-War Rally: March 21, 2009.

I was reading along and was interested to see what appeared to be some rather disturbing anti-Arab sentiment on the part of the SFPD. But then, I got to this;

I cannot help but wonder if this violent attack by the police was instigated by a local Zionist lobby.

This is where I stop and blink and look at the next two paragraphs to go and wonder to myself, "did this writer seriously just flippantly throw out just a pinch of old school Antisemitism and then go merrily on her way?" And why yes, it appears to me she did!

We have got to be able to engage with this stuff, critiquing Zionism even, without resorting to these Jewish stereotypes. Anti-Arab racism does not excuse antisemitism, they're BOTH damaging and they BOTH prevent us from being able to move forward on issues in the Middle East.


**As a side note I thought it was worth pointing out that I do realize that Zionism and Jewishness are not the same thing. But come on, they're more than a little related. Especially when one starts talking about a the influence of "the Zionist lobby". That's just too damn close to the still all too common antisemitic trope of a Jewish master conspiracy.**

Pastor Would Rather Go to Jail Then Stop Harassing Women Going to Clinic

More proof why it is society that must change and why laws aren't enough by themselves. From the Oakland Tribune comes a story of an anti-abortion pastor who violated Oakland law by harassing patients and escorts coming into a local clinic, and then blatantly refuses to abide by his punishment or just leave the women alone. I just had to share.

A Berkeley pastor who was the first person convicted of violating an Oakland law created to prevent anti-abortion protesters from harassing patients visiting clinics decided Friday to spend a month in jail as punishment for his crime.

Less than a month after he was sentenced to three years probation and given the option of volunteering or using the jail's work-release program instead of jail time as punishment, the Rev. Walter Hoye told a judge he wanted to do "straight time."

Hoye, who was immediately jailed, was arrested last May after he approached two women and their escorts who were trying to enter the Family Planning Specialists Medical Group in Jack London Square. Hoye was originally charged with four counts of violating the city law but was found guilty in January of two counts.

At a sentencing hearing last month, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stuart Hing said Hoye, in addition to the jail time or community service, would also have to serve three years probation during which time he would have to stay 100 yards away from the clinic where he was arrested.

Hoye said at the time that he would not abide by the terms of the probation and a hearing was set Friday to settle the matter.
[...]
Oakland's "bubble law" requires that anti-abortion protesters stay 8 feet away from any patient and escort who are trying to enter a clinic.
[...]
If Hoye is found within 100 yards of the clinic after he is released from jail, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office could charge him with a violation of probation and send him to jail again.

Dollhouse

OK, my verdict is in.  I love this show.  I think it's fabulous.  I love what Joss is doing and how he is dealing with the material.  I love the characters.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

If you're not watching it yet, if you've seen mixed reviews and aren't sure about it, catch up on Hulu now, it's worth it.

Whiteness in Black Imagination Essay Part IV

The finale! I'm really rather happy with it.


Varying interaction with this hierarchal system also happens on an economic level. An interesting case is examined by Kathleen Brown; “tithing” in 1643 Virginia.(17) In the tithing system, all men were “tithable”, or taxable. This meant that taxes were levied on the household per man in it. It was also decided by the government (the English crown) that Black women would be taxable, whereas white women would not. This was naturally based on the prevailing attitude that it was inappropriate for “ladies” (read: proper, “civilized,” women) to work, while Black women were “drudges” and predisposed for labor.(18) On a practical level what this amounted to was making it significantly more expensive for a free Black household to operate than a white household. While I would argue that in a twisted sense it served to devalue both white and Black women (white because they were relegated to delicate flowers incapable of labor and Black because they were estimated as “naturally suited” to it) the more insidious fact is the setting up of a system in which Black households were unavoidably disadvantaged and less able to prosper, thus rather inevitably creating the conditions needed for generational poverty. In a twisted way this also reinforced the different understandings of whiteness held by Black folks and white folks. Black families must have seen the predicament this put them in financially, but I would be very surprised to learn they did not also see the sheer hypocrisy of the set up, a habit of whiteness paying lip service to an idea but really doing whatever it wants to do in practice. A system which amounts to “do as I say, not as I do”. A system we still see in operation today.

This sheer hypocrisy of whiteness is also examined by Eric Lott in his discussion of blackface performance in the mid-1800’s.(19) Lott claims that minstrel shows and blackface came from a place of love and a desire for educating white masses about black culture (among other motivations).(20) Yet, even assuming this motivation to be honestly felt, we are left with some extraordinarily hateful representations of both Black men and women in the shows themselves. This disparity is not easily reconciled, if it is in fact reconcilable at all. A point made all the more poignant by Lott’s observations of white minstrels’ pathetic attempts at covering up their outright plagiarism.(21)

The lesson learned by the behavior observed from white people in the works by Brown and Lott is that whiteness allows for hypocrisy, that white people are accountable for this to no one, and rather, are completely oblivious to it. Is it any wonder that bell hooks experiences whiteness as terrifying? That Kimberle Crenshaw observes again and again the social and legal divide between the world white women inhabit when compared to women of color? Or that Renee Martin stresses the importance of not trusting white women blindly, because “on an individual level we can…share intimacies but on a systemic level whiteness will always divide us”?(23) I began with the question of what special knowledge people of color have of whiteness. It is the privileges white people don’t even know they have; privileges people of color get to see because they see whiteness at its most honest, when it thinks no one else is actually watching.


(17)Brown, Kathleen. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
(18)Brown, Kathleen. 116.
(19)Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working class. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
(20)Lott, Eric. 59.
(21)Lott, Eric. 59.
(22)Martin, Renee. “Blind Allegiance to White Women.” Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/02/blind-allegiance-to-white-women.html.

Happy Ostara!

Today, Friday, March 20 is the Spring Equinox. Weather around here has in fact been nicer the last couple days, but not today. A sign? We'll see...

Sending out wishes to the world (and my readers) for cherry blossoms, the warmth of the sun and new shoots clamoring out of the ground of their nap.

Whiteness in Black Imagination Essay Part III

Please note, I did make some edits since posting to my first two sections, I have updated those entries so they are accurate. Of special note, I decided to start the paper off with a quote from bell hooks, I thought it was a bit more catching for the reading.

And now for part three...part 4 to post tomorrow.

Violence in lived experience is another example where whiteness and its hierarchies impact white women and women of color (especially Black women) differently. These disparities are a topic which Kimberle Crenshaw addresses in her influential work; “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color;” a concrete rendering of how whiteness impacts the lives of white and Black women differently(14). One of the topics discussed is the disparity in rape convictions depending on the victim’s race and the perpetrator’s race. White women are more likely to have their cases taken seriously and a conviction attained, while even when Black women overcome these hurdles they are still likely to have a far shorter sentence attained for their rapist. Crenshaw also looks at a disparity in organizing, where white feminist antiviolence organizers “frequently have the power to determine, either through material or rhetorical resources, whether the intersectional differences of women of color will be incorporated at all into the basic formulation of policy,”(15) something they often refuse to do, and then act surprised when their coalitions with feminist of color activists end “when the women of color [walk] out.”(16)

(14)Crenshaw, Kimberle. "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color." Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241-1299.
(15)Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1265.
(16)Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1265.

Whiteness in Black Imagination Essay Continued

A page a day keeps the professor at bay.

...Well not really cuz this is due tomorrow but hey I've been chipping away at it far better than usual, and am now half way through, with what is for me, a whole 'nother day to work on it ahead of me! I still have two more sources to weave into this, which I'm not entirely sure how I am going to go about yet, but I feel like it's coming together anyway.


These hierarchal values culminate in a daily existence unique to people of color, who are living in a system set up with whiteness as the ever-perpetuating-itself ideal and power structure(6). Renee Martin discusses this reality regularly on her daily blog, Womanist Musings; white people think nothing of reaching out and touching you without your permission(7), when you offer critique on a topic you are expected to have all the answers to fix it(8), white people respond hostilely to being asked to make compromises people of color have to make every day(9), and (especially male) children must be taught “to carry [themselves] in ways that white people will not perceive as threatening,” or risk the consequences suffered by many, from Emmet Till to Oscar Grant(10). Simply to survive, people of color have to be constantly aware of whiteness, but whiteness never truly has to be aware of them. Is it any wonder that bell hooks has experienced and articulates this constant vigilance as a form of sheer terror?(11) What other word is there for a reality which disregards you fully in the knowledge that it can enforce itself upon you, violently if necessary, at any time?

Perhaps ironically, there is also no example which displays the divide in the lived experiences of people of color and white people as much as when a Black woman like bell hooks or Renee Martin expresses theirs. “White students respond with disbelief, shock, and rage, as they listen to black students talk about whiteness, when they are compelled to hear observations, stereotypes, etc., that are offered as ‘data’ gleaned from close scrutiny and study.”(12) White people are commonly totally incapable of dealing reasonably with the fact that their experience of life is in fact not universal, that they are not invisible, untouchable beings or even worse; that they have at some point benefited from a system that has caused terror in or violence upon another human being. Barbara Smith points this out when she says, “it’s not white women’s fault that they have been raised, for the most part, not knowing how to talk to Black women…What is your fault is making no serious effort to change old patterns of contempt – to look at how you still believe yourselves to be superior to Third World women and how you communicate these attitudes in blatant and subtle ways.”(13) This is a trend which has unfortunately not abated much in the two decades since Smith spoke these words, as the comments section of Womanist Musings will attest to on any given day.


(6)Martin, Renee. “Why Whiteness”. Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/11/why-whiteness.html.
(7)Martin, Renee. “Can I touch your hair? Black women and the petting zoo.” Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/09/can-i-touch-your-hair-black-women-and.html.
(8)Martin, Renee. “Why We Need To Talk About Whiteness and Privilege”. Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/11/why-we-need-to-talk-about-whiteness-and.html.
(9)Martin, Renee. “Negotiating White Spaces”. Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/01/negotiating-white-spaces.html.
(10)Martin, Renee. “I Am Sean Bell: A Mothers Lament”. Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/01/i-am-sean-bell-mothers-lament.html.
(11)hooks, bell.
(12)hooks, bell. 167.
(13)Smith, Barbara. 26.

This week's links

“Turning a person into a thing is almost always the first step in justifying violence against that person.”

A long forgotten and just recently resurfacing piece of LBGTQI2 history, The Compton's Cafeteria Riot.

The dangers of calling a young lass a slut and a whore day in, day out

Kansas Law Allows Anonymous Rape Kits for Those Who Don’t Immediately Report

On homelessness and protection of people vs property

I started something really inflammatory and nasty

Wise Women of the South West symposium scheduled

Venezuela Turns Women’s Affairs Ministry Into Full-Fledged Ministry

I Love You Phillip Morris: Cisgender White Male Images Dominate Media On LGBTQI Issues

On giving birth; Posterior Position. Incredible photos!

school loans and bankruptcy

Citigroup Uses Bailout Money to Lobby Against Workers Rights

Education And The Heterosexual Model.

Next week Tennessee will be voting on a bill introduced by State Sen DeWayne Bunch and Rep. Stacey Campfield. The bill will prohibit any instruction that mentions homosexuality in grades k-8. Bill SB1250/HB0821 will hinder education by presenting heterosexuality as the only legitimate form of social organization.

radical: garden: reflections

birth and rebirth are continual processes, they start with our mothers and continue throughout our lives. death is only the a very strong sign of rebirth beginning.

am I brave enough to be reborn again? are you?

“Turning a person into a thing is almost always the first step in justifying violence against that person.”

credit crisis explained

Filmed Attack on Peruvian Trans Prostitute

FDA Approves New Female Condom

ghost from my past

One in Three

That’s the number of Native American and Alaskan Native women who are like to be raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in their lifetime, according to Amnesty International.

Assessing ARIS

The most popular ledes from the newly available data is the ongoing erosion of denominational protestantism, the overall shrinkage of Christian adherence, and the growth of people claiming “no religion”.

From Feminist Childbirth Studies: eight websites I love.

"Corrective rape" increasing in South Africa

Industrial Childbirth
If you don't know much about giving birth in the Western world, or do but it is an important topic to you, or have a loved one who is planning to give birth, I cannot stress how important I think this article is to read. It's hard to read, especially when taken with some of the other stories in the comments, but it's so important.

Original Essay: The Not Rape Epidemic

I owe Renee's weekly round up of links for the next three.

If you liked my post on the straight/white washing of Milk, you'll want to read about:Lorraine Hansberry's Gay Politics

The Salad Police

Dead White People's Clothes

Get Your 101 On

Because When We’re Knee Deep In Blood, I’ll Enjoy Saying “I Told You So”

Obama's Debt to New Orleans

Untitled

Why is it that when women of color fight with each other–we immediately go for the hatchets and freaking alien guns?

I read and re-read this post looking for an excerpt and it's all just too good, do read

Low-Cost Campus Birth Control Restored By Last Night’s Budget Bill

British police lose when it comes to taking sexual assault seriously

Arizona House passes abortion restrictions

Update from Cara on the asshole who locked up and sexually abused his daughter for 24 years: Speechless

no contest..

“No contest.” I said. Reluctantly. I should have said. “No, WAIT. That is NOT what I want at all. I would like to FIRE my lawyer and go to trial with a public defender.” Like the dramatic “I don’t” vow that comes at the chapel scene of many a Hollywood movie marriage. But I didn’t. I came upstairs still wanting to fight, but again my lawyer and the public defender available that day, urged me to take the deal. There is a chance that your case could be dropped, but you would be gambling, she said. I took the deal that I said I would never take.

Third Gendering

Men, women, and transgendered people. Male, female, and trans. I’m sure most of you recognize these phrases as they are used widely across the sex workers rights movement. I was at the December 17th march in D.C., and I heard them used there. I’ve also seen them in press releases and blogs, and even dear friends of mine have used them. This is a call for it to stop.

Bernard Monroe Survived Cancer Until Louisiana Police Shot Him Dead

Calgary Protesters Give Bush a Warm Welcome

Insurance for midwives

I want to make it clear to everyone reading my blog that I think it is a big mistake to attach insurance to our registration.

It’s Fitness First Fatty

Gao Zhisheng’s family arrives safely in New York…

we dont need another anti-racism 101

African Sex Workers Speak Up

The Morality of Drones

War, of course, is all about killing. And yet, as the sharp escalation in civilian casualties in Afghanistan has demonstrated, one doesn't want killing to become too easy. We bypass our innate moral emotions at our own peril.

Homebirth rally in NYC tomorrow

Julie is the wife of an SEIU employee who is 6 months pregnant and would like to have a homebirth with a midwife. Despite the fact that NY State has mandated that private insurance companies cover homebirth, SEIU’s insurance does not...Julie has appealed and tomorrow is her hearing.

Attend the rally (info in link) or sign the petition.

Dear Iowa

Lori Phanachone is a member of the National Honor Society, has a 3.9 grade point average and ranks seventh in the senior class of about 119 at Storm Lake High School.

But school officials have told her she is considered to be illiterate based on her refusal to satisfactorily complete the English Language Development Assessment, a test she says is demeaning and racist.

Let me echo BlackAmazon on this one, who the fuck gets all A's in English Lit who is fucking illiterate?? Give me a break.


See more links from Ojibway Migisi Bineshii, Random Babble..., and Womanist Musings.

This next week might be a bit slow...

My first real paper of the semester is due on Friday and it's one that's going to take a bit of effort to put together. Then I have to get researching because I have a big research paper being put together in installments and a first draft is due after spring break, and my first paper in another class is due after we come back as well. I also might be taking some time out during Spring Break to, well, have a break. :P But we'll see.

Anyway, I've written the first page of my paper and I thought some of you might be interested to read it. It's for my Making Whites class, and you'll see some familiar names in the footnotes, even from this first page, as sources.

The prompt I'm writing on:

In 1997 bell hooks noted, "although there has never been an official body of black people...whose central critical project is the study of whiteness, black folks have,...shared 'special knowledge of white folks.'" What is this special knowledge of whiteness among hooks and other POC and how is it the same or different from white folks' understanding of whiteness?

“Blacks, I realized, were simply invisible to most white people, except as a pair of hands offering a drink on a silver tray.”(1) It is a profound thing to be deemed beneath the notice of other people. One will never see another human being in quite the same light as they can when put in such a position. Anyone who has worked in retail or food service, or as a woman amongst men, or a person of color amongst white people, can speak to this phenomenon. When one is believed to be beneath notice she is no longer someone to impress or to whom standards of civil conduct apply. This is the root of the “special knowledge” bell hooks states black folks have of whiteness(2); a root shared in divergent manifestations by all bodies oppressed under kyriarchy.

It is only when something is said or done that is generally acknowledged as specifically offensive to a body with her qualities or configuration (a sexist, able-ist or racist joke, for instance) that quite suddenly all attention is on her to see how she will react; whether she will absolve the privileged bodies around her or prove to be one of those “unreasonable” people who “can’t take a joke”. While an understanding of what is hurtful to say to people of varying genders, ability and races has become more widely disseminated this same situation plays itself out over and over again; not just in the workplace but in feminist and/or anti-racist organizations and conferences as well(3). Even these supposedly safe spaces are not immune to the imprinting of kyriarchy, where the person occupying the privileged position is capable of choosing to ignore the other people around them.(4) This is integral to the special knowledge people of color have of white folks, because it demonstrates how saturated our daily existence and lived realities are with the hierarchal values of kyriarchy.



(1)hooks, bell. "Whiteness in Black Imagination." Displacing Whiteness. Ed. Ruth Frankenberg. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997. 168
(2)hooks, bell. 165.
(3)Smith, Barbara. "Racism and Women's Studies." In All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: But Some of Us Are Brave, Barbara Smith Patricia Bell Scott, and Gloria T. Hull, 25-28. : The Feminist Press, 1985.
(4)Martin, Renee. "Negotiating White Spaces." Womanist Musings. http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/01/negotiating-white-spaces.html.

National Day of Action on Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine

I received this via the Yahoo group email list:

Dear Supporters of Bay Area Women in Black:

Nearly two years, ago, Bay Area Women in Black began its weekly vigil, joining with international Women in Black to stand in silence against military occupation. While in the recent past we have focused on Israel/Palestine, we do not forget the U.S. occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and are reminded by people who greet us of the imperative to stand against war and militarism.

Saturday, March 21, 2009, has been declared a national day of action called From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime. We believe it is necessary to be present for this action, to do as President Obama has urged: ³I want you to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable.²

We are opposed to the increase in troop levels in Afghanistan where we already have 32,000 troops and are spending two billion dollars a month to fight an unwinnable war. We oppose indefinitely maintaining a military presence of a similar number of troops in Iraq. We oppose the U.S.-supported occupation of Palestine. Our government needs to put money, personnel and policy emphasis into diplomacy and economic development, not war and occupation.

BAWIB invites you to join its feminist presence at the march, with our signs and stately black puppets, as we walk up Market Street from Justin Herman Plaza to the Civic Center in San Francisco. We will walk in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel/Palestine, for peace and to end occupation and militarism. We will join our many friends and allies who are gathering around the country. The sponsors of this event include the Arab Resource and Organizing Center San Francisco, Code Pink, Free Palestine Alliance, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Middle East Children¹s Alliance, School of the Americas Watch and Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

WHEN: Saturday, March 21, 2009
WHERE: Justin Herman Plaza.
WHAT: From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime

The rally is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., and we plan to participate in the march only. We will all gather at 12:30 p.m. by the Embarcadero BART station stairs near the Hyatt Hotel at the foot of California Street. For those going from the East Bay, meet at the MacArthur BART station and board the LAST CAR of the 12:08 train. We will bring the signs and puppets. If you plan to participate, please let us know by email so we can know how many signs to bring. Also, let us know if you want to wear a puppet. And please wear black.

WE HOPE YOU¹LL JOIN US - MAKE THIS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW THE WORLD -- AND OUR GOVERNMENT ­ THAT WE ARE A COUNTRY WHICH ³SEEKS A FUTURE OF PEACE AND DIGNITY.² (Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2009.)

Shalom/Salaam

Bay Area Women in Black

Sheriff Arpaio Under Investigation By U.S. Justice Department

This definitely deserves it's own post.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil-rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office after months of mounting complaints that deputies are discriminating in their enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Officials from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division notified Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday that they had begun the investigation, which will focus on whether deputies are engaging in “patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.”

An expert said it is the department’s first civil-rights probe related to immigration enforcement.

Tell It WoC SPEAK! Is up!

Go check out another successful and growing Carnival!!

Verb Noire Announcement (Call for Submissions)

Verb Noire is intended to be a platform for all those stories that have been hidden for so long because the protagonist didn’t fit the mainstream mold. What does that mean?

Submission Guidelines Ahead!!

It means we are looking for original works of genre fiction (science fiction/fantasy/mystery/romance) that feature a person of color and/or LGBT as the central character. Book-length manuscripts must be at least 250 pages, and short stories cannot be over 100 pages. All manuscripts must be double-spaced, in 12-point font (Times New Roman, Courier, etc) in black text, and must be a Word/Open Office compatible document. We ask that you insert a header with your name and the first two words of the title at the top of each page. Please do not send them as read-only files as that will make any editing more difficult.

We are also accepting poems in traditional and experimental styles with a maximum of 10 pages. The same formatting rules will apply.

Personal and critical essays are also welcome as long as they are within the aforementioned themes. Poetry, essays, and short stories may be subject to inclusion in anthologies depending upon the number of submissions fitting a specific theme.

There will be (approximately) a 6-8 week turnaround time in which submissions will be reviewed and a decision will be made as to whether or not we will be publishing your manuscript. Payment will be dependent upon sales, as each published author will received a percentage of the sales price.

There is no need to submit a query letter, nor do we require you to have an agent, but we do want a brief synopsis of the plot for longer manuscripts. We will accept works from white authors as long as the the central characters are of color and/or LGBT. Please send all submissions to verb.noire@gmail.com.

We’ve been raising money to defray start up costs and the response has been fabulous. Feel free to come check out us out on LJ as well.

That sex life post I said I owed you

Where to even begin.

I think I learned some things about myself by going to that sex party.

Probably most importantly, is just how important a chemistry connection to someone is before I can even consider playing with them. If my brain is not engaged I am just not there.

But I also feel a bit lost.

Did I have fun? Yes and no.

The entertainment was fun. The conversations were fun. At one point we were in the play room and there was a couple having sex and a very soft light was falling on them just right, the woman was on top and it was just a picture perfect moment, she looked beautiful.

But watching other people have sex doesn't turn me on.

It sure turns hubby on though.

For me, it was an emotional repeat of our trip to The Lusty Lady (another thing I can't believe I didn't write about). The show is entertaining, the woman incredibly attractive, but am I turned on? Nope. Not at all.

Hubby sure was though. He kept trying to make out with me and I kept batting him away like, dude she's doing a work out for us, we should have enough respect to watch!

And then, the girls asked me to flash them (still at the LL here) and I was like, ok, sure why not? No emotional response either. Maybe a little bit of discomfort...remember, I'm the girl who would rather change in the bathroom than be seen naked at the pool/gym/whatever. But mostly?

Dead inside.

When we were playing together in the almost dark amongst other couples doing the same, yes what he was doing felt good, I'm pretty sure I even had an orgasm, but I also felt so detached. It disturbed me. When we were done I just wanted to leave, I felt odd, cold, removed, vulnerable?

It was the sort of situation that should have been erotic?

Shouldn't it?

And just to throw in a really cliched response...Is there something wrong with me?

****

The last time I can remember feeling really, really, horny was during the Spike obsession of 2007.

Do I need objectification for lust?

This is the question that just keeps coming up in my mind.

Before my husband was a whole person to me he made me hornier than anyone else ever had. There is a lot, LOT, that happened to get us from there to here. But looking back it seems like, and not just with him, the more I love someone, the more comfortable I get with them, the more I see them as whole, the less they turn me on. And that doesn't mean the less I enjoy having sex with them, although that becomes less important too. Husband and I actually have a really fulfilling sex life by and large.

But that HORNY feeling that I see Essin' Em and Thursday's Child talk about, I only get that way for the idea of a person, for a fantasy of a person, for the perfect imaginary.

Those are the bodies that are just plain inherently sexual to me. A whole person? Their body is beautiful, magnificent, powerful, and sexuality is there, but it's not the same.

Is this remotely understandable, much less normal? Do I really give a shit if it's normal or not? ha!

****

Did feminism, because of my efforts to see people as whole people, ruin my sex life? ha!

****

I am not the person I want to be. In more ways than this, of course, but...

I want to be the active participant.

I want to be horny.

I want to sometimes just spontaneously feel like fucking out of the blue.

To demand my husband come to bed right now.

And I'm not.

****

This isn't even getting into the troubling thought that one of the reasons my husband manages to be horny all the time is possibly because he objectifies me and thus doesn't see me as a whole person, and how much that would trouble me. I have a hard time seeing Essin' Em looking at people that way, and yet she manages to have a much higher sex drive than me.

****

I don't know what to do with this new information about myself. I know it's important. I can feel that inside me. The tears I've shed while writing attest to it. But I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what to do about it.

****

Is this what some people are talking about when they say the "passion" is gone? The "spark"?

****

I like the way I have managed to decolonize my mind, I like that I've undone workings of a kyriarchal culture I can't stand. But I guess now that I have I don't know how to build another sexuality out of it.

Don't worry though, hubby and I are in dialogue about this. Though in writing I think I've touched on some new stuff I'll have to bring up. One thing I haven't written much about but which we talked about is that we have to get off our computers more. Despite being in the same room and chatting from time to time back and forth, I don't think that's very intimate, which I definitely think is a related issue.

****

So, will we go back? I'm thinking yes. We did meet some interesting people, some I'd like to get to know better. Will we play again? I just don't know. How does this effect hubby's fantasy of watching me with another guy? I don't know. Wives can't be absolutely everything to their husbands, and part of me just wants to say "shit, find yourself a girlfriend to go to these things with" but that's a cop-out so I don't have to process this stuff and it wouldn't really work anyway, being left out would make me feel like shit.

So... the journey continues... (sorry this probably wasn't as stimulating as you might have hoped for).

Renee Has a Talk Show!

Renee, the writer of Womanist Musings is taking on her own call in talk radio show this afternoon (3/14)!

1PM PST, 4PM EST via Blog Talk Radio! I'm going to be there, are you??

The "What is Your Dream?" Contest

Feminist Review is having another contest! Wheee!

Thembisa S. Mshaka's Put Your Dreams First: Handle Your [entertainment] Business will be available next month, and Feminist Review is giving FIVE people a chance to win a FREE copy of the book by entering our "What is Your Dream?" giveaway contest in honor of Women's History Month.

How to enter:

Send an original poem, short narrative, or work of art (photo, drawing, short film, etc.) that describes your dream(s) to info@feministreview.org by March 23rd.

Winners will be announced March 25th and their work will be displayed here.

Make sure to include your full name and an address where the book should be sent if you are a winner. This giveaway contest is open to all Feminist Review readers with a limit of one entry per person.

Tell It WoC SPEAK! II Coming Up

You still have time to submit a post to the second Tell It! WoC SPEAK carnival. Posting on the 15th.

Abolish "Marriage" in California

Right on the heels of the argument intro'd to me by a professor which I talked about in my post on "Milk", I get news that two heterosexual male students in So Cal are gathering signatures to put legislation on the next ballot abolishing marriage in California.

Now to me, marriage is a word which is open to anyone; it carries meaning beyond any one religious, social, or legal institution.

But the argument for the bill is that legally "domestic partnership" should (and would if this passes) replace "marriage" in the law in CA. Thus enacting a compromise often called for, of separating civil marriage and religious marriage.

I haven't seen anyone around here gathering signatures, but they should, I think people would be into it. I'd certainly sign.

SPEAK! WOMEN OF COLOR MEDIA COLLECTIVE RELEASING SELF-TITLED DEBUT CD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
UNITED STATES — March 7, 2009– SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective, a netroots coalition of women of color bloggers and media-makers, is debuting March 7, 2009 with a performance art CD, accompanied by a collaborative zine and classroom curriculum for educators.

Compiled and arranged by Liquid Words Productions, the spoken word CD weaves together the stories, poetry, music, and writings of women of color from across the United States. The 20 tracks, ranging from the explosive “Why Do You Speak?” to the reverent “For Those of Us,” grant a unique perspective into the minds of single mothers, arrested queer and trans activists, excited children, borderland dwellers, and exploring dreamers, among many others.

“We want other women of color to know they are not alone in their experiences,” said writer and educator Alexis Pauline Gumbs of Broken Beautiful Press, one of the contributors to the CD. “We want them to know that this CD will give sound, voice and space to the often silenced struggles and dreams of women of color.”

The Speak! collective received grant assistance from the Allied Media Conference coordinators to release a zine complementing the works featured on the CD, as well as a teaching curriculum for educators to incorporate its tracks into the classroom environment.

“Speak! is a testament of struggle, hope, and love,” said blogger Lisa Factora-Borchers of A Woman’s Ecdysis. “Many of the contributors are in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names… I can guarantee you will have the same reaction as to when I heard them speak, I was mesmerized.”

To promote the initiative, the Speak! collective is coordinating listening parties in communities across United States, creating short YouTube promotions illustrating the CD creation process, and collaborating with organizers and activists online and offline.

The CD is available for online ordering at http://speakmediacollective.com on a sliding scale beginning at $12. All inquiries for review copies should be directed to us at speakcd@gmail.com. Proceeds of this album will go toward funding for mothers and/or financially restricted activists attending the 11th Annual Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI from July 16-19.

A lot of amazing women worked on this project, so show the love, and support them.

MSNBC Vote On Obama Flooded by Jerks

MSNBC has a poll up about how people think the President is doing so far. Far better run polls than this have said people are generally happy with what he's done, yet 47% are giving him an F. Go and vote and counteract these douchebags. :|

Update: As of 3/13 the results are as follows:
He gets an A 52%
He gets a B 9.4%
He gets a C 3.2%
He gets a D 6.2%
He gets an F 29%

Somehow, I'm willing to bet this is slightly more accurate.

The Weekly Comes Again

Chris And Rihanna The Violence We Don’t Talk About

Weekly Immigration Wire: Obama Administration Absent on Immigration

Hospital Visitation Rights as Human Rights

Holding misogyny in my chest

Olive would have told me to shut up and do something

The racial & economic crisis

Chris Brown and Rihanna

The next step for fair pay

On fundamentally missing the point of WOC-only spaces

Research Fraud Involving Celebrex and Lyrica

Framing the Economy - The Box We're Being Talked Into

Government Accountability Office: ICE are Agents of Chaos and Confusion

one response to 'eww! birth is icky!' squeamishness

Fashion Police Question Whether Michelle Obama’s Bare Arms Are “Appropriate”

(Pagan) News of Note

Who You Calling Radical? Conversations Between WOC and RWOC, Part II of Infinity

Who Gets To Say What (Part I: Tokenism)

Define "Responsible"

Boycott [Lindt chocolates] Now!

if we build it, we will come

What Do The Homeless Deserve?

Nancy Pelosi Speaks Out Against ICE Raids

The Top Five Ways That White Feminists Continue To Discredit Women of Color

What sort of a feminist ARE you, anyway?

Industrial Childbirth

The Antidote for Discrimination is

Truth Telling

For Rent : Whites Only

Astrological Update! Venus in retrograde

How comfortably can our existing relationships contain our recently surging need to serve our own desires first?

This question cannot be answered through quiet contemplation. We often encounter desire in an instant, not having previously known this was what we wanted until presented with it. Even if we already do secretly possess awareness of a certain inner hunger, we can't reliably know how our other half will respond to our expressing and/or going after it.

How well we're able to pleasurably chase an impulse, without feeling boxed in or put upon by those we share our life with (or by our ideas about them), is necessarily an experiential lesson. We don't know until we test it out…until we courageously pursue that which, in a single split-second, suddenly sparks our 'feels so right!' instincts, not being too sure exactly where such an action will carry us but rather excited to discover what'll happen next.

In case you haven't noticed, we are presently in the midst of just such a lesson:

Will you comply with your intuitive impulses, ready to clutch any opportunity before giving it the chance to pass you by... though such acts may fundamentally impact an important relationship, when you aren't able or willing to defend your behavior ('it just feels so right!') and/or the other person isn't able or willing to understand it? (And will you later regret your hastiness?)

Or will you resist these self-centered yearnings ('…for what in the world could be worse than being seen as self-centered?') out of respect for somebody else, sacrificing what might prove to be a passing fancy (or, then again, might not) to preserve things just as they are? (And will you grow to resent this person, as you're left to wonder, into perpetuity, what might've been?)

Read the whole forecast, from the always incomparable Barry!

Fucking Brilliant

Another way that racism harms white people is by denying them the ability to develop their critical thinking. This is due in part to the constant, regular reinforcement that white is right. White people are raised in an environment in which they are regularly assured of their superiority. Their experts are white, like them. And they often live in segregation, thus denying them the opportunity to be exposed to other viewpoints.

What happens in a culture of white supremacy? White people assume that they are the experts. Even in the absence of any history, education or knowledge.

The most blatant example of this is when a white person (typically a white man) is pontificating about a subject and is challenged when a person of color expresses an opinion. The white person will assume that the person of color knows nothing about the subject and will strive to “correct” him or her. I’ve had this happen when a white person who was not in my field was speaking with authority about something in my field. They never assume that you might actually be knowledgeable on the subject, nor do they assume that you might have professional credentials. (I’d also note that this is a very common experience on the part of people of color. And I recently heard a anecdote about this happening to a writer of color with a white man who was discussing her book. Only he didn’t know she had written it.)

It does not cross their minds. This is racism.

Instead, the assumption is just that you’re wrong. They aren’t listening to what is actually said. They are making an assessment based on their racist assumptions about the speaker. These assumptions prevent them from learning.

Read the WHOLE post

Oh yes, I have noticed this. I think it applies equally well when talking about how men interact with women, because I've surely run into this from (usually white) men, and my whiteness did not protect me from it at all. Sadly though, I have to also acknowledge that I sometimes resist really engaging my own critical thinking skills. Something I have been working on, and will continue at!

h/t to Renee

More from Claire McCaskill

I like her.

Still Processing

I know I know, I owe you all a sex life post.

Well, I am still processing what I think/feel about Saturday night. So a longer post will probably be a bit of time coming.

But I will say this; we did end up playing (just with each other), we did exchange info with one other couple, and we did meet a few folks who seemed interesting.

It didn't all go exactly as hoped, but that's life, it certainly wasn't worst case scenario either.

The smoking patio was the place for banter, one of my favorite things, which makes me want to take up smoking. But I won't, of course.

We do plan to go back.

And this week...

If You're Poor In New Mexico, It's Cheese Sandwiches For You

Did Kathryn Johnston Really Get Justice?

An apology from the folks who brought you the post last week on Digital Colonialism.
**NOTE** Read the comments...
Related:
Some Thoughts on Tokenism
One Question

Rethinking Walking: Fears, Fucking, Fun

Sure Let’s Honour A Homophobe and An Admitted Ablest : Epic Oscars Fail

Back To the Slums for Slumdog Millionaire Kids

Womanist Lessons: Resisting Lenten Sacrifice

If You’re Homeless Your Possessions Are Garbage

Beauty, Consumerism and Environmentalism

New Legislation Would Expand Domestic Violence Laws to Include Pets

Holy Shit!

Rethinking Afghanistan

Gays And Lesbians Know The Meaning Of The Word Attack

Something Wicked This Way Comes

More on Colombia

Pentagon allows coverage of war coffins

Clint Eastwood Things Raced-based Jokes Are Funny

Parents complain about disabled TV show host

Bobby Jindal does it again. Blatant disregard for the state he supposedly “governs”

Mexican Citizenry Rise up to Protest Army’s Violence

Homebirth Underground?

Continuity of Care Undervalued

It Ain't Activists Causing Problems In Your WWBT Lives, It's Our Enemies

Toilet Paper Use Puts Trees in Trouble

Turkish Transwoman Running For Public Office

Do Poor Whites Even Exist?

NYPD accused of raping intoxicated woman

On the Question of Womanhood

White Guilt

Girl/boy and Unpacking Gender

Red State Special

Sustainable Linking

Bloggers and bookstores are often kindred spirits, but many bloggers link to the Amazon page for books they discuss in their posts. IndieBound recently added a book-linking feature that provides a user-friendly alternative: bloggers can link to book information and cover art on IndieBound, and users who follow the link and want to purchase the book can enter their zip code to find it at a local store.

Nicole Kidman To Play Transwoman Lili Elbe

Black Women Get Beat By The Police Too

Who Gets To Say What (Part 1: Tokenism)

Dueling lawyers in California Prop. 8 case are a study in opposites

Indian Sex Workers Fight Penalization

After months of speculation and stress, sex workers rights advocates have reason to celebrate this International Sex Workers Rights Day.

Positive Transgender TV Commercial from Argentina.

Burned Stripper Update

End Involuntary Sterilizations

In Illinois, the Probate Act of 1975 outlines the general duties for guardianship of an adult with a disability (i.e., a ward). However, currently there are no guidelines for when a guardian seeks to have the ward sterilized. As a result, the involuntary sterilization of people with disabilities can be abused. It is possible for a guardian to violate a person’s basic right to not be sterilized without knowledge and/or consent. Most states in the U.S. have due process protections to prevent this extreme, irreversible and dehumanizing situation… but unfortunately Illinois is still one of 16 states lacking any protections against sterilization without consent.

We need to let Illinois legislators know that we want to end involuntary sterilization now by pushing the passage of H.B. 2290!

Read More

Arpaio Must Be Stopped

Via Bint

This man is a blight on law enforcement and anyone who believes people should be treated like people everywhere.

The petition. Sign it.