The Voice of a Generation? Whose Voice? Lena Dunham and Racism

[Content note: racist slur]

So, over the weekend, all around jackass Lisa Lampanelli, tweeted this:

[Photo with Lampanelli and Lena Dunham. Text reads, "Me with my nigga @LenaDunham of @HBOGirls - I love this beyotch!"]

I can't believe I have to say this, but maybe listen once and for all fellow white people: You don't get to use the n-word. Not as a "joke." Not if you "have black friends." Not because you, like Lampanelli, have a whole strain of "comedy" based on fucking black men. Not now. Not ever. No way. No how.

All this yuck-yuck, jokey hipster racism bull just gets to me so bad. (Let's be real, hipster racism is JUST RACISM.) And it seems like, even when it's not her own words, Lena Dunham is often related to these instances. She has certainly made the hipster racism mistake herself but she also frequently keeps company those people who are entirely race insensitive. Take the whole Caitlin Moran debacle, in which Moran defended Dunham's whitewashed depiction of New York in Girls and said she "literally couldn't give a shit about" the criticism against Dunham. 

I don't want to jump into a discussion about whether or not Girls is a good show (because that's something I literally couldn't give a shit about...I don't watch it for many reasons so I don't now anything about it beyond what I read and what others say.) But I DO want to tackle the foolish idea that Dunham is the "voice of a generation." 

Firstly--this whole idea just came about because Dunham wrote that line into an episode of Girls and it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. But secondly, and much more importantly, all of this racism surrounding Dunham's person and work routinely excludes entire segments of people. So how in the world can she be said to represent a whole damn generation? I get that she is doing some interesting things in that she's a young woman running a show and she looks much more like the chick next to you on the bus than the woman on the billboard, but, to me, all of that feminist karma is completely depleted by the fact that she is so full of race fail. Same goes for Moran. Despite a few concerns here and there, I loved "How to Be a Woman" but then came her dismissal of race entirely. How can I get behind her as a feminist icon?

Simply put: I can't be your feminist cheerleader if you marginalize entire groups of people. That's not feminism. 

Although I'm older than Dunham, I can't help but feel that as a 20 something, I fall roughly into the "generation" she is said to represent. I don't want to be complicit in the creation of a new, edgy culture which is really just reiterating the same old bullshit by being silent. I can only hope that all of the very real, legitimate criticism against Dunham is heard--not so much as to influence her work but moreover to let it be known that Dunham isn't our voice. 

Related:

Intersectionalism 101

Working on Anti-Racism

Superbowl Sexism Watch 2013!

Ah yes, it is time for my 5th annual Superbowl advertisement sexism watch!

I am happy to say that I declare this year's situation to be...drum roll...STATUS QUO! By that, I mean that gender stereotypes were out in full force BUT there wasn't a single commercial which set us back 50 years. And there were actually a few which were kinda good. Kinda.

Same old stereotypes and problematic content:
-Go Daddy's smart + sexy ad. A hot girl is sexy. A nerdy dude is smart. Together, they equal Go Daddy with a lot of disgusting kissing noises. YAWN. BLAH. OVER IT. I mean...for Go Daddy, it was actually pretty mild. For life, it was annoying as hell. Plus, when would it EVER be a nerdy girl with a hot guy? (Hint: never.)

-Audi had a commercial where a teen is going to prom stag, but he takes his dad's car and he feels like such a bad ass that he storms in and kisses the prom queen. I know that people want to pass this kind of thing as romantic or whatever  but I will ALWAYS be uncomfortable with the "sweeping her off her feet" mentality because HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE WANTED SWEPT? Consent is a simple concept and there was none in that commercial. In a perfect world, there's a whole back story that we can't see, but let's be honest, if we don't see it, it doesn't exist. All we (and millions of teens everywhere) see is the story portrayed. At best, it's really problematic. At worst: a contributor to our rape culture.

-The Calvin Klein shiny, ripped dude in underwear caught my, ahem, attention. Ok, I can admit it's a little interesting to see a guy so heavily objectified during the Superbowl, but 1) I don't think we win by having men be objectified too and 2) when a dude is objectified, he's still portrayed as strong, active, athletic, and a human. Women are so often reduced to being passive, idle, dismembered bodies.

-Amy Poehler for Best Buy. It kills my soul to put her on the "same old" side of things because I love her more than I have words for. BUT while the commercial was hilarious, she was kiiiiiiiiiinda being a dumb blonde and that's not my favorite thing ever.

-The Coke race series of ads. The group of women are showgirls while the men are adventurers. Dumb. I mean, yes, the women won, but still. Come on. Plus, it's being criticized for being racist.

-Speaking of racism, what about the VW ad where the white guy is "happy" epitomized by his appropriation of a Rasta/Jamaican accent? WHAT THE HELL? VW, you're better than that.

Interesting takes:
-The Hyundai ad with The Flaming Lips...it was a dad parenting and having a great time with his kids (and The Flaming Lips.) Not bad. Not bad at all. (Hipsters, be damned! I don't care if you're upset that TFL are now "mainstream.")

-Toyota had an ad with Kaley Cuoco where she can apparently grant wishes and they work through what the family wants. It did have a bit of a fatphobic undercurrent to it, but when the little girl wished to be a princess, she became a bad ass warrior one, in a scene that could have been out of Braveheart.

-Jeep had a long RAH 'MERICA ad voiced over by Oprah. (What did that cost!?) I'm not really into the ad in general, but when they show an American soldier at the end, it's a woman of color. So they get points for that, at least.

Like I said, overall there wasn't as much blatant awfulness as usual, but there's certainly so much more progress to be made. At least I can chalk up Superbowl 2013 to being the year where I didn't audibly groan at my TV...at least, not too loud. Ok, I did. Whatever.

Late to the Party: ABC's Scandal

[Possible mild spoilers.]

I'm not sure how I missed Scandal, but oh how I have made up for lost time! I've seen some people I follow on Twitter live tweeting the show, but I never actually thought, "Hey you should watch that." Plus, I kind of forget ABC exists.

Anyway, at the suggestion of a friend, I started the show last weekend. And thanks to my Hulu Plus subscription and sheer determination, I got all caught up to real time and I'm ready to watch  the newest episode on Thursday.

In short, I'm hooked.

Golden Globes A Night For the Ladies...All Ladies?

Last night's Golden Globes were fun. I so love me some Amy and Tina, so I thoroughly enjoyed them as co-hosts. In fact, I just really wanted more of them. And Jodie Foster accepting the lifetime achievement award while coming out, was a big moment.

But when the night is being called all about "girl power" and that "women stole the show" I'm not so sure I agree. Because the questions to me is...which women?

[Image shows Golden Globe hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and winners Lena Dunham, Adele, Claire Danes, Anne Hathaway, Jodie Foster, Jennifer Lawrence, Jennifer Chastain, Julianne Moore.]

It's in moments like this that I can't help but notice how incredibly white this cast of ladies is. And while each of them certainly had wonderful accomplishments this year, I'm sitting here frustrated as to how overlooked the equally important achievements of women of color in Hollywood are. And, for that matter, how much harder it is for them to even get into Hollywood in the first place. 

The main thing that gets me rallied up about this is when I hear all of the gushing love for Lena Dunham, who won two awards for Girls (best Actress in a TV musical or comedy and best TV musical or comedy.) When she won she said, "This award is for everyone who felt like there wasn't a space for her." And yet, when women of color critics of the show have asked why her it is so incredibly white, she hasn't done much to make them feel like there's a space for them. (For a really good run down on all of Dunham's race fails, check out this great piece on Tumblr. It says it all much better than I can.)

Ya know, last night kind of did feel like a girls night out. And that's awesome! I'm happy for awards shows to reflect a girls party vibe, any time, any day. All I'm saying is that I wish it felt like all girls were invited. 

Working on Anti-Racism

I've read a couple of really great things about how anti-racism isn't a state of being, but an active process. I wanted to take a second talk about this.

The first is by Lesley Kinzel, who I admire greatly and I've written about several times. She tweeted,

I don't call myself "a feminist" for the same reason I don't call myself "an anti-racist": these are things I WORK AT, not things I AM.

Intersectionalism 101

"My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit!" -Flavia Dzodan

I quote this a lot. To me, intersectionality is inherent to feminism. I remember sitting in one of my first poli sci classes as a brand new undergrad and a professor gave me my first concept of intersectionality. (She later told us she was a feminist but I didn't know it yet.) She said, "I like to use an analogy to start discussions about oppression. I think oppression is like carrying a weight. Some people walk around without any, making their travel easier. Others walk around with several weights. For me, I'm a woman...add a weight. And I'm black, add a weight. I can't navigate this world without these oppressions influencing me. It means a lot of things. For example, when people find out I'm a single mom the welfare queen stereotype comes to mind."

What I'm Reading

Here are a few things I am currently enjoying...

Today is Columbus Day...a day which has a pretty disturbing past, such that I'm not sure why anyone would "celebrate" it. Mark Anthony Rolo has a piece up about what today really means.

"We should have been wiped out," she says. "It's a miracle Native people still exist. I have never liked the word 'conquered.' We are still here after 500 years. And maybe every time Columbus Day comes around, we should rethink who the real heroes are: the explorer or the survivors?"

Every time "Half the Sky" gets held up as the greatest thing, I've had a nagging doubt in my mind. That doubt was just perfectly articulated by Sayantani DasGupta at Racialicious:

...I often ask my students to evaluate a text’s ethical stance by asking themselves –"whose story is it?" For example, are people of color acting or being acted upon? Although the film does highlight fantastic on-the-ground activists such as maternal health activist Edna Adan of Somaliland, the point of entry, the people with whom we, the (presumably) Western watchers, are supposed to identify, are Kristof and his actress sidekick-du-jour.

This is a bit older (in Internet years) but if you're interested in fat activism or body positivity at all, I highly suggest you add Fat Heffalump to your Google reader. Last month she tackled myths about fat bodies:

2. Having a fat body is like carrying around a 2o/50/100/whatever lb/kg sack of potatoes/dirt/lard whatever.

Wait, the average adult skeletal structure weighs about 20lbs right? So is having a skeleton like carrying around a 2olb weight?No it’s not. Fat bodies are not attached to us, like some kind of extra luggage – they ARE us. Our whole bodies hold ourselves up – bones, muscle, organs, skin, fat, everything – it’s all part of a complex machine that propels us around our lives. If you hand me 50lbs, I’m going to feel it’s weight, because it is not part of me. But 50lbs of my own body weight (or whatever number you choose) is part of me, and it has it’s own function in my body. The only time I’ve felt like I’m carrying a burden is when I believed I was worthless because I was fat. That wasn’t the physical weight of my body, it was the weight of stigma.

The Wrong Idea of "Equality"

So often, I see people with privilege talking about "equality" and fairness in a way where the terms are taken in the most unexamined, uninformed way possible. I have a few examples about what I mean:

• A thin person tells a fat person that she is equally oppressed because she's been made fun of for being thin.
• A man states that if women want "real equality" then they can't expect to take maternity leave or be given time at work to breastfeed.
• A white person claims they face just as much racism as people of color because they swear they've been called a "cracker" one time and real fairness would mean the elimination of all slurs.

In each of these cases that chief problem is the denial of the cultural context in which we operate and the history involved. In other words, stuff just ain't the same for different groups of people. Yes, all body shaming is a problem, but the cultural context is repeatedly telling us that fat bodies are wrong. Therefore, thin people benefit from thin privilege on a daily basis and simply because they have experienced body shame, doesn't mean their experience is anywhere similar to that of a fat person. The same goes for the white person who benefits from their white privileged literally every day. Their isolated incident with the slur does not remotely compare to the daily oppression people of color face and our long, violent national history with racism.

And as for the example of with the man who is talking about "real equality" for women, the problem is that his version of "real equality" is again ignoring the world in which we operate. It takes a man's situation as default and denies the sexism that women face on a daily basis. As I've said before, I feel strongly that you can't achieve an actually equitable society through expecting women to behave and think like men in order to be seen as legitimate, to get ahead, and be successful. My brand of feminism has never been about this. Instead, it is about making systems (which have always favored men in the past) also work for women. If we take how men do things as the standard and expect women to conform to that, we're simply validating patriarchy.

It's so much more important in each context, that we examine the "-isms" at play--the existence of oppression and the history of discrimination. The real problem is that when people benefit from white, male, thin, able bodied, straight, cis, etc. privilege, they don't want to compromise that position. So they deny the situation and instead talk about this false notion of equality which ignores the real world we operate in.

To me, it is much more important to think critically about how privilege affects our world and how we can work toward the eradication of various oppressions than to try to figure out some arbitrary standard of "equality."

All Objections to Feminism are not Equal

I've been thinking about this blog for a while and a conversion I had last night crystallized my intentions to write it. I write a lot about accepting the term "feminist." It is a very important goal of mine to make sure that the movement is better understood and to dispel the many stereotypes that exist about feminists. I want people who believe in gender equality and the end of sexist oppression to understand that they all have a place within the movement.

So when I encounter someone who is for equality but against feminism, I bristle. My first concern is that they've been indoctrinated to believe the sexist stereotypes that feminism has been associated with. However, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I need to remember that all objections to feminism are not equal. I mean this specifically about women of color who do not identify with the movement because of its history of racism and ongoing incidents of racism in the white feminist community.

Racism: Olympics Edition

Gabby Douglas is an incredible gymnast and now an Olympic gold medalist. But that might be hard to realize, because if you are listening to the media and general Olympics coverage, Gabby is not getting a fair shake. From people criticizing her hair and her mother, to her invisibility in some promotional photos and NBC's coverage, it certainly feels like racism in action.

Due to my traveling schedule, I missed out on all of the gymnastic events so far. But I wanted to round up some of the best coverage I've seen on this for further reading. The linked pieces below get into much greater detail about how Gabby is being treated. Check them out!

How to Enter Feminist Discussions at the 101 Level and Not Totally Mess Up

As it has become abundantly clear, I've been dealing with a whole lot 'o people who are new to (and relatively insensitive toward) discussions of gender. These past few exchanges have been a truly stressful experience for me. They've made me question my ability to engage with people who frankly don't care about issues of oppression and equality. They've made me want to go live in a cave where I only interact with other hardcore feminists who "get me."

And that's really sad--because if everyone who cared deeply about a cause became so jaded by interactions with uninformed people, that cause would eventually die out. There'd be nobody willing to spread/promote the messages. And that's really the last thing I want for feminism. I really believe there needs to be a space for 101 interactions. I'm not convinced that I'm necessarily the person to champion these spaces, for my own emotional health, but I do think they are important.

As such, after doing a few things to personally cope with this frustrating business, I've decided to channel this experience into something productive and hopefully useful. What follows are my suggestions for how to enter feminist discussions (and other discussions of privilege, oppression, and inequality) at the 101 level and not totally mess up! I should note here that some of the people I engaged with were actually just trolls. But for people who are new to feminism and would like engage in good faith, here you go...

Swedish Racism is Leaving a Bad Taste in My Mouth...

You'll get my pun in a moment.

Sometimes American liberals like to go off into a kiss-ass-fest with Scandinavian countries. Places like Sweden, Finland, and Norway are touted for being examples of socialism going right: universal health care, quality government day care, and paid parental leave are all waved around as reasons for us to partake in the Scandinavian lovefest. And it's totally valid because those are all areas in which American lags behind.

However, it's really important to remember that no culture is perfect and we've got to continue to think critically about what we see happen around the world. In that vein, Sweden has sent us a big reminder of that with a really racist debacle going down. As covered at Colorlines:

Post-Racial America...HA!

If there's one thing that the past few weeks have proven, it is that a "post-racial America" is a total joke. It's a confirmation of all the things that those of us who study kyriarchy (or people of color) have known for a long, long time. America is still deeply racist.

I'd like to highlight a few things going on right now to illustrate my point.

Tattoos and Gold Teeth Don't Justify Murder

I've been following the Trayvon Martin case for over 2 weeks now. I first became aware of it all when my Twitter feed began to slowly show more and more instances of Martin's name. I finally decided to figure out what all was going on. From everything I read, the events on February 26th went like this: Martin, an unarmed teen, walked to a convenience store to buy skittles and ice tea. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchmen, then racially targeted Martin, pursued him, engaged him in an altercation, and shot and killed him.  Because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, Zimmerman has not been charged. With anything. At all.

Almost everyone I talked with about the case agreed that this sounded atrocious. I mean, who could not become outraged hearing this?

At that point, the voices talking about the case were mostly limited to social media, people interested in social justice, and Martin's friends and family. But eventually, the bigger news outlets could no longer ignore what was happening and they began to cover the story as well. ABC News has a good rundown of the timeline of events.

So of course, as the ugliness of racism in America has another name and face, more racism is popping up in an attempt to obscure the facts of the case. I'm really uncomfortable with the "token black friend" in movies and TV shows, so of course, when the media provides us with Zimmerman's black friend to come to his defense, I can't help but cringe a little. And then there was Geraldo Rivera's comments about how hoodies are really the reason Martin was shot.

It's all pretty despicable, but by far the most offensive voice I've seen in this discussion is Dan Linehan at Wagist, which I discovered from scATX's Twitter. The title of Linehan's piece is "Was Trayvon Martin a Drug Dealer?" In it Linehan posits that Martin's family has been selling the media a depiction of the teen which is much more fresh-faced and innocent than Martin really was.

I don't typically make it my business to respond to every bigot with a computer and a blog, but I feel that I really must make the point that Linehan--and anyone else who might try to use this argument--is plainly wrong.

Moneyball, The Help, and the Oscars

This post is a part of my “Out of the Kitchen” weekly column at The Progressive Playbook in which various news and pop culture items will be examined through a feminist lens.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I am a cinephile. As such, I see a lot of movies and the Oscars are one of my favorite times of the year. For the past few Oscar seasons, going into the big night, I have made it a goal to see all of the best picture nominees. Because I do spend so much time at the movies, and the Oscars highlight the best of the best, this goal is usually not difficult for me. For example, last year I only had not seen one movie at the point of the nomination announcements. So this year, I was stunned when many of the nominated movies where films that I had passed on seeing, chiefly because I had no interest.

Two of these movies were Moneyball and The Help, which I passed on for different reasons. However, this weekend in order to reach my goal by Oscar night, my partner and I rented both. The more that I mull them over, the more that I can' t help but feel that these two movies are emblematic of bigger issues in Hollywood.

Brad Pitt in Moneyball

Before I jump into my bigger thoughts, I'd like to give some background as to why I didn't see these films in the first place. The reasons for Moneyball are simple. I'm not a sports person. I don't really dig sports stories. I can get into a sports movie, if it is one that develops its characters and has a story line which is broad enough to appeal to a lay audience. (In other words, it can't assume that I know or care about the sport. We're talking The Sandlot or A League of Their Own.) From the looks of Moneyball, this wasn't the case. So I passed.

Remembering Dr. King, Choosing Love over Hate

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is a deep truth in this. And anyone who has ever tried to offer love and compassion in the face of blind hatred knows just how deeply difficult this is. It's much easier to resort to the same ills as the hateful and violent.

I hope everyone takes some time to remember the lessons of Dr. King today. I can see many people are simply valuing this as a day off...a time to catch up on a TV show or some errands, which is a shame because there's a lot to be learned from Dr. King and a lot to be expanded upon and improved too. The work ain't done folks.

Jimi Izrael: Epic Disappointment

This post is a part of my “Out of the Kitchen” weekly column at The Progressive Playbook in which various news and pop culture items will be examined through a feminist lens.

I love NPR's Tell Me More. I listen to it almost every day that I drive to work. I've written many times about the numerous interesting topics it has brought to my attention. I think Michel Martin is perhaps the most compelling interviewer on NPR's nationally broadcasted programs.

One of the show's regular Friday segments is the "barbershop" where Martin checks in with an ever rotating line up of diverse men. They chat about current news topics, politics, and sports. The regular leader of the pack is Jimi Izrael. I've always found Izrael's contributions to the discussions to be insightful. So I was, at first, pretty excited when I saw that a piece he wrote had been picked up on Jezebel today.

Izrael's piece is about a 14 year old girl, Amber Cole. Cole is making news because a video of her performing oral sex has gone viral. The story is a big deal, because it is obviously extremely disturbing. Izrael's narrative is told as the metaphorical father of the girl. The crushing reality hit me as I saw that Izrael's piece, while rightfully highlighting some of the racial implications of the tragedy, amounts to not much more than misogyny. Here are some excerpts:

She would listen to her mother, if her mother was not busy. Doing something, anything that is not parenting. I want her mother to spend less time being "empowered" and more time being aware and engaged with our daughter. I want her mother to be a better role model, not a BFF.
...
I am Amber Cole's father, and I am not raising a slut. White feminists can teach their own little girls to find empowerment through their crotches – my brown little girl cannot afford to be that carefree and cavalier with her life choices. Slutlife is the hard, lonely vocation of rich, educated, privileged white women who will fuck The World, contract social diseases and still, somehow find a husband. No black woman ever got far being a slut. I want to know what kind of women "slutwalk," while young impressionable girls of all kinds look on with wonder and admiration. I want to know why these same women run to protect Miley Cyrus but just shrugged, nonplussed for my little brown girl. I want to know what the fuck those dumb bunnies are thinking. Most of them do not have daughters. I want my daughter, the woman, to have healthy, vibrant sexuality. My little girl should have other priorities. I am her father. I will protect her and every woman in my life with my life.

Wow.

If you want a really great run down of the problem's with Izrael's piece, I suggest the comment section over at Jezebel, because the community there take down every line in his piece much better than I can. However, I would like to note a couple of things. First of all, this piece is written as the metaphorical father of Amber Cole and girls like her, but it squarely places the blame back on mothers (and later the media). It doesn't say very much about how fathers (or the absence thereof) can actually play such a critical role in the sexual values and self-esteem formation of young girls. Instead, his piece goes on to emphasize the fact that as a father, he was probably at work while this happened "doing the best I can."

So the mother is at fault because her absence is her being "empowered" but the dad is blameless because his absence is him "doing the best he can?" I just...I don't even know what to say. This idea is so deeply tied to traditional gender roles and sexism that it sickens me. It's the age old idea that mothers are ultimately responsible for kids. It's tired.

Secondly, I take his point that "sluttiness" has different implications for a white girl than it does a brown one. All too often, brown women's bodies are hypersexualized and behaviors/clothing choices seen as slutty to them are seen as acceptable to white women. This is a fair point and we can discuss this. We can also discuss how women of color have been traditionally excluded from the feminist movement, which has for too much of its history, been concerned about the issues which affect priviledged white women.

However, to place the blame for the situation with Amber Cole, who is the victim of child pornography and cyberbullying, on feminists is ludicrous. As is his slut-shaming. Izrael is obviously very uncomfortable with female owned sexuality. As commenter Gavagirl pointed out at Jezebel:

Of course little brown girls who get their freak on frequently and with gusto can't find husbands. Because only nice brown guys like Jimi Izrael want to get married to brown girls, and nice brown guys don't like filthy brown whores. And of course that's not due to any kind of fault on the part of the nice brown guys. It's up to the brown girls to make sure they've lived up to the expectations of the brown guys so that they shall be rewarded.

Lastly, to put the icing on the misogynistic cake, when the shitstorm of comment starts, Izrael jumped on Jezebel and left a gem of a reply including this:

It is easy for you to cosign some little black girl giving head, to suggest that little girls embrace the ideas behind a "Slutwalk" –which sounds too close to "Hoe Stroll" for my taste—when you are not a stake-holder. I have a daughter. I am a stakeholder, and this shit is real to me. It’s my every-day, my every-week. And it’s hard.

Now, surely this is just a joke. We, the women who find his assessment offensive, are not "stakeholders" because we do not have daughters? Your opinion of girls only counts if you are a father of a girl? Honestly, despite all the hateful stuff spewed above, this is the part I find most offensive. To suggest that the most important stakeholder in this case is the MALE relation of the girl is so absolutely mind-numbingly foolish that I can almost not even continue.

How are we, women who lived the very experience of growing up female, not stakeholders in the development of the next generation of young women?

Look, I get it. It's hard raising kids. I can appreciate that it is no easy task because all too often I could tell that my parents had no idea what they were doing. Additionally, I work in girl services. While I do not know the first hand experience of parenting, I do work with dozens of moms and dads raising girls who are the same age as Amber Cole.  I know that parents of both genders are always looking for resources to help them navigate raising daughters. But how dare he say that it's easy for childfree feminists to participate in SlutWalk because we are not "stakeholders" in the girl world. In the discussion of female sexuality, no perspective is more important than women's. (Never mind the fact that Izrael has totally missed the point behind SlutWalk.)

All around, I am deeply disappointed at Izrael's reaction to Amber Cole's story. I feel like he brought up a couple of really great things that the feminist blogosphere could have read, discussed, and learned from, but he put together a highly offensive anti-woman rant. As HeliosHyperion said, "How am I suppose to take him seriously, respect his opinion whether or not I agree with it, when he so obviously hates women?"

And selfishlessly, I'm disappointed that my Friday morning "Tell Me More" segments will come with a little more spite and a little less respect, on my part.

Cookies for Racism, Hooray!

Have you heard about anti-Affirmative Action bake sales? Yeah, they're a thing.

The most recent one, which went down today at UC Berkeley was hosted by the College Republicans. According to their Facebook page,

The Berkeley College Republicans firmly believe measuring any admit's merit based on race is intrinsically racist. Our bake sale will be at the same time and location of a phone bank which will be making calls to urge Gov. Brown to sign the bill. The purpose of the event is to offer another view to this policy of considering race in university admissions. The pricing structure of the baked goods is meant to be satirical, while urging students to think more critically about the implications of this policy.

(However, the original event details read a little differently...) You ever notice how the ones who are actually pretty racist are the first to play the race card? (See: Mr. Hear No Evil.)

Basically, the bake sale hopes to make the point that Affirmative Action is wrong by charging racial/ethnic minorities and women less for exactly the same baked goods. So very clever.

I won't lie--Affirmative Action is, no doubt, a tricky issue. I remember writing many a paper on it during my stint as a Poli Sci undergrad in the race politics classes I took. While I have lost my reasoned, academic thoughts on the topic, I can still figure out why these bake sales are as stupid as they are overdone. Simply put, the analogy just doesn't hold up. I mean, Affirmative Action doesn't get minority students into college, no questions asked. As famously quoted in the Houston Chronicle these bake sales:

...reinforce the common misconception that affirmative action policies give academically unqualified minority students a get-into-college free card, and they ignore historical discrimination that denied nonwhites opportunities to be successful at any price, no matter their talents or intelligence.

In actuality, justly applied Affirmative Action looks at similarly ranked students (along traditional academic standards) and seeks to create a diverse student body. It acknowledges the well proven obstacle of racism often faced by minority students. It also includes measures of diversity beyond race, such as geographic representation and socio-economic status. It takes race as one consideration and thus strives for true diversity. (And almost anyone who has gone from a non-diverse setting to a diverse one can tell you what a resource diversity is in the classroom.)

Affirmative Action is not the same as racial quotas, which mindlessly require certain numbers be met. So in this way, the bake sale really doesn't make sense as it is much more a critique of a quota system. For example, an academic admissions quota situation might require 15% of the student population to be black, so the school would just admit the students necessary to fulfill this quota without paying attention their individual attributes. In bake sale land this translates to all black people receiving a standard discount on the cookies.

If the bake sale analogy commonly used was to actually make sense, it would utilize some kind of fair-pricing/sliding scale fee by looking at each individual customer as a whole. For example, a very poor customer might only be charged 10 cents. However, if the bake sales were to take this method, their message wouldn't be so controversial. Therefore, time after time this silly attempt to vilify Affirmative Action policies is utilized.

What always boggles my mind about the fear mongering surrounding Affirmative Action is the myth of the highly qualified white male who gets a shit deal (let's call him Rick, for simplicity's sake.) In this myth, Rick is this amazing scholar and young man, who somehow gets left behind because some under-qualified minority (and probably female) student took his place. He is a hard-worker and now he's left to, I don't know, attend community college or something. His life's ruined. Oh how unfair!

Except I've never met Rick. No really--have you? For every highly qualified and hard working Rick there seems to be a place for him to learn and grow and turn out just fine. Affirmative Action's been around a while. If this myth was true there should be some Ricks out there, yes?

Now I have actually met plenty of sorta racist underachieving blame-it-all-on-someone-else white males (let's call them Bob.) Bob is that guy who will say that a minority or woman got a promotion or opportunity over him and claim reverse discrimination, but then not actually be able to back up in any substantial way how he was more qualified than the other person. Interesting. Maybe I just know the wrong people--or maybe Affirmative Action is often used as a scapegoat. It's sort of like, once it exists, it's an easy thing to blame you own shortcomings on. You're not the one who's insufficient--no, that other person just had Affirmative Action on their side!

At any rate, all I know is that of all the things a student group could come together and protest (like rising tuition or racism) Affirmative Action should be super low on the list.

Book Review: The Other Wes Moore

"The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his." Wes Moore

So I've decided that every now and then I might post a book review. Deal.

This weekend, I finished reading Wes Moore's The Other Wes Moore. I first heard about this book on NPR, around it's release as it was getting a fair amount of media coverage. I was instantly drawn in. Here's the brief "pull you in" paragraph from the book's website:

One name: Two Fates. Two kids with the same name, living in the same decaying city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison for felony murder. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.

That paragraph really sums up the book's premise, which was what drew me in. The Wes Moore who authors the book discovers there's another Wes Moore from his childhood neighborhood who ends up serving a life sentence for murder. So he writes to him. Much to his surprise, the other Wes Moore writes back and they form a preliminary relationship which allows the author to be granted access to the other Wes Moore's story through his own words and interviews with his friends and family.

The similarities are striking. They both were born into the same city in low income families. Both struggle in school initially. Both of their fathers were missing from the picture. However, the differences that emerge are where the story is told. The Wes Moore who grows up to be the author was raised by a single mother because his father passed away due to a misdiagnosis. The other Wes Moore's father was not a part of his son's life by choice. The author's mother was a college graduate, prioritized education, and fought to find her son opportunities when she saw that he was struggling to find the right path. The other Wes Moore's mother never wanted her sons to end up involved in drugs and robbery, but is unable to meaningfully intervene.

The book is a fascinating, quick read that takes us through the journey of what it means to be an African American young man growing up in an urban area in the 80's and 90's. We see what it means as crack invades neighborhoods and participating in the drug trade becomes one of the few main ways to make money--and lots of it. We see how school systems fail the boys. The other Wes Moore skirts under the radar only to ultimately drop out, despite his intelligence; which we later learn about when he briefly "goes straight" to enter a job corps program and excels. (However, he abandons his new life as he is left making wages far too low to support his family.) Our author, on the other hand, whose mother placed him in private school, felt stuck between two words; his rich classmates and the kids in the neighborhood, never fitting in either (until he finds his place in military school.) We learn how the idea of hyper masculinity directly impacts the other Wes Moore's fate. We see, painfully clearly that the dominant idea of being a man is never backing down. If someone strikes you in the face, you raise them with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

The book ends leaving you with mixed feelings of sadness and hope, for as the teaser description explains, there are two fates in the story. But one can't help but wonder if these fates are evenly distributed amongst young African American men. The statistics support the sobering reality that many more turn out like the other Wes Moore than the author. Time and time again in the story, we see how the systems in play worked against the other Wes Moore. No teacher championed him. No mentor showed him another life. And even when he worked to better himself, proudly completing his GED and job corps training, he was thrust into a world which compensated his trade well below what he was making on the streets.

The author himself claims that he is lucky. Not only did he have a mother who wouldn't accept anything less than excellence from her son, but he also encountered many positive male mentors who showed him what his life could be and opened many doors for him. I can't help agree with the description that the book is the "journey of a generation." Never before have black man accomplished so much. But how many more turn out like the other Wes Moore?

All in all, The Other Wes Moore is a wonderful nonfiction read, which I would recommend to anyone who has interest in issues of social justice, education, urban policy, masculinity, or African American studies. I would love to read the book a second time and further analyze how gender dynamics play out differently amongst the two Wes Moores' lives.

Don't you DARE call me racist!

I went to a diversity training today. It was actually pretty great. People opened up. People shared. People cried. People connected. All in all a productive day.

I did, however, see something very interesting. Recently, I read a blog (I think at Feministing? Too lazy to track down right now...) that discussed how it seems that in the popular media lately, it is almost worst to call someone on their racism than to actually SAY the racist statement.

Let me better explain what I mean. The problem is that people think that you either ARE or AREN'T racist, and if you "aren't racist" then when you say something racist, you should get SUPER offended because being racist is horrible and you "aren't a racist." Instead, the reality is that we all have biases and "non racist" people can and DO say racist things. But instead of examining THE racist thing said or done, people just get hyper defensive and scream I'M NOT RACIST and the marginalized person who pointed out the racism is suddenly villainized.

I have no idea if I'm making the point well...but I hope you're sticking with me.

The basic idea is that it's SOOO horrible to call someone's words/actions racist, that we pay more attention to that than to the racist action/statement.

Ok....so anyway, one of the things we did was examine our biases about other groups. After we discussed our biases about each group, people from that group were able to share their reactions. For example, we talked about how Latinos are viewed as lazy, or Black people as loud. In each case, the people from the "in group" shared varied reactions from offended to unaffected, because they hear it so much anyway. But when these marginalized people were examining their biases about white people, they said that white people often judge people by race.

To clarify, the point of this activity was to speak in sweeping generalizations about other groups; to "get it all out there."

So now white people were able to give their reactions. And that's when I saw the most impassioned reaction, where a white woman vehmently proclaimed how hard it is to have it be assumed that you make assumptions about race.

...wait, what?

So it's awful to have people suppose you are racist because you are white...OK...but isn't it a little more important to examine the experiences of marginalized people in this context? If that's the worst thing people are saying about your culture, well then I think you'll be all right.

But that's just my opinion, I guess.