feminist blogs

Lost in the whole Shirley Sherrod debacle was the impetus for Breitbart’s smear — the NAACP’s decision to call out the teabaggers for their unwillingness to disavow racism. The Sharrod smear was a desperate attempt to prove members of the NAACP were the real racists, that the tea party was free of racism, despite the strong evidence that Mark Williams had presented to the contrary.

Well, in further proof that the tea party is free of racism, let me introduce you to Tea Party Comix,whose imagery really speaks for itself.

Yes, the image of a horrible caricature of a black judge (meant to be Obama, natch) threatening Batman with a trial before a jury of twelve “angry black commies” is pretty much racism defined — so much so that the Tea Party’s response to the comics was to declare that they just had to be a liberal plot, because, uh…look over there!

Well, it turns out that the artist behind Tea Party Comix has come forward. He’s a real member of the tea party movement. He really hates Obama. And he admits he’s a racist.

Kidding! Well, not about the tea party and the hating Obama:

The creator of the now-infamous “Tea Party Comix” has spoken. The response, sent to Comics With Problems’ Ethan Persoff last week, ends speculation by some that the black-and-white comics featuring a racist caricature of President Obama might be a liberal parody gone wrong (or just misunderstood). In the rambling email sent early Thursday morning, the unnamed creator of the comics (the name was withheld by Persoff) suggests that they were created out of anger at Obama, but — according to the creator — not out of any intention to make a racial statement.

“I do not understand the connection with ‘big ears’ and ‘racism’, and I do not understand how a ‘dark face’ implies racism,” the creator of the comics wrote to Persoff. “The accusation of ‘Hate’ is true, but it is the hate of an IDEOLGY [sic], not a of race of people….. I understand that the ideology has captured 80 or 90% of the race(s) in question, but it is STILL a AN IDEOLOGY and NOT a “race” that this comic book attacks.”

You know, I think I liked the racists better when they’d just admit to being racist. I mean, at least then you could argue against them. But nobody’s racist anymore. Whether they’re running a Klan-themed bar that suggests Obama’s plan for health care is to “N—-r rig it,” or making an image of Obama as a witch doctor, or suggesting that “coloreds” want slavery to be reestablished, the racists are never, never racist anymore. They believe that all people are equal. It’s just that black people happen to be savage, lazy, dice-throwing, jive-dancing, welfare-cheating scum. But they don’t hate black people. No no no! Indeed, it’s you who are the real racists for suggesting such a thing.

The problem is that the racism is getting more and more overt, to the point where it’s not so much a dog whistle as a foghorn. An organization with decency would recognize this obvious fact, would strongly disavow racism, would work against it. The tea party will not. But don’t call them racist. You’re the racist, for thinking that that racists are racist.

This New Zealand ad for Xenical has convinced me. I’m much, much better off being fat than being skinny.

Description below¹

Incidentally, I can tie my own shoes. And while the woman at the end of the ad says she can’t — unless she has a disability other than being fat, she can, too.

(Via Jezebel)

1. For the YouTube impaired, a thin woman wanders through a landscape of Felliniesque horrors — trench warfare, bleeding knives, walking around naked in the winter — talking about how she’d like to live life unafraid, but — surprise — she’s a fat woman who’d just like to tie her own shoes.

For all our nation’s many faults, there is one thing that our country got inarguably right, and that is freedom of religion. From the founding of the republic, religious tests for office have been banned, religious freedoms supported. The right to worship as one pleases, free from government coercion, is one of the cornerstone liberties of our nation, one equal to the freedom to speak and write as one pleases. By allowing all Americans to seek out God (or not) in the manner of their choosing, the Constitution has recognized that the freedom to profess one’s faith is, at its heart, one of the most important freedoms one can exercise.

A couple blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood, a Muslim organization wants to build a community center, which will include a mosque. This is not particularly noteworthy; America is full of churches and synagogues and temples and mosques, places for people of all different faiths to worship as they see fit. Mosques may be less common than churches, but they are places for the faithful to meet and seek God; America has always been a land where that is encouraged and supported.

But of course, those who destroyed the World Trade Center said they were acting in the name of Islam. And because some people are unable to separate the religion of terrorists with their religion in general, the idea that a mosque could be built within walking distance of the World Trade Center has been twisted into something it is not — a provocation.

The latest to advance this canard is former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who, tweeting in her typically malaprop-laden way, demanded that “peaceful Muslims” should “refudiate” the mosque, as if the mosque was not already being built by peaceful Muslims.

Whatever refudiate is supposed to mean, I hope that Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists, Unitarians, agnostics, Hindus, and all Americans of good conscience reject Palin’s demand, and call it what it is: religious bigotry.

Some humans have twisted Islam to support killing. This is nothing new. Judaism, Christianity, and atheism alike have been twisted in support of violence, repression, and evil. But just the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing has not forced a moratorium on Christian churches in Atlanta, neither should the 9/11 attacks, however horrific, force a moratorium on mosques.

America by its very nature is supportive of people gathering where they choose, to worship or talk together as they wish, without government interference. A community center and mosque somewhat near Ground Zero is, in its own way, a very American thing. It is a place where people can express their own ideas, their own dreams, their own vision of God. It is, let me state, a vision I disagree with — I do not agree with most tenets of mainstream Islam. But that is neither here nor there. The freedom of Muslims to gather and worship is my freedom as a Unitarian to gather and worship, and your freedom as a Christian or Jew or Hindu or Buddhist to gather and worship — or your freedom as an atheist not to.

When political leaders start arguing that it is somehow wrong for Americans to gather together and worship as they choose, we lose something of that freedom. Thankfully, the people of New York City — the people who actually endured the most serious attacks in 2001 — seem to understand this far better than Sarah Palin, who was thousands of miles away at the time. And thankfully, my fellow Americans, who happen to be Muslim, will be able to worship as they see fit. As they well should.

This diatribe is useful the next time someone explains how the last half-season of Show X was so implausible:

So Doctor Who is not a complete loss. But then there are some shows that go completely beyond the pale of enjoyability, until they become nothing more than overwritten collections of tropes impossible to watch without groaning.

I think the worst offender here is the History Channel and all their programs on the so-called “World War II”.

Let’s start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn’t look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn’t get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

I wouldn’t even mind the lack of originality if they weren’t so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we’re supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren’t that evil. And that’s not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese.

Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he’s not only Prime Minister, he’s not only a brilliant military commander, he’s not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he’s also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he’s supposed to be the hero, but it’s not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.

Really, go read the whole thing. Now.

(Via LG&M)

Convicted child rapist and fugitive from justice Roman Polanski was freed this morning by a Swiss court, on the grounds that the American request for extradition might not have been sentenced to more than 90 days in jail, and that he really didn’t think he’d be arrested despite, you know, being a fugitive:

In rejecting the extradition request from the United States, the Swiss ministry cited two factors: first, the Swiss said, the U.S. had failed to provide the records of a January hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court that would have shown the judge in charge of the Polanski case in 1977 agreed that “the 42 days of detention spent by Roman Polanski in the psychiatric unit of a Californian prison represented the whole term of imprisonment he was condemned to.”

Second, the Swiss said, when Mr. Polanski traveled in September 2009 to the Zurich Film Festival where he was arrested as he arrived at the airport, he did so in “good faith” that “the journey would not entail any legal disadvantages for him.” The Swiss justice ministry noted that Mr. Polanski had been staying regularly in Switzerland since 2006, and though “he was registered in the Swiss registry of wanted persons, he was never controlled by the Swiss authorities.”

Well, that’s nice. I’m going to use that should I ever be arrested on an outstanding warrant. “Judge,” I’m going to say, “when I went to the mall, it was on good faith that I wouldn’t be arrested for my outstanding warrant for punching a mime. I mean, I wasn’t arrested yesterday. So that means that the warrant doesn’t count. So there.”

Obviously, this is a defeat for those of us who view child rapists as people who deserve punishment, and a defeat for the rule of law. It’s also a defeat for Roman Polanski’s legacy, though Polanski today is, I’m sure, ready to invite Bernard-Henri Lévy over to his posh Paris home for a big freedom party. This was Polanski’s last, best chance to get this over with, to pay his debt to society, to eliminate the “fugitive” part of “convicted fugitive child rapist.” He could have brought some closure to his victim, and maybe, just maybe, allowed the wound to heal. Instead, Polanski has guaranteed that when he dies, he will be remembered as much for assaulting a child as for his film legacy.

Polanski will always be remembered as a child rapist who, I assume, will die in exile. That’s his choice. It’s just too bad that the Swiss courts had to agree.

I never knew that the way to get rich in America was to become a waiter. I mean, sure,  I suspected; waiters are always driving those sweet ‘99 Hyundais, rolling with fat stacks of Washingtons, and spending holidays at their vacation homes in their regular homes. But still, it’s nice of Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, to come along to alert the rest of us to the dread scourge of waiters earning a living wage.

For those who live outside my home state, Emmer, the presumptive GOP nominee for governor, has suggested that Minnesota should join those states that allow businesses to pay their servers $2.13 an hour if said servers make tips. Right now, Minnesota restaurants have to pay servers $5.25 if they’re a small employer, or $6.15 an hour if they’re a big one.

Now, you may note that $6.15 an hour isn’t that much. And you may realize that if you’re a typical Perkins server on a slow night, you may only be bringing in another three or four dollars per hour in additional tips. Indeed, if you live here on planet Earth, you’re probably not surprised to find out that, far from being the richest of the rich, the median server earns $9.36 an hour — about $19,000 a year. Of course, Emmer claims that waiters actually average $15.43 an hour, which is a bit better — $31,000 a year.

But Emmer is proposing a wage cut for waiters and bartenders equivalent to $8361.60 a year. Even using Emmer’s inflated statistics, that’s cutting a $31,000 a year salary to $22,638.40 — a 37 percentLike a pay cut for people barely making a living wage. Using real statistics, the pay cut is even steeper — cutting wages 79 percent, from $19,000 a year to $10,638.40.

Why Emmer would want to cut someone’s wages by 79 percent — to literally drop servers below the poverty line — is simple. Servers aren’t rich. Restaurateurs aren’t all rich either, of course. But they’re a lot more likely to be rich than their employees. And Emmer cares very much about making the rich richer. If he has to do so by making the poor poorer, well, that’s a feature, not a bug.

Tom Emmer doesn’t mind snatching away basic protections from the working poor — from people working hard, five days a week, doing what they’re supposed to do. Indeed, he revels in it. Like far too many of his fellow Republicans, Tom Emmer doesn’t care if you work hard. He only cares if you make a lot of money. If you don’t — no matter how hard you work — screw you.

Al Gore has done a lot of good during his long career in public service. His work on global warming, for example, has been exemplary. His work as Clinton’s vice president to streamline government and make it run more efficiently was outstanding. And it’s hard to argue that America would not have been better off with President Gore than President Bush Jr.

And so it’s tempting, when allegations are raised that Gore sexually assaulted a masseuse in 2006, to dismiss them. To argue that they’re clearly politically motivated. To assume the best, not the worst, of a politician who one has agreed with over the years.

This is a temptation that must be resisted.

I do not know whether Gore committed sexual assault in a Portland, Oregon hotel room three years ago. Indeed, only two people do: Gore himself, and the complainant. But as Hanna Rosin notes, the woman’s very detailed statement rings true. And Emily Bazelon cites the complainant’s own words explaining why she didn’t immediately seek out the authorities:

I did not immediately call the police as I deeply fear being made into a public spectacle and my work reputation being destroyed. I was not sure what to tell them and was concerned my story would not be believed since there was no DNA evidence from a completed act for rape. I did not even know what to call what happened to me. I did not know if the police would even want to take a report on this.

That seems completely rational; how would you react if you were the victim of a difficult-to-prove criminal case against Dick Cheney, or Dan Quayle, or Fritz Mondale? Probably by realizing that a rich former vice president would have enough power not just to avoid prosecution, but to make your life a living nightmare.

This does not mean Gore is guilty, either legally or morally. It is possible that this has been fabricated, that Gore is the completely innocent victim of someone with a vivid imagination. It’s possible.

But having read the complaint, I have to say that my gut tells me that it’s more likely Gore is guilty of sexual assault than not guilty. He may not be convicted. Indeed, he likely won’t be charged. But my gut tells me that Al Gore did something illegal and immoral in a Portland hotel room in 2006, and that is something that should not be taken lightly, and should not be minimized.

Humans are rarely all evil or all good. Al Gore’s actions in Portland in 2006 don’t eliminate the good he’s done on global warming. But the good he’s done on global warming doesn’t eliminate his actions in Portland in 2006. I will never look at Al Gore the same way again. And if his actions lead to civil or criminal penalties against him, he has nobody to blame but himself.

So there’s an ad campaign out there that’s been slowly driving me…well, I’d say it’s driving me to drink, but actually, it’s doing quite the opposite. I guess it’s driving me to sobriety.

The ad campaign is in support of Miller Lite, and its message is simple. If you drink the wrong light beer, you may as well be a woman, and that’s bad. Especially as far as women are concerned.

See? If you’re drinking Bud Light, you’re just a skirt-wearing pansy. And who’s going to call you out for being less than a man? That’s right, the hot female bartender. Because people who wear skirts suck.

And don’t even get me started on back tattoos:

Or — God forbid — carry-alls:

You see? If you drink the wrong kind of beer, you’re just a weak, pathetic woman. And you know who hates women? Women.

Over at Manvertised, Peter Alilunas gets to the heart of the message these ads are conveying:

There is clearly a belief within marketing firms such as Draftfcb that the most efficient way to sell products to men is through a three-step process: 1) Aggressively gender-differentiate them; 2) Pounce on that constructed differentiation and make it an unforgivable cultural transgression to deny or ignore the code of “appropriate” masculinity offered by the product; 3) Create an aura of “safety” around the correct use of the product that will deliver the consumer from the anxiety.

Yet there’s a fourth element, too, which might be the most calculating and effective in the long-term Manvertising strategy: retain the tension by illustrating that it can never quite disappear. Note how the “punchline” of both commercials in the new campaign both end with the protagonist still somewhat unable to escape his gendered mistake. To me, this narrative move perfectly encapsulates how this genre is able to stay salient. Much as the immense body of scholarship on gender has shown, the “appropriate” masculinity is an unattainable mythology. It does not exist, and cannot, and any effort to obtain it will only result in the exposure of its slippery impossibility.

The brilliance of the genre is in the way it plays on this phenomenon, always locating “appropriate” masculinity just out of reach — always putting the protagonist’s friends in the role of anxious jesters, mocking the protagonist even after he has succumbed to conformity. We could easily shift the narrative lens to any of them (just as we could in any Manvertising commercial) and discover, immediately, the impossibility of their quest, too.

This is central to the ad campaign, as it sets up and preys on concerns about masculinity, and demands an extreme, impossible level of gender conformity — but at least it holds out hope that if you just order the right beer, you can get closer to “right.”

But I think it’s worth noting the other message of these ads, and that is simply that women suck. Wearing a skirt, carrying a purse, having a back tattoo — these are things women do, and therefore, by definition, they are lesser things than what men do.

And that’s what drives me crazy about these ads. As usual for ads that promote gender conformity, they don’t just offend one gender or the other; they offend both, obscenely.

Hey, Sun, do you still stand by this analysis?

All right, to be fair, the Three Lions are tied for second in Group C with the USA. Like the Yanks, England has drawn both their matches. But the two sides have to feel very different tonight. Team USA came back from two goals down to tie Slovenia, the group leader, and by rights should be leading the group tonight — they scored a third goal that was nullified on a phantom foul.  England, meanwhile, played to a sloppy 0-0 tie with Algeria, who had lost to Slovenia 0-1 in the opener.

So to advance to the knockout round, America has to win over the consensus worst team in the group, while England has to beat a squad that’s shown some life. What’s more, Team USA has to feel good about the way they played in the second half today, while England, which came into the tourney ranked eighth in the world, has to be wondering what’s happened since the fifth minute in game one.

Ultimately, the US is in great shape to make it to the sudden death round, and once there, to maybe steal a game or two, make it to the quarters or — who knows — maybe the semis. That was their hope in the first place, anything more is gravy. England was a team that had the idea of winning the cup — and right now, you have to see them as no more than even money to get out of their pool.

All can be made right if England wins next week. But if they find a way to fail to get out of their group while the Yanks do? Expect a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth to come from London — and a great deal of Schadenfreude from Cardiff, Belfast, and Edinburgh — not to mention Washington, Algiers, and Ljubljana.