Stay tuned

UPDATE: Useful article: February 4, 2008, No Quarter: Krugman: If Obama Is President, There’s No Chance for Universal Health Care

PUMAs were right that Obama is corrupt, misogynist, homophobic, inexperienced, unqualified, conservative and totalitarian. He’s up to 190 alarming, unprogressive acts in 191 days.

I was also right people should talk about sexism in communities of color. People are starting to talk about it even though 90% of rape occurred between people of the same race and economic class for the last 24 years or as long as I complained people do not talk about sexism I communities of color.

I am right about two more things. One is REALLY, REALLY big and the other is REALLY big. The truth is starting to come out about both. The truth always comes out, doesn’t it? Misogyny is why people are ignorant about both and other peoples’ misogyny and ignorance are not my fault.

Stay tuned.

Summer must reads

There’s always great stuff to read in the PUMAsphere even though it’s summer. Check out my blogroll for the best reality-based news and commentary.

Nicholas Kristof thinks American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were set-up, ironically, by a trafficker or guide to be used as pawns in the US-NK nuclear standoff. This is really appalling and is probably what happened. Follow on Twitter @LiberateLaura and the blog Liberate Laura & Euna Now.

The details of the arrests remain unclear; they have “confessed,” but that is meaningless — who wouldn’t in such circumstances? There have been some suggestions that they wandered accidentally across the border, but that’s not easy to do. I’ve reported three times in that same area along the Tumen, interviewing North Koreans on the Chinese side of the border, and it’s always clear where the border is. That said, people often do cross over deliberately, just inside the border, and there are usually no consequences at all.

Another possibility, which I incline to, is that Ling and Lee may have been sold to North Korea by a local guide. If the guide said that it was safe to cross, or that they were still on Chinese territory, they would have believed him. Moreover, by some accounts they were working on a story about human trafficking — there’s a good deal of trafficking of North Korean women and girls into China, into prostitution and to be wives of peasants — and the traffickers could well have tricked them in exchange for a reward from North Korea. A couple of years ago, I set up an interview with a trafficker in that border area, but then backed out when he demanded money; the traffickers may realize that the people to demand money from aren’t the journalists but the North Korean officials. And at a time of crisis, when it is undergoing a leadership transition and a confrontation with the West, North Korea would probably pay well for a few extra bargaining chips in the form of American journalists.

The Confluence: Could “reform” possibly look worse than what we’ve got?

Party. Unity. My. Ass.

I plan on enjoying every single moment of this. I am not a mean person, a vindictive person, or even a person who needs to be right all the time. But this is just too good to not watch!

So will I. But gotta admit, I AM a vindictive person. I’m also looking forward 3.5 years of Obot-bashing.

alright, i might be a tad vindictive! LOL

New Hampster: “I don’t mind politicians being liars and hypocrites as much as I mind them thinking that we are too stupid to know they’re liars and hypocrites.”

Today, on NPR, Secretary Sebelius said that single payer is not only ‘off the table’ but that the President is considering measures to make sure it does not happen now or ever. Hope and change. He has the White House, House and Senate. There’s no excuse not to push through progressive legislation. It’s all Obama’s fault. Not Republicans, Blue Dogs, Congress, Bush or 11-dimensional chess.

Obama to Extend Benefits to Federal Workers’ Partners but this does not include health benefits. It would take an act of Congress to include health benefits. This guy is incredible. Last night, Bill Maher said if he doesn’t give us health care and other progressive policies, Democrats will lose the House in 2010. I read in Details that Plouffe is making OFA as massive as the election campaign website. He can’t afford health insurance, partners’ health benefits or DOMA because all that money goes towards his re-election. The people get nothing but O.

The Slate ladies have a number of opinions about Sandra Tsing Loh’s Atlantic article against marriage but it’s clear from the article she’s divorcing because she’s overworked, under appreciated by her husband and is essentially a single working mother five months out of the year (her musician husband is away five months out of the year). One cited her children as the problem, another cited books that glamorize marriage and domestic life as the problem. The double bind is the problem and feminism the solution. She shouldn’t diss marriage but look at structural causes and solutions. Tsing Loh tends to take the contrarian view in her writing and is oblivious to structural causes or she misappropriates them to make a contrarian point. The Slate ladies seem pretty annoyed too.

Rebellious Jezebel Blogging is hosting the third Asian Women Blog Carnival entitled, Intersections between Culture and Sexism, and asks a few interesting questions. Cf. this Confluence post.

Ted Rall, Common Dreams: An Early Call for Obama’s Resignation: With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators? Obama and Failbots’ misogyny and race-baiting lost the election. This is a repeat of the propaganda war against the Second Wave in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2008, women ran for President and VP and this threatened the status quo so the MSM and netroots used misogyny and race-baited these women and their supporters. Replace “black men” with Obama and Failbots and “black women” with PUMAs in the following three paragraphs written by Violet:

Feminism has always striven to be inclusive. You can read the minutes of the New York radicals in 1968, the conversations white women were having with black women. Black women were very drawn to feminism, but they were in the midst of a civil rights struggle, too, and they felt like they needed to stay with that. Which of course they did; the civil rights movement was a great uprising of a people. Unlike feminism, which is immensely more complicated because it requires us to interrogate the fundamental structures of our own families.

At any rate, while black women were in sympathy with feminism, black MEN were not. The civil rights movement was notoriously patriarchal and sexist. Some of the first feminists I knew were black women who were in essence refugees from that movement, having learned to their heartbreak that black men had no interest in elevating women. Black men considered feminism a threat — both to their own patriarchal hegemony, and to their civil rights mythos of The Struggle of the Black Man. They accused white feminists of being racists who were trying to brainwash black women into hating their men. They accused black feminists of being race traitors.

It was ugly and mean and wrong, but you know what? Those fuckers won the propaganda war. Those assholes wrote the history books. And now young people actually believe that the Civil Rights movement was all sweetness and light and equality for all, while Second Wave feminists were white racists.

More here, here, here and here. I recommend cutting, pasting and highlighting these three paragraphs and reading these five links so we can win the propaganda war against the Failbots. In the 1960s and 1970s, black patriarchs were threatened by feminism so they called white feminists racist and black feminists race traitors. Propaganda focused on white feminists’ racism not on the misogyny and race-baiting of black patriarchs. In 2008, the black and white patriarchy was threatened by women running for the Presidency and VP and also turned to misogyny and race-baiting. After the 2008 election, I believe Violet when she says Second Wavers were not racist (intersectionality came into play later in the 1980s) because I found no element of PUMA racist like Third Wave and netroots racism. PUMA is very similar to the Second Wave. The Second Wave was made up of leftist and conservative women reacting to sexist, white, male anti-war activists in the 1960s. PUMA is leftist and conservative women reacting to sexist, white, male so-called progressives in 2008. As we know, the Second Wave was the most successful feminist wave in terms of raising consciousness about sexism.

The most racist PEOPLE I ever encountered in my life let alone feminists were white Third Wave commenters on the LJ group, feminist, and the blogs Pandagon and Feministe before intersectionality became cool. There was one racist commenter named MsJane at Feministing where I hung out but it was better than the other two blogs. Netroots commenters were just as racist but I spent less time there. There was never anything in PUMA like the sheer contempt, hatred and racism behind the comments in the Third Wave and netroots. There was never anything like this in PUMA. This is not to be confused with the justified anger and reaction of PUMAs to the abuse from Obama, the DNC, the MSM and Failbots. Similar to how black women must have felt in the CRM. Yes, just a couple years ago, racism was cool in the Third Wave and netroots. This was when POC couldn’t get a word in edgewise about racism in comment sections. Of course, now the Third Wave and netroots overcompensated and gave us Bush III. So, really, the netroots is both extremely racist and sexist and PUMAs are 100% innocent. Just like black women in the CRM.

For a theoretical framework of the race trumps gender, “bros before hos,” misogynist, race-baiting mentality that lost the election, I recommend Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice as the problem and Michele Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Elaine Brown’s A Taste of Power and Angela Davis’ autobiography, which combine feminism and anti-racism, as the solution. Cleaver was a prominent leader of the Black Panther Party. If you read Wallace and Brown’s accounts, you will see the black patriarchs were 100% at fault and black women were 100% innocent. Like the last paragraph of the quote says, propaganda made the CRM sweetness and light and white women racists. Similarly, Failbots are 100% guilty of misogyny and race-baiting and PUMAs are 100% innocent but their propaganda is the exact opposite. Obama and male and female Failbots of all colors morphed into Eldridge Cleavers and Daniel Patrick Moynihans who came up with the matriarchy myth to blame black women for black men and women’s problems. Male and female Failbots of all colors are Eldridge Cleavers and Daniel Patrick Moynihans who oppress women while calling them racists and traitors. Women Failbots who deny Obama was sexist or that there was sexism in 2008 and 2009 morphed into black and white patriarchs so call them black and white patriarchs, Eldridge Cleavers, Daniel Patrick Moynihans and oppressors whenever they do that and read those five links. I have little patience for sexist men but even less for women gender sellouts. I’m really tired of this Axelrovian propaganda straight out of the 1970s.

The double standard from Obama, the DNC, the MSM and Failbots in 2008 and 2009 is the main way in which Obama and the left were sexist. The double standard continues unabated today because Obama and Failbots would not treat PUMAs this way if we were mostly men instead of women. If we were mostly men, Obama, the DNC, the MSM and Failbots would have addressed our concerns from the beginning. PUMAs are the abused black women in the Black Panther Party. Makes sense. Pumas are panthers and vice versa. Spread this meme and we will win the propaganda war against the Failbots because if you say “black,” get the faux anti-racist guilt up and they recognize the accuracy of the parallel, they will apologize.

Howard Zinn, The Progressive: Obama has to be pulled in the right direction. The poor people’s historian knows what’s going on. Where have they been hiding him? This is transcribed from a February 2009 talk. Oh right, Zinn, with his extensive anti-racism background would have been a racist if they published it four months ago. Watch the Failbots try to throw the author of A People’s History of the United States and The Zinn Reader (there’s a must-read) under the bus. If they stop calling people racists, we might be able to save Social Security and single-payer.

Paul Street, ZMag: The Dawning Age of Obama as a Potentially Teach-able Moment for The Left

Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive: Behind Obama’s Beautiful Rhetoric

LA Times: Muslims not sure President Obama’s speech means real change

Noam Chomsky: Chomsky on Obama Speech

Keeping just to Israel-Palestine — there was nothing substantive about anything else — Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to ‘point fingers’ at each other or to ’see this conflict only from one side or the other.’ There is, however, a third side, that of the United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change or even be considered.

Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism.

Avedon:

The public option idea isn’t a way to move us to Medicare-for-All, it’s a way to keep the insurance leeches in business.

The 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus and 41-member Congressional Black Caucus both favor single-payer. That’s why Obama opposes it. He’s not progressive, liberal or a Democrat.

Stanley Fish: Yes I Can

SUGAR is on Twitter. Watch out.

The Confluence: Not so fast with the primaries, Atrios

The Confluence: We Told You So!

Another day, another broken promise:

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration. [...]

During last year’s campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. Meanwhile, the White House has said it won’t stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.

Well it’s good to know our red-blooded warriors won’t have to worry about catching teh gay from a toilet seat while they are keeping the world safe for democracy.

(Cue the Obots Failbots explaining that this is more “11-dimensional chess)

Here’s a tip from Arthur Silber:

Don’t try to keep a list of all of Obama’s broken “promises.” Instead, keep a list of the promises you think he made that he’s kept. In this manner, your work will be brief and undemanding.

At the moment, I can’t think of a single issue of importance that would appear on a list of promises Obama wanted us to believe he was making, and that he has kept. Not even one.

Nonetheless, he has kept one commitment, the overriding one that was obvious from the beginning but that he notably restrained himself from offering explicitly: that he would faithfully serve the interests of the ruling class, that he would increase their already massive power and wealth still more, and that he would entrench them and their particular interests so that they would become impervious to all serious challenge.

The Confluence: The Low Road 2008 and We Own Our Votes. myiq2xu is spot on.

Conflucians Say on the blogosphere.

The Confluence: Obama on “Women’s Rights” in His Speech in Cairo, Egypt. Really excellent.

The Confluence: Book Review: The Bloggers on the Bus. A great overview of the blogosphere in 2008.

Widdershins: We need some fun! Amazing tree-climbing Moroccan goats.

Widdershins: I Won’t Dance; Don’t Ask Me. A must-read.

PUMA United Radio on the day democracy officially died and building our movement. People on the left are starting to understand where we’re coming from.

The Left Coaster: Bloggers on the Bus: A Conversation with Eric Boehlert – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. You can tell from comment sections the left is no longer into Obama and merely repeats Obama’s inspiring 2012 slogan: “At least he’s not McCain.” They went from, “Yes, we can!” “Hope! Change! Progress!” and “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!” to “At least he’s not McCain” in four months.

The bottom line to me is simple. The progressive movement in the United States might be very effective in fighting Republicans and electing Democrats to office but it is nowhere near being able to drive a truly progressive agenda in some key areas. The main reason for this is that many of the key players in this movement are not really leaders. It remains to be seen how that changes in the coming years.

The real leaders are on my blogroll. We were right about everything regarding Obama, the election and the blogosphere but no one listened to us because we are mostly women.

The Left Coaster: The State of the Progressive Movement.

At the FDL book salon with Boehlert, Dakinikat and myiq2xu asked the best questions and got the best answers. The left is starting to understand where we’re coming from.

From a June 4 Feministing post called “What Are Civil Rights Leaders Saying About the Murder of Dr. Tiller?” emphasis mine.

While abortion is rarely seen as a civil rights issue, the dismantling of Roe v. Wade would have dire consequences for African-American women. [...]

While organizations such as Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI), Black Women for Reproductive Justice (BWRJ) and the Third Wave Foundation are in the foreground of the fight for reproductive justice as a social justice, racially progressive mainstream organizations, such as the NAACP, have yet to incorporate black women’s “right to choose” as a fundamental part of their civil rights agendas.

Go read the rest. This is a really powerful argument for why many black leaders should take a stance on reproductive rights because of the unique implications for black women. At a certain point we have to stop being scared and hold our community leaders accountable for the things they are saying and the impact that has on our communities. The agenda for women’s rights and the agenda for civil rights has to overlap at a certain point. That said, I don’t necessarily think of the NAACP as the center of progressive anti-racist activism, similar to how I don’t really see many mainstream feminist groups as having a truly intersectional approach. But this is one way they both could move towards the direction of justice, as opposed to a solely identity politics based approach, playing to the common denominator.

Like the Cairo speech, there is too much fear of offending men of color. Sexism is still acceptable, racism is not. Intolerance should not be tolerated. I wrote 93 posts about feminism in communities of color but because WOC are viewed as a monolith, an issue is only important when it affects black women.

What’s wrong with the Third Wave Part 13

Double X as a whole seems to reflect an increasing trend in online women’s and feminist media – and frankly, it is making me tired. Tired of the manufactured feminist “cat-fighting,” tired of the hating, tired of the notion that the only way to write about feminism is to smugly (and incorrectly) point out where it is failing. I am all for an accountable feminism and constructive criticism; I think it’s necessary in order to make our work as writers and activists better. But the never-ending bullshit masquerading as good faith critique is simply exhausting. And we can do better. –Jessica Valenti, May 13, 2009

This quote agrees with half of my 12-part series on how feminism is misogynist. The other half of the series is that feminism only holds white men accountable for sexism.

My take on intersectionality hasn’t changed since 2006 or 1992 when I became a feminist. I just object to the recent misogyny and apologism in feminism. (How many times did I say, “I’m FOR intersectionality but against misogyny and apologism in feminism?” Obots and Third Wavers have reading comprehension problems not to mention simple comprehension problems.) In fact, I expanded my take on intersectionality to include womanism, black women’s role in Christianity and black men. My fear was that everyone/I would have to talk about Christianity and that we would also have to talk about white men, Asian men, Latino men and Muslim men.

The New Agenda is one blog and group that should remain dedicated to opposing patriarchy of men, women and of all races. It’s very important because it covers stuff no one else is covering. It’s taken seriously because it succeeds where the Third Wave failed. Another thing that’s wrong with the Third Wave that I’ve written about is it does not tolerate dissent. The Third Wave silences voices of dissent. For example, it goes insane if there’s one blog that opposes sexism in Islam, one blog that opposes patriarchy or one blog that opposes sexism in communities of color.

So refreshing and true

I’m sure class is much much more important in terms of cultural differences than country of origin, although there are deeper cultural mindsets that persist whatever class one belongs to. For instance, a Pakistani male is likely to be a sexist – if he’s educated and relatively civilized, he might not grope you on the street, but he will still have disturbing attitudes about women.

Of course I do realize that most liberals will find my attitude toward immigration of brown men to western nations shockingly racist and/or bigoted. They can call me a genderist and a culturist if they wish, because it isn’t so much that these people are brown, but that they are male and belong to cultures that consider women to be sub-human and they don’t check their attitudes at the door when they move here. Europe’s experience with more open immigration laws has not been positive and this is fact. It is also unfortunately a fact that cultures aren’t equal and Muslim cultures mostly suck for women. I don’t want what I lost everything to leave following me to my new home, which yes, is culturally superior to my country of origin.

For women, these are gender and class issues, not race issues.

My life was made difficult by desi immigrants in every place I visited. The street harassment and hostility were constant. In the US, the desi immigrants, by and large, tend to be professionals, middle class, educated, and well-integrated. In Europe, there are far more desi immigrants from the lower classes, who do manual labor and own small businesses and so forth. They are not integrated in the sense of adopting the local cultural attitudes towards women, although they generally leave white women alone unless they feel they can get away with it. With a woman they could spot as “one of their own” (me), it was different. It felt like being back in Pakistan, frankly – not a pleasant experience. In all my time since leaving that blighted land, I have not been groped in public, and in Amsterdam, I had my breast accidentally-on-purpose touched by a fatherly Sikh shopkeeper in a turban. I could not walk down the street without being accosted frequently and rudely. And I was not allowed to maintain my identity as an American unquestioned – they wanted to know exactly what my origin was, so they could file me neatly away as, after all, a desi, not a true westerner they need be respectful of.

Again, for women, these are gender and class issues, not race issues.

Sorry to hear about the sexual harassment. I know what you mean by being treated badly by “your own people.” I moved from a brown third-world country to a white first-world country and I stay the hell away from my fellow countrymen (yes, I do mean men specifically). They love to complain about the racism they receive in this country while at the same time belittling my complaints about their sexists attitudes. The best example I have was when one of them said he’d love to fuck white women to prove his superiority over them. When I called him out and suggested he read some feminist writing, he told me he didn’t need it because he had his religion to guide him through life (I’ll give you three guesses what it was).

I do know what you mean about liberals criticizing your attitude towards brown men, I’ve seen a certain blog post calling you out specifically for it. I’m convinced that these women who insist that brown men’s issues are feminist issues simply have no idea how some of these brown men think of brown women, and I’m not convinced that helping these brown men will magically result in brown women attaining better standards of living. Which is not to say that racism isn’t a problem. It is. But you don’t help women by putting men’s issues first.

This commenter must be following American politics and feminism.

The Swedes and Finns and Norwegians I met were almost prudish, and definitely very low-key as far as sex was concerned. Sexual equality rates very well in Scandinavia and I especially like the women – the patriarchal conditioning that wars against what I call sisterhood is not there.

American men are more manly than any European men. Effortlessly so. And American women are less bitchy and more sisterly than any European women except the Germans. In fact, we have a lot in common with the Germans, including looks. I did feel suddenly invisible when I got back home though, because the way American men check women out is far more subtle and unobtrusive than the blatant, caressing way in which I’ve been ogled in Europe for two months. I got so used to feeling above all like a sexy nymph that I almost forgot I was a person. That came back in a rush when I returned. I had to pay close attention to reassure myself that American men were still checking me out, just not like European men did. And sex is much less in the air here than in Catholic Europe. I can feel the puritan / Protestant influence – male-female relations are scrubbed clean for public consumption. Still, Americans are not sexually uptight and repressed like the Brits. I can’t imagine being in any kind of serious relationship with a non-American man. And I don’t trust European women like I trust American women.

Yay for American women and feminism! This reminds me of Violet’s post:

Violence against women occurs in virtually every society, but the rate and severity of the abuse vary enormously across cultures. Anthropologists and social scientists have been studying this stuff for decades. The percentage of battered women ranges from, say, 18% in Norway (to take one example from a 1999 global survey) to 80% in Pakistan (or even higher, depending on the study.) Violence against women is not a universal absolute that floats independent of culture: it is very much tied up with social norms and expectations, with religious beliefs, and with levels of male dominance. Many scholars have documented a particularly strong correlation between an ideology of male supremacy and actual rates of domestic violence (one example on my bookshelf: Peggy Reeves Sanday’s Female Power and Male Dominance, 1981.)

But the Kim Gandy approach, apparently, is to ignore this. We’re supposed to talk about “the repression of women” without ever getting too specific about where it’s happening or why or how. We’re not supposed to inquire into social codes or religious beliefs; we’re not supposed to notice that many Christian communities turn a blind eye to domestic violence, or that many Muslims believe husbands have a religiously-sanctioned right to beat their wives. Better to just issue vague platitudes and gloss over any possibility that there may be more or less misogyny in any given cultural tradition. That way you won’t offend anybody.

Why does this tick me off so much? Well, first of all, because it’s dishonest. Few things exasperate me more than propaganda, and I have no patience at all with polite fictions that conceal the ugliness of so many patriarchal religions and customs. But hiding the truth is also actively harmful. If you want to fix something, you have to understand what it is and how it works.

The solution, in all cases, is to confront the situation with unflinching honesty. Drag the truth into the light, name it, shame it, challenge it, harp on it, and demand that the mullahs or the imams or the preachers or the priests haul their sorry selves into the 21st century and change.

And of course my post, Internalized sexism at least a hundred times more prevalent in women of color than internalized racism.

Comment of the year

Pleasegos:

I’m sorry, but as a WOC that statement makes me want to beat my head against the wall and lay down in the street. That’s why I became a feminist in the first place. That’s why there IS feminism in the first place. I don’t feel like I’m any less likely to be killed or arrested (or harassed, sexually and otherwise) by cops than my male cousins. I’m way the hell more likely to be beaten or raped than my male cousins. The only difference, to me, is that if it happens to me, nobody will talk about i, nobody will march about it, nobody will care. At best, I’ll get a little blurb nobody will read on What About Our Daughters? while the mainstream, big feminist blogs will pick out a well known, already wildely decried story about a MOC and say that that’s a feminst issue because that man had a mother who loved him. To me, that statement is the problem, not something that needs to be enshrined in feminism. I’m TIREDof not mattering.

In the Asian community, only Asian men matter. The Asian community betrays Asian women.

I have just gotten FED UP over the course of this campaign. If this is womanism, it doesn’t sound too great to me. And it shouldn’t be what feminism is all abut, it sounds like why I wnated to be one in teh first place. I f certain WOC have other priorities and want to put women way down on the priority list of social justice issues, that’s fine. But asking feminists to do that is not fine. I understand that when feminists say “women,” they’re too often thinking of just white women. But asking them to play the role of alyways putting their sons first is not the answer.

This sums up the 2008 election.

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 12

If you’re an Asian-American woman who identifies as a feminist online, you’re going to end up being called a sell-out whore at some point.

I used to try to argue with this, but I got tired of being accused of having hysterical and having “hissy fits” and so on. It’s tragic and maddening.

All of this does, however, make me REALLY appreciate the Asian-American men online who DON’T act like this. Kai at Zuky, the guys at Poplicks.com, C.N. Le, Angry Asian Man, Jeff Yang… these are just some men I read that prove you don’t have to bash or silence Asian-American women in order to advance the progress of Asian-American men.

Why haven’t you or your co-bloggers at either blog written about this? I’d narrow it down to Kai, Oliver and Phil who have not shown an animus towards women. Is it any wonder they’re the only three I interacted with in the last three years (two via email)? There’s some serious racism here: Asian men reinforce their own racist stereotype and the Asian community doesn’t say anything about it.

Anti-racists would tell them to stop reinforcing their own racist stereotype.

See Aishah Simmons quote here and what What About Our Daughters said this week:

You can’t call yourself a “civil rights” organization and promote the denial of basic human rights to half the population.

Who’s racist? Asian men and the Asian community.

Who’s anti-racist? Asian feminists.

le short vert

from the Hear Us Roar WOC blog carnival:

And though Black Americans have faced, are facing, and will face [even with President Obama] issues that have, for centuries, torn at our cultural fabric, issues not many have cared to understand, additional tearing should be expected – it’s time for Black America to deal with the male privilege and homophobia within our own borders. it is beyond preposterous to declare that racism [and its children, self-loathing, self-sabotage and double consciousness] have stained the entirety of our cultural tapestry [from how we look to our cultural food to how our last names aren’t even our own] while expecting to emerge unscathed from sexism and other gender-based institutions. these issues aren’t addressed and to assert that we are a people beyond the reach of other jaded ideologies is to create the very scales upon our own eyes that we loathe in others.

Aishah Simmons from my link eight posts down:

So it was just this way of kind of saying, who is the fucking traitor here? ‘Cause you know, to quote my dad (Michael Simmons), the traitor is to have a rapist in our community and not warn anyone. Why aren’t Black men who rape Black women traitors to the race? You know, why is it that Black women who come forward are traitors to the race? I had people say, “How you gonna lynch another brother with that documentary? How you gonna talk about these issues when Black men are doing so bad?” And my response is, “Does that give them the right to rape me or any Black woman because they’re doing bad? Why not bring an end to white and male supremacy?”

Me, December 6, 2007:

There’s no conflict between fighting racism and fighting sexism in communities of color. In fact, they reinforce each other.

Aishah Simmons

Elle via Shakesville linked this incredible Aishah Simmons interview:

The Myth of Black Women’s Progress

which can be applied to all WOC in the US.

New Black Man

I’m posting this because it applies to all POC not just blacks:

A Black Male Feminist’s Guide to Anti-Misogynist Black Politics (AKA: Why We Can’t Support Chris Brown) by Frank Leon Roberts

Misogynist Myth 1:
“Chris Brown is a good kid. Something must have really pushed him over the edge. He does not deserve to be dragged through the mud like this. Black men are always being represented as extra-sexist, which isn’t fair. Overall Chris Brown is great role model for black men. ”

Whenever we dare to critique black male sexism or misogyny, we are immediately told that such critiques are “wrong” because they run the risk of representing black men in a “negative” light. The time has come to move beyond these sort of Clarence Thomas politics. When black men—regardless of their class, sexual orientation, or profession—-abuse a woman, it is intolerable, unacceptable, and must be aggressively denounced. Period.

We know this story all too well. When Clarence did it, it was “Anita’s fault.” When O.J. did it, it was “white people’s fault.” When R. Kelly “did it” it was those “jealous hoes’ fault.”

When will be allowed to denounce black male misogyny without fear of losing our Blackness membership card?

Misogynist Myth 2:
Rihanna must have “Provoked” It. She “asked” for it.

Sometimes I wonder how black people would respond if white people suddenly started offering “justifications” for our antebellum, slave ass-whippings. I can just imagine it now, “Well Kunte actually deserved that bloody lash because I told his sneaky ass to stop stepping out of line in the cotton field!”

I’m being dangerously facetious here, but my point should be well taken. There is no such thing as a “justification” for an act of sexist violence. In the moment that a man’s hands come down upon a woman’s body, they are immediately rooted (even if inadvertently) to a longer history of sexism and misogyny; to a history which has systematically preconditioned us to believe that physical violence is both a sane and natural way to put a woman “in her place.”

If we are to move beyond the cults of sexism and misogyny that run rampant in many black romantic relationships, then we must free ourselves from the egregiously problematic notion that casual male violence against women is ever “justified.” Particularly when it involves a 6’2, 180 pound man against a 5’8, 120 pound (a size “2”) woman.

Misogynist Myth #3:
Well, both of them were in the wrong. Why are we focusing exclusively on Chris Brown’s wrong-doing? Clearly this man needs help. Should’nt we be trying to support Chris Brown and make sure that he gets the help that he needs?

Any politics of social justice that does not begin with a concern, first and foremost for those MOST disadvantaged (i.e. the BATTERED rather than the BATTERER; the ABUSED rather than the ABUSER; the VICTIM of Violence rather than simply the Perpetrator of it) is misguided, and surely doomed for failure. I continue to believe in the utility of a “bottom’s up” approach to social justice.

Therefore, we should refuse to let our “concern” for Chris Brown’s “needs” silence our outrage, disgust, and/or disapproval of his misogyny.

Can I get a womanist, feminist Amen? A Witness?

Kim Gandy defends patriarchy

Violet Socks:

Violence against women occurs in virtually every society, but the rate and severity of the abuse vary enormously across cultures. Anthropologists and social scientists have been studying this stuff for decades. The percentage of battered women ranges from, say, 18% in Norway (to take one example from a 1999 global survey) to 80% in Pakistan (or even higher, depending on the study.) Violence against women is not a universal absolute that floats independent of culture: it is very much tied up with social norms and expectations, with religious beliefs, and with levels of male dominance. Many scholars have documented a particularly strong correlation between an ideology of male supremacy and actual rates of domestic violence (one example on my bookshelf: Peggy Reeves Sanday’s Female Power and Male Dominance, 1981.)

But the Kim Gandy approach, apparently, is to ignore this. We’re supposed to talk about “the repression of women” without ever getting too specific about where it’s happening or why or how. We’re not supposed to inquire into social codes or religious beliefs; we’re not supposed to notice that many Christian communities turn a blind eye to domestic violence, or that many Muslims believe husbands have a religiously-sanctioned right to beat their wives. Better to just issue vague platitudes and gloss over any possibility that there may be more or less misogyny in any given cultural tradition. That way you won’t offend anybody.

Why does this tick me off so much? Well, first of all, because it’s dishonest. Few things exasperate me more than propaganda, and I have no patience at all with polite fictions that conceal the ugliness of so many patriarchal religions and customs. But hiding the truth is also actively harmful. If you want to fix something, you have to understand what it is and how it works.

The solution with either religion is not to nervously change the subject, or launch into a litany of all-the-other-religions-that-are-also-sexist-so-it’s-unfair-to-mention-religion-at-all, or confuse the issue by pretending that criticism of a cultural tradition is synonymous with prejudicial hatred of the people who belong to that tradition (and notice how Kim accuses critics of attacking the Muslim community, which is exactly what Christian fundamentalists do when they accuse their critics of having some unreasoning prejudice against Christians). The solution, in all cases, is to confront the situation with unflinching honesty. Drag the truth into the light, name it, shame it, challenge it, harp on it, and demand that the mullahs or the imams or the preachers or the priests haul their sorry selves into the 21st century and change.

As for the Hassan tragedy, which breaks my heart every time I think about it, the only tiny shred of good news is that many American Muslims are much smarter (or more honest) about the situation than Kim Gandy. They recognize quite well that there are specific social and religious codes that help to perpetuate a culture of violence, and the case has moved many of them to speak out:

This is a horrible tragedy, but it gives us a window,” said Abdul-Ghafur, editor of the anthology “Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak.” “The next time a woman comes to her imam and says, ‘He hit me,’ the reply might not be, ‘Be patient, sister, is there something you did, sister? Is there something you can do?’ The chances are greater the imam will say, ‘This is unacceptable.’

And a Muslim woman writes in the Globe and Mail:

Muslim denial over the abysmal status of women is deeper even than the one over the use of Islam to justify radical violence. Centuries of male-dominated and misogynistic interpretations of Islam are strangling us. We’re told on the one hand that God says men can beat us and yet, when we complain and demand our God-given right to a divorce, we’re told that’s a man’s prerogative.

That is precisely the kind of understanding that is sacrificed when you sign up for Kim Gandy-style “no need to bring religion into it” anesthetic.

The second quote reminds me of my post:

November 17, 2007: Internalized sexism of women of color at least a hundred times more prevalent than internalized racism

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 11

“The method of the murder also supports that view; she was beheaded.”

Do we know that’s what actually killed her, though? The stories I’ve seen have said she was decapitated, not that she was killed by means of decapitation. It would hardly be the first time a murderer strangled or battered someone to death and then decapitated/dismembered the corpse in preparation for dumping the body. Just because you find the body in pieces doesn’t mean the victim was hacked to death.

Toronto Star:

Under Islamic law, crimes such as apostasy (leaving Islam), adultery, theft or drinking alcohol are punishable by beheading, stoning, amputation of limbs or flogging, the book says.

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 10

Violet:

It comes from the fact that the winners write the history, especially the winners of the propaganda war.

Feminism has been the most slandered of political movements, and none more so than the Second Wave. The Third Wave of feminism is really not so much a wave as the patriarchal backlash: it’s feminism as defined by anti-feminists. Virtually every propaganda lie against Second Wave feminism has been taken on board by Third Wavers as the truth, because they believe the patriarchy instead of the actual feminists. It’s the Larry Flynt/Eldridge Cleaver version of feminism.

The men who ran the civil rights movement were bitterly opposed to feminism, and claimed that it was either a plot by white women to fragment the black community by turning black women against their men, or, at best, just another example of white imperialism. The truth is that feminism in the 70s was far and away the most progressive and inclusive enclave in American politics in every respect, while the civil rights movement was grossly sexist (not to mention homophobic). But the civil rights leaders won the propaganda war.

Feminism became intersectional but in order for feminism to be anti-racist it is necessarily apologist and sexist. This took the teeth out of feminism as we saw during the election cycle. The best would have been for feminism to keep its teeth and fight racism at the same time. Something I always advocate. Neither feminism nor anti-racism should lose its teeth.

A better question is: would any other movement replace itself by another and have its teeth taken out? No, only women fell for it. Would the GLBT movement be replaced by anti-racism and lose its teeth? Would anti-racism be replaced by feminism and lose its teeth? No, only women did that. Patriarchy won in the Third Wave of feminism/Larry Flynt/Eldridge Cleaver feminism.

Similarly:

Every issue gets its own movement: gay rights, racism, anti-war, poverty, prison reform, environmentalism — except women’s rights. Women can’t have a movement just devoted to women’s rights. No, in order to be intellectually credible to the patriarchy they have to focus on cleaning up all the OTHER messes. Then, after the men have eaten and left the table, maybe the women will get to sit down. After they’ve done the dishes of course.

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 9

Shane: I think what you said earlier about how the civil rights movement has been canonised and feminism is often treated as a joke has a lot to do with it. Its interesting and sad how two liberation movements get treated so differently by consensus opinion, as if struggling against racial prejudice is noble and profound while struggling against sexual prejudice is just selfish.

Its like they can’t talk about second-wave feminism and what good it did/does without being sure to point out that oh yeah, it helped some women, but it was highly flawed because it was RACIST. Maybe being a third-wave feminist really means always having to say you’re sorry.

Violet: Second Wave feminism included women of all ethnicities and races. White women in the movement were explicitly and noticeably less racist than white society as a whole. There was a constant effort to respect and understand and unite women across all ethnic groups.

On the other hand, the Civil Rights movement was overwhelmingly sexist. And it looked upon Women’s Liberation as a threat to their narrative of The Black Man’s Struggle, a threat to the racial narrative. If women across races joined together, that undermined their narrative of people of color (both genders) joining together to resist white people (of both genders). Black patriarchs defined women’s liberation as racist because it undermined black “solidarity” (really black patriarchy).

Patriarchy, of course, won the PR game and so the patriarchal Civil Rights movement is enshrined as glorious and Women’s Lib is derided as “racist.”

Third Wave feminism is, in this as in so many respects, the product of the backlash. It’s what feminism would be if patriarchs could design it (which they did).

octogalore: Well said. And the need, in the context of the 08 election, to demonstrate ones deprioritization of feminism is clearly evinced in most third wave “feminist” sites.

carmonn: One thing that gets on my nerves is the need to make everything into a feminist issue, as if feminism is a catch all for all social justice issues.

Violet: And of course what’s really going on there is the patriarchal brainwashing that women’s rights don’t deserve to be an issue on their own, and “good” women should instead be concerned about other issues (ones that involve men).

So every issue gets its own movement: gay rights, racism, anti-war, poverty, prison reform, environmentalism — except women’s rights. Women can’t have a movement just devoted to women’s rights. No, in order to be intellectually credible to the patriarchy they have to focus on cleaning up all the OTHER messes.

Then, after the men have eaten and left the table, maybe the women will get to sit down. After they’ve done the dishes of course.

Keri: I’ll note, that during Black History Month you’d hardly know from what they teach and show in the media that black women ever did anything beside be married to black men and be mothers of black men. They might give token notice to Rosa Parks, Madame CJ Walker, and Harriet Tubman, but that’s basically a few minutes out of a whole month, the rest of the times it’s all about men.

Violet: Men who were sexists. Reading AnnaBelle’s post, I sure am glad I don’t have kids in school because I would be furious over that shit. I didn’t realize the hagiography had become so extreme, but I’m not surprised.

Let’s see: MLK, for all his heroism, was nonetheless a sexist who explicitly opposed women’s rights. This “saint” believed that one half of the human race was fundamentally inferior to the other half. Malcolm X appears to have outright hated women, and the Nation of Islam is his legacy. Eldridge Cleaver thought rape was an appropriate tool of war against white women.

When that shit is covered up and the Women’s Lib movement, of all things, is slandered as “racist,” you know the propaganda is thick.

Most of the black women in the women’s movement that I knew in the 70s were actually refugees from the civil rights movement, or rather from the black male patriarchy that ran the civil rights movement. Christ, the stories. It is a goddamn insult to them and to all women to continue the propaganda that the civil rights movement was pure and beautiful and women’s lib — women’s lib! — was racist. In the early 70s, the women’s movement was probably the most enlightened, unracist enclave in all of American society.

The civil rights movement was hugely important and it did what it did; thank god for it. It was utterly and profoundly necessary. But the truth is that it was deeply marred by sexism, and women’s liberation was needed as much in the black community as in the white. Women’s lib was Mark 2, the second phase of human liberation, and the movement I knew drew women from all races and backgrounds. But women united across the usual barriers is a huge threat to patriarchs of every hue. Hence the propaganda.

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 8

It’s racist.

Meanwhile all these women around me think they are safe, and are so afraid of being racist and offending men of color that they abandon women of color and girls of color to torture and murder. THAT is the real racism.

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 7

Patricia Hill Collins introduced the concept of intersectionality which means simultaneous oppressions. Any major theorist will tell you it occurs in every community. Someone said intersectionality was only about race.

Tell it to Apostate:

Let me repeat that one more time just so everyone gets it. I am afraid my parents will kill me to cleanse their honor.

Then tell it to these women.

Anti-racism must be intersectional. The lack of intersectionality is killing women.

If you haven’t figured it out yet

I stopped being interested in the anti-racism movement a year or more ago though I’ll always be anti-racist on my own. Like I said many times, it’s hypocritical because it demands feminists be anti-racist but puts zero effort into demanding men of color be feminist. It also spends full time making excuses for men of color. I’m not preventing you from writing about anti-racism and you’ll find plenty of support from the mainstream media, the white progressive blogosphere, the white feminist blogosphere including Feministing, Feministe, Pandagon and Shakesville which are Third Wave and anti-racist (though Shakesville is also Second and Fourth Wave) and the people of color blogosphere. Anti-racism just reminds me of misogyny as it did not speak out on the egregious sexism against Hillary Clinton and her supporters and I conflate anti-racism with the Third Wave, the Obama Movement and postcolonial feminism. The main motivation of all four movements is the hatred of women and they all make me physically ill.

This blog is about feminism, PUMA, the Fourth Wave and Asian American feminism as defined by the Combahee River Collective Statement and Gary Okihiro’s Margins and Mainstreams which fights extra- and intra-community racism and sexism equally. The mainstream media, white progressive bloggers, white feminist bloggers and people of color bloggers already have racism and racist sexism covered so I don’t have to do it on my blog.

Poll: More than half of Clinton backers still not sold on Obama

USAToday:

Fewer than half of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters in the presidential primaries say they definitely will vote for Barack Obama in November, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, evidence of a formidable challenge facing Democrats as their national convention opens here today.

In the survey, taken Thursday through Saturday, 47% of Clinton supporters say they are solidly behind Obama, and 23% say they support him but may change their minds before the election.

Thirty percent say they will vote for Republican John McCain, someone else or no one at all.

The DNC, Obama and his supporters should start reading my class and intersectionality tags. Just sayin’.

Intolerance should not be tolerated

More interesting stuff here. I’m sure you’ve noticed I really set my bombs so to speak in comments.

I only cracked open Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s books a couple months ago because honestly I heard she was a scary radical. She’s not radical at all. All she ever said was intolerance should not be tolerated. Really. That’s all she ever said. If you look at The Caged Virgin she said intolerance should not be tolerated, that we should have a critical look at ourselves and to use clear thinking. She had to go into hiding for saying these things yet Malcolm X and MLK were lionized and worshiped for saying the same things. This is more of the race trumps gender theme. Men can say things. Women can’t. Thankfully she’s won a number of awards. People may hate me for saying the same thing. 90% of the sexism I’ve criticized online have been of white men — look at me yelling at a different white man every day in feminist blog comment archives for example — but people only notice me criticizing men of color because few people do it out of the fear of appearing racist. They should. Intolerance should not be tolerated.

What’s wrong with anti-racism Part 5

Third wavers are ignorant about feminism and would rather cut feminists down. CNN says 1/3 of Clinton voters will not vote for Obama in the fall up from 22%. When have I ever been wrong about anything with regards to politics or gender? Similarly to how Obama will win if he appeals to the working class and women, Asian issues are correlated to class and gender and a helpful paper is Japanese Women’s Diaspora: An Interview by Karen Kelsey in the journal Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context which became part of the 2001 Duke University Press book Women on the Verge: Gender, Race, and the Erotics of the International in Japan. Third wavers are too lazy to figure things out themselves.

Heard on the internet

We both agree that there’s a tendency in the community to kneejerk respond to pointing out instances of sexist or homophobic behaviour as instant villification — whether the person is simply calling you an “asshole” or putting forth constructive criticism.

It seems to come part and parcel with pointing out internalized oppression — whether you offer a solution or not, it is interpreted and discarded as villification. To me, this is a problem with the way the community perceives mainstream/marginalized oppression issues, and not the messenger.

And that doesn’t even get at the fundamentally problematic argument that basically says “if only we were nicer when we pointed out the homophobia and sexism in the community, the community would listen.” Although I hate taking this tactic, I think it is most appropriate here: imagine if we the mainstream were to tell communities of colour, “if only you told us more nicely about our racism, and couched it in a way that didn’t make us feel bad about ourselves, we would stop being so racist…”

The pragmatics of the argument are obvious, but it misses the basic human element: oppression is ugly and it hurts. And it’s unfair to tell the victim to “suck it up” and “play nice” in order to force the change and equality that they deserve.

It’s a poor analogy for two reasons: Obviously there’s a huge difference between someone from the mainstream white community telling people to suck it up. I’m not telling anyone to “suck it up”. If you want to kickbox sexist people in the head, I’m all for it. What’s I’m saying is that we are in the exact same battle and I’m just interested in winning. You have every right to respond however you want and every justification. But even though I’d like to slap the people running our segregated school system or racist media in the face and gloat about it, I want to win more.

Well, it’s like white feminists who say there’s a sisterhood who want to beat the patriarchy. Meanwhile, nonwhite women fight racism of white feminists and sexism at the same time.