More on female circumcision.

And yeah, I know that that very title is angering lots of Western feminists. Here's why I'm using it today.

Yesterday, I had a long conversation with a Somali woman I work with. She told me that she is opposed to circumcising girls (her words) and that she gets very angry when Westerners talk about what are a number of different practices (from a token cut, in a hospital with anesthetic, that does not remove or harm the clitoris but rather a bit of skin in order to satisfy the parents, to full on excision and infibulation without anesthetic in some rural communities) as if they were all the same. She feels that the language Westerners use about this practice is very insulting to women. And she feels that these two tendencies hurt, rather than help, African women's efforts to end the practice.

Further, she told me, among Somali people, the practice has dropped from over 80% to about 30%. The reason will surprise you: it's because, she said, during the war, Somali people turned to Islam. And while some people claim that there is a verse in the Koran that prescribes this practice of cutting daughters, she tells me that when she contacted religious leaders, they said there was no such verse.

I thought this was an interesting counterpoint to much of what we in the West hear about the practice - and about Islam.

The Seal Scandal.

For those who have no idea what I was talking about when I briefly mentioned Seal in the previous post, here's the deal (see this first). And, since Seal Press has since decided to erase the whole thing from their blog, here is their post (without the comments, which I can't get to, 'cause they deleted the post) - you do not get to write this kind of stuff and then pretend it never happened!):

Thursday, April 3, 2008
Seal and women of color

I feel compelled to go public here since there has been a lot of important, though discouraging, conversation going on over at Blackamazon, and because of Angry Black Woman's comment to yesterday's post, which is off-topic there, but fits here.

Right now I am the sole acquiring editor at Seal. Krista is the publisher. The two of us are Seal editorial, and that's all we got. I wrote yesterday, in response to Anonymous's comment: "Seal's got nothing on WOC" that we want WOC. I get now that I misunderstood the comment, that I took it literally to mean we've got no books on WOC. Of course, it's not true. We have books, though mostly anthologies. Hijas Americanas, Voices of Resistance, and Shout Out are recent acquisitions that feature work for and about women of color. Seal is known for Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism. Regardless, I want to clarify and try to rectify this whole nasty thing that's happening over there because I didn't intend to offend so many people. I was writing off the cuff in response to the comment FUCK SEAL PRESS, which yes, I took personal offense to. The comments that follow the post are even harsher, and yet, what I really intended to say with my comment was this: Seal wants to publish women of color and issues that matter to women of color.

What I wrote in a later comment was that publishing is NOT AS MUCH ABOUT outreach AS IT IS about getting submissions from people who want to write for us. That doesn't mean I don't do outreach. I do and I have. But again, as the sole acquiring editor, there's only so much I can do. I have to rely on people who want to get published, and who approach me. Right now I am doing outreach in the form of specifically acquiring for the Seal Studies academic series we're launching, and I've been going about looking for women to write books on queer feminism, women of color and feminism, feminism and religion, and on and on and on. All this for books that we think matter, but which probably won't sell very many copies in the grand scope of things.

I'm writing here today because I don't want to be boycotted by people who took offense to my comments yesterday. Seal is actually barely surviving. This press, which has a thirty-year history of publishing books that no other house wanted to publish, means a lot to me and to Krista and to a lot of women. Seal has changed over the years because we've had to. We could not survive publishing only the types of books that Seal used to publish. There's been a constant push to be more commercial, and we've responded to that. When it's try or die, I opt for trying. I've been involved in the new direction the list has taken, and Seal is more mainstream than it's ever been. And for better or worse, this is what's allowed us to stay in existence. This doesn't mean that we don't care, or that we're not open to hearing where we're doing wrong, or where we could do better. And so even though I feel angry about the comments over at Blackamazon, and I admittedly posted somewhat defensively, the intention behind it was, "Hey, let's work together to get published more of what you want to see." It doesn't even mean that can or will happen. I have higher-ups to answer to, it's true. But it doesn't change the fact that Krista and I are not intentionally fostering a "wall of whiteness" here.

So the fact that my writing "We want WOC"---yes, it was crass and quick, but I meant "Seal wants to publish WOC"---resulted in such backlash says to me that yes, people were offended, and I do apologize for that. I want to open up this discussion and do so productively. I do want to cultivate WOC authors. I always have. If I haven't been successful or able it's not for a lack of trying or ignorance to the situation out there. Which is why I appreciate Angry Black Woman writing something that opens up a space to have a productive conversation.

Signing off,

Brooke

posted by Krista Lyons-Gould and Brooke Warner @ 12:05 PM Permalink 41 Comments

More
on
this.

More on what happens when you don't cite your sources.

My comment, edited a bit, at Hugo Schwyzer's:

I just don’t get it. I am an academic, a writer, and a blogger, and in all three of those pursuits, when I write about an idea that other people have also written about, I refer back to them. In blogging, it doesn’t take nearly as much as it takes in, say, academic writing. All you have to do is say, hey, people are talking about this, so-and-so over here wrote about it, these folks here are talking about it, and I want to add this to the conversation or build on this idea. Even journalists, who frequently do not cite sources as thoroughly as academic writers, do this. As X herself says, these are issues that people are writing about. So why the refusal to refer to her sources?

I think what happened is that she felt she didn’t have to cite her sources - quite a lot of people don’t cite their sources, and she’s hardly alone. But she got called on it, and it’s embarrassing. The classy thing to do would be simply to say, “yes, quite right, I neglected to cite these sources, here they are, here are links so that you can check out their good work, sorry about that.”

On a different note is what you are doing, Hugo. You’re suggesting that when a white feminist addresses issues of women of color, then, by golly, that’s all that matters. Further, your conflation of the Seal blow-up with this issue is simply inaccurate and fairly insulting. You are defending X’s professional integrity at the cost of BFP’s. You are essentially suggesting that women of color are only upset (and, FYI, contrary to your assumption, there are plenty of us white women who are upset on their behalfs, as well) because they’re not getting published. You’re making it about personal gain. You’re worried about professional reputations, and they’re worried about the social change they’re trying to effect, the change that is being stalled by white women twisting their words and denying their realities.

But you are right that there are some of the same dynamics operating in both of these instances, as well as in this very thread, which involve white folks tuning out people of color and not taking their work seriously enough to even think that perhaps, just maybe, it deserves to be acknowledged and given proper credit. Instead, the body of BFP’s work - which was really incredible - has been winnowed down to this one speech, as if she hadn’t been writing about these issues all this time, as if she hadn’t had a tremendous influence.

Update: Still more on this.

Snow blind.

Thanks to Stuff Daddy: Blinded by the White: Slavery - The Game! An excerpt:

...sometimes the eyes of Caucasia are so blinded to there own offensive actions that I can't believe in evolution. I know I'm going to get the moaning and the groaning and the "white anger." I always get that from my peeps.

I did when in high school, Dennis M***mitt told me he thought it would be really funny if he dressed up as an SS trooper for Halloween. Of course Dennis also told me his Dad lost his job to a Jew. I was amazed his father took the time to find out the religious and cultural background of the man who was replacing him.

As it turns out though, after Dennis regaled me with a good dose of his father's world philosophy, I had a good hunch that "the Jew" could do something Dennis' dad couldn't, process thoughts in logical order, understand cause and effect or perhaps read above a fourth grade level.

...

Here comes another great one for the list. It's a Facebook application called "Owned."

Here's the pitch: you buy , sell and possess other people, in a fun simulation of tongue and cheek slave commerce:"Own Your Friends! Give Human Gifts! Put yourself on the market and find out how much you're worth!"

...

...An inoffensive game sensation.
I wonder if white folks will invite their black friends to play?

I am reminded of the time one of my Black professors told me, incredulous, that a White student had asked her, during a class on Black people's lives under slavery, "why didn't all the Black people just leave?" And of the papers that some of my students have turned in that suggest that slavery wasn't really all that bad.

What is it about the idea of being owned that you do not get?!

...What I know of my mother's side of the family begins with my great-great-grandmother. Her name was Sophie and she lived in Tennessee. In 1850, she was about twelve years old. I know that she was purchased when she was eleven by a white lawyer named Austin Miller and was immediately impregnated by him. She gave birth to my great-grandmother Mary, who was taken away from her to be raised as a house servant.'... - Patricia J. Williams

If you're reading Pandagon...

...maybe you should read this.

UPDATE: Here are the specifics, if you really want to be blown away.

What I wish I'd thought of to say...

...to the bigot down the street, who asked pointedly about my (Black) downstairs neighbors, and mentioned that they were the first Black family on the street, and that they (the neighborhood, which apparently speaks through her) thought, upon learning that they now had Black neighbors, "hmmm...well, we figured we'd see how this goes":

Option 1:
"Well, I can imagine how they must have felt, moving into such a racist neighborhood."

Option 2:
"Really? So 'how does it go?' Because I've got to tell you, so far, First Black Family - 1, Asshole White Neighbor - 0."

Option 3:
"What on earth would make you think that that is an appropriate thing to even think, let alone say out loud?"

Option 4:
"Apparently you are under the mistaken impression that I am White."*



*I am White, but I'm borrowing from Noel Ignatiev's "Race Traitor" approach to resisting White privilege.

My chemical household.

When I was a kid, it was my job to help clean the house every week. As I got older, it became my job to clean the house on my own (it was a small house - not a biggie). One of the things my mother told me repeatedly was, "don't ever mix ammonia and bleach products - it will make chlorine gas, and that could kill you." So I was always really careful about the products I used, especially when cleaning the toilet, since it was in cleaning the toilet that such products could be mixed.

Until last week, when I found myself cleaning the toilet with ammonia and about to pour bleach into the bowl.

*********************************

We have ants in the bathroom. They are the small, reddish-brown variety, the ones I've always known as "sweet ants." I sent Mr. Plain(s)feminist out last night to buy poison, and I set it out for them, right next to the hole they were coming in from, and I sat there and watched the little buggers for a half hour, and they completely ignored it. You know how if you drop a popsicle or something on the ground, and there are no ants anywhere in sight, and then you turn around five minutes later and it's crawling with them? Yeah, that's not what happened here. They turned up their tiny ant antennae and very pointedly crawled underneath the little plastic square, just so they could rub my nose in the fact that they were totally uninterested in what I had to offer. So then I got some black pepper and sprinkled it around and in their little holes in the caulk, and at first I thought that that had made a difference, but when I went back later, they had moved it out of their way so they could keep running around. So finally, I mixed up some Borax and sugar water, and I dripped it all around and in their holes and where they were walking. Hah! I've got them now, those little fuckers.

"Feminism for Freaks" anthology seeking submissions.

Here's the call for abstracts:
At its best, feminism offers an emancipatory potential from gendered oppression, inequality, and violence. At its worst, however, feminism can work to simply affirm the rights of middle-class, heterosexual, white women, and exclude the voices of already-marginalised groups such as women of colour, trans* women, sex workers and so on. Like Derrida's democracy, a truly liberatory feminism is mostly a feminism to come.

Not un-coincidentally, those marginalised groups of women are often demonised by the dominant culture, rendered as monstrous, simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible, compelling and threatening, desirable and disgusting--and forever denied a voice of our own. The question of if and how monstrosity can be reclaimed or re-worked is a vexed one for feminists.

We therefore invite proposals that affirm the voices of socially excluded people, that seek to create new and exciting knowledge and address themselves to feminist theory and activism or the wider culture, on such topics including, but not limited to:
* Monstrous bodies and identities
* Social marginalisation and exclusions (for instance, borders, walls, and immigration laws, and the silencing of voices such as those of women of colour and transgendered people)
* Liberation/transformation/organisation
* sex work
* queer sexualities and genders
* BDSM
* Visible signs of difference (Muslim women wearing the veil, disabled bodies etc)
* religion and spirituality
* freaks in popular culture, body modification etc
* fat positivity

Academic, non-fiction and creative work will be considered--the call is broad, and we're willing to accommodate new and interesting work by freaks of all kinds.

Please submit abstracts of up to 250 words by May 31st to estrangedcognit...@hotmail.com and suzanman...@gmail.com

*Note - Given that some contributors may not feel safe or comfortable telling their stories in the public sphere, submissions under pseudonyms will be accepted.

The Election and Progressive Politics.

(This is cross-posted at Dakota Women.)

Readers:

This is a guest post by my good friend and fellow activist, Ricky Baldwin. Actually, I feel silly saying "fellow activist" when it comes to Ricky, who puts the "act" in activism, as in, this guy knows all about organizing and the hard work that is standing up for your principles. He certainly puts me to shame. He's done labor organizing, he's worked for pro-choice organizations in *Mississippi* (which is even more of an experience than doing it in South Dakota, I'll bet), he's protested unfair treatment of migrant workers and he's done work in the Peace Movement, just for starters. I asked him if he'd like to write something on the current political situation, and he has. He will also be stopping by to answer comments, if anyone wants to leave any.

Here he is (the bolding at the end is my doing, but the words are his):

In my opinion, thinking about the elections we sometimes forget to start with what we know. We don’t know who’s going to win or what they will do – or try to do when it comes down to it. We do have a pretty good idea what they won’t do. Suffice it to say, what they won’t do includes some of the most important things the American people want (not to mention the rest of the world so deeply affected by US policies).

In every poll I know of, for example, a majority of Americans – or at the very least a strong plurality – always prefer some kind of 'universal health care' system such as what we call 'single-payer' (more or less the Canadian or British system). But there are powerful interests that want just the opposite, so we will not get it any time soon no matter who wins in November. Of the three remaining possibilities Clinton probably comes closest to at least proposing something like what we want, but that's not really very close. Besides, she has been weighed in that balance already, when Bill was prez, and found wanting. By that I mean she championed a miserable charade of a healthcare plan, which became infamous even in the mainstream for its potential to enrich our vampiric health insurance companies. Maybe this is one reason that, among all the candidates, Hillary is the number one recipient of donations from the health insurance industry. Who knows? Anyway, it didn't fly despite her long-famous abilities as an aggressive negotiator (when she was a big-time corporate lawyer). Now it seems she has tamed her proposal considerably. Single-payer ain’t happenin.

Also, one of the leading bones of contention this year promises to be the so-called "war on terror" – especially the war in Iraq – for another example. Most Americans pretty clearly want us out of Iraq (at least) sometime around yesterday, whatever the pundits tell us we are supposed to think. In dozens of local referenda across the country voters, even Republicans who supported Bush and other hawks in previous elections, virtually always say they want withdrawal "as soon as possible" or "with all due haste" or words to that effect. Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership have been very clear since election nite/morning 06: that's off the table, right along with impeaching Bush or Cheney, right along with Hillary Clinton's earlier swagger about getting rid of the phenomenally anti-democratic idea of the Electoral College (she's been silent on that for some time now, I notice). On the war, Obama probably looks best, although he has been pretty clear from the beginning of his campaign that the sort of immediate withdrawal actually favored by the American people was not on his agenda. It's true that Obama was outspoken against the US invasion of Iraq from before it happened, while Clinton supported and voted for it (a vicious hawk for some time), and McCain thinks we should stay there 100 years – only without torturing prisoners. But Obama has voted along with the others to continue funding the war, and he's mostly followed the line that 'the invasion was a mistake, but now that we're there we can't just leave.' (How would he feel if someone broke into his house and started smashing up the place, killing and maiming, and his neighbors responded this way?)

Neither of the Dems will rule out the sort of Bush-style unilateral aggression that got so many Nazis hanged at Nuremburg. McCain, of course, is a cheerleader for that sort of thing. None of them will challenge Israel's brutal policy of apartheid against the Palestinian Arabs – certainly not to the point of cutting off military aid to this beligerent European colony – they've made that very clear.

Judging from our three remaining candidates' actions, we are also unlikely to see the reversals we might hope for on NAFTA, the USA PATRIOT Act (all 3 voted to reauthorize) or the heinous 'No Child Left Behind' attack on public education. Speaking of NAFTA, we do also have significant circumstantial evidence besides the candidates' own voting records and campaign promises. Clinton was of course part of the administration that presided over passage of that longtime GOP wet dream, NAFTA, not to mention "the end of welfare as we know it," and "don't ask, don't tell" soon thereafter responsible for more military discharges for homosexuality than the earlier prohibition. Bill also promised to end the first Bush Admin's illegal policy of returning political refugees to Haiti, which his admin actually accelerated once in office. In fact, besides gutting the US welfare system as I mentioned, we might paraphrase an important Native American leader: the Clinton campaign made a lot of promises, but they kept only one – they promised to bomb Iraq and they bombed it. Hillary, we now know, pushed that policy of bombing as well as the Admin's cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and the baby formula factory they blew up at the same time. Their Admin also specifically fought gay marriage as well as medical marijuana. Some liberals!

It's hardly surprising, given Hillary's background in one of the highest profile law firms in the country – now renamed Rose Law Firm – representing Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and the like. Obama, on the other hand, not only was a community organizer himself, but apparently as a bright young lawyer he turned down offers from more prestigious firms than Miner's to specialize in civil rights and social advocacy law, representing ACORN and the League of Women Voters and others (trouncing the Illinois governor and winning a 'Motor Voter' law), fighting red-lining (Citibank), and supporting whistleblowers and such. I claim it doesn't really matter if Clinton 'comes from money' and Obama doesn't, for example. Sen. Inouye (D-Hawaii), a Clinton supporter, who noted earlier this month that Obama attended an elite elementary school in an attempt to influence his state’s primary (Obama attended on a scholarship, while being raised by his single mom and grandmother) is beside the point, as is Rev. Wright's insight that Hillary Clinton is not black. What does matter is what, and what interests, the candidates represent. And on this score, their histories are telling.

McCain of course has an atrocious track record, no matter what Herr Limbaugh and Frau Coulter say. Maybe that's why Henry Kissinger is working for his campaign, not to mention a gaggle of war criminals and other miscreants including Lawrence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, George Schultz and Colin Powell. It's a group that shares a lot, including – in a just world – a seat in the dock at the Hague. But the world is not that just. Hillary has of course Bill, as well as their former partner in state terror Madeleine Albright, as well as Richard Holbrooke (ugh!) and Bush Jr's "surge" plan co-author John Keane. Obama has the evil Zbigniew Brzezinski in his corner, but fewer big-name sociopaths as far as I can tell. Obama is, however, favored by others in the nefarious Council on Foreign Relations, as a recent Z article points out, because he is supposed to have the best grasp of the "historical moment", a sort of Machiavellian term as I understand it that is not at all a good sign. Of course other CFR spindoctors support Hillary or McCain (e.g. all those I mentioned above). Not the candidate with the most CFR votes wins, but the three with the strongest CFR cheerleading are in fact now the only contenders left.

The Z article is actually refreshing in that it talks about the way in which ruling class interests, altho they don't strictly speaking choose the next prez, do narrow the field to the point that any candidate still standing when the music stops will serve their minority needs well enough. One way they do this is, not surprisingly, money. What may be surprising, tho, at least to many good liberals, is the particulars. Over 80 percent of all presidential campaign donations as of fall '07 went to six candidates: Clinton, Obama, Romney, Giuliani, McCain and Edwards (in that order). Almost 70 percent were over $1000 (i.e. not from you or me or probably anybody we know). The author goes into great detail, and it's fascinating, breaking out groups of big donors. "Big Capital" (finance, real estate, insurance) favors Clinton, then Giuliani, Romney and Obama. The big law firms favor Clinton, Edwards then Obama. Etc. Again, it's not that the one with the most 'high class' donations wins, but the proverbial 'playing field' is thereby tilted (and, as the author emphasizes, many potential candidates are eliminated).

So are they all the same? Not if you're one of the working class millions. None of them are great, but I'd argue that, overall, tho I'm not happy about our choices and want to emphasize that above all we must not confuse simple voting with democracy – we have to organize and fight for the rights of ordinary people if we are to have any hope of even modest gains – but voting is an opportunity to at least sway government policy this way or that. It's not the only one, or even the most effective (at least not on the national level, for sure), but we skip it to our cost.

The Greens won't win. But of course owing to the anti-democratic structure of our electoral system, in most states a Green vote is a good protest and that's it. (My
mother called me in 2000 to ask if I thought she could vote for Nader. My response: You're in Mississippi, you vote for whoever you want and don't let anybody bug you. Mississippi is going for Bush.) If you live in one of those swing states, however, anything but a Democratic vote is dangerous brinksmanship.

So I'm saying I'd vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination? Of course – if it seemed close in Illinois, [Ricky's home - PF] I'd vote for Donald Duck if he ran as a viable candidate. I worked on Hillary Clinton’s first campaign in New York because she was running against a rightwing nut. But I think you can tell by now I hope she doesn't get it. (I voted for Obama in the primary, just to minimize Hillary's delegates relative to Obama. My man Kucinich was out by then.) The policies of the last eight years at least must be repudiated, but a vote for Clinton doesn't really accomplish that all that well. Oh, I've heard all the arguments, most of which aren't serious. She's a woman – yes, and so was Thatcher. She's earned it (!) – and what have the American people earned? (Obama, by the way, has a much better record of working for the good and welfare.) Oh, yes, and speaking of arguments for Hillary that make no sense, there's one that needs special attention. I'll quote a friend of mine who's in charge of the excellent news service justforeignpolicy.org. After Hillary repeated Bush’s transparent lie that Saddam Hussein kicked out the weapons inspectors (the US withdrew them, preparing to bomb), my friend quipped: "Hillary, ready to lie from Day 1." Indeed.

Sure, she's familiar with all the (evil) people. She's comfy sending planes to bomb women, children and sick people for elite purposes. And she'd have no problem selling out health care or whatever interest of the poor/working class comes before her, if it helped her stay in office or in some other way. I'm sure her reputation as a ruthless negotiator is well deserved, and her corporate clients were happy with her, but is that a pattern we want her to continue in the White House? The world needs something very different, and it's up to US citizens – who are the only ones who get to vote, unfortunately – to get the most we can out of our government.

What we need, of course, is an immediate withdrawal of all US troops and reparations to Iraq and Afghanstan, unconditional release of all POWs and reparations to their families, closure and evacuation of Guantanamo Bay as well as the School of the Americas and all US military bases around the world. We need to stop backing Israel, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and other repressive states and instead start standing up for what we say we support – democracy – even if the results are not what we'd like. We need someone who will fight for single-payer healthcare, a living wage, free abortion on demand and gay marriage (if we can't get the state out of the marriage business altogether). We need the right of civilian review for every person who alleges mistreatment by any law enforcement rep. We need to put an end to corporate welfare and reverse the policy that corporations are people with Constitutional rights (it would probably take an amendment). And so many other things that we will not get. But we have an obligation, on behalf of all the less powerful people of the world, to get what we can. Our comfort levels as voters, our disgust, our desires to touch symbolic base and feel good about ourselves, are nothing beside the deep suffering that so many billions on the planet endure largely at the hands of a world order dominated by our government.

The good news is, the Dems have a decent chance of winning, and both at least promise to get out of Iraq – eventually – tho I'm sure they'll maintain that gargantuan military base there and the 'quagmire' will continue. I doubt either one would hack away at welfare much more – Bill did enuf – or follow Bush-Cheney on international agreements like the Kyoto Accords, etc. We might even get a decent land-mine treaty! But will we get another Kosovo in Sudan? Maybe Iraq has lefta bad enuf taste to prevent it, if we fight. And hopefully we can get someone decent on the Supreme Court in the next four years. (Four is about all we can hope for; we have to make hay while the sun shines, like the Republicans do and the Dems usually don't.)

For labor, it's just possible, of course, with a Democrat in the Oval Office and Dems running both houses of Congress, to pass a much-needed reform authorizing card check to replace the gauntlet-running election system we have now for joining a union. McCain would certainly never let that happen. Obama or Clinton just might, Obama more likely in my book. But that's far from given and would require a bitter, hard struggle. I hope it happens. Maybe at least we'll get a raise in the min wage and some extention of SCHIP, stuff like that. Who knows, maybe we can revive that ergonomics standard? Obama promises to ax "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." Clinton says she wouldn't fight gay marriage, tho she opposes it, like Obama. Neither would attack abortion rights, at least, but it seems the real battles there are at the state level at the moment.

In education, maybe we can at least see some changes in that awful "No Child’s Behind Left". But what we really need is a massive federal expenditure (way short of what we're spending on Iraq, of course) to put one more teacher in every classroom in the US. Now THAT would be a campaign to get excited about!

There are many such changes that we need, and campaigns for any of them would be well worth our time. But elections will not get them for us – and this one may yet prove that to some of us. The work we need to be about is much less glamorous. It involves knocking on doors, talking on the phone when you'd rather be chillin, talking to people sometimes awkwardly outside activist circles, sitting in long meetings, speaking up "even when your voice shakes," tolerating quirky people with strange ideas, and sometimes a lot of study (newspapers, voting records, etc.). It involves some flexibility, too, especially when two or more good causes compete or conflict, and yet some focus to remember our basic purposes and the people who need change the most. Whatever we do, however we disagree, I hope we always keep them in mind.

Partial Meme

Tagged by Danielle:

What I was doing 10 years ago:
I was getting ready to start my dissertation research. Bwaa-ha-ha (maniacal laugh)!!

Five things on my to-do list today:
1. Pay rent. (Forgot.)
2. Change lightbulb in front hall. (Forgot, which made coming home sucky.)
3. Pill the cat. (Sigh...putting it off...ok, just did it.)
4. Work on the budget. Ugh.
5. Hear Annabel Park and Eric Byler's presentation. AWESOME.

Five of my bad habits:
1. Biting my cuticles.
2. Being overly anxious.
3. Being self-involved.
4. Being self-conscious.
5. ...filling out these things...

Five jobs I've had:
1. Pulling staples out of financial aid forms for the NY State Dept. of Higher Ed.
2. Constructing cardboard boxes for a company that made the labels that went on record store shelves (the ones with the band names).
3. House cleaning.
4. Fundraising.
5. Coordinating home health care aides.

Miscellany

I still do have this great book on abortion and an actual FILE (I kid you not) of stuff I want to write about. It's just that I slept (and shopped) through spring break, and now I've grumpily returned to my desk, where piles of things to do await me.

So, some miscellaneous comments:

1) I just think it's interesting that they don't consider that the phrase, "female assigned at birth" may have an entirely different meaning than the one they want it to mean. "Female assigned at birth" doesn't mean "woman born woman." It doesn't mean "biological woman." It doesn't mean cis-woman, which is want they want it to mean (except they don't like the prefix, "cis" because they don't want to even have any discussions about transwomen actually being women).

It means that a baby was assigned a female gender at birth. Which is exactly what doctors do with intersex children - they assign them a gender. Cis-gendered people are not "assigned" a gender in quite the same way; they are identified with a gender. To be assigned a gender suggests conscious thought and deliberation: "what sort of person shall this child be?" Not, "oh, it's got a penis: boy."

How weird is it that women who insist that transwomen aren't women, who put such emphasis on the importance of biology, would choose such language to describe themselves?

2) You may have noticed some new additions to the blogroll. Please check out Tenured Radical (who was teaching at my alma mater while I was there, though I never had the opportunity to take one of her courses, and who will be here soon to give a lecture on pornography. Yay!

Also, take a look at Fat Rant and Shapely Prose - it's about time I got some fat-positive blogs listed, and these are fabulous. I have a group of friends who seem to talk a lot about the so-called "obesity epidemic" and the "dangers" of being overweight - I always want to send them to blogs like these.

3) Barbara Ehrenreich has an interesting piece in The Nation on Hillary Clinton's religious doings - and even though I'm not quite sure what I think about it, I was going to link you to it, but then I found this piece that I liked a lot better. An excerpt:

Every presidential hopeful has his racial moment. For Reagan it was the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi; George Bush Sr. had Willie Horton; Bill Clinton had Sister Souljah; Bush Jr. had Bob Jones University. Each one sought to comfort white voters with at worst their bigotry and at best their ambivalence toward African-Americans.

That was not an option for Obama. Boy, was he lucky. All he had to do was address black alienation and white disadvantage, set it in a historical context and then call on people to rise above it...

...For all his talk about transcending race, not even this biracial, Ivy League, intact-black-family man could escape America's racial dysfunction.

Which brings us back to Ferraro. For if her initial comments were ridiculous, her response revealed just what Obama is up against. "Every time that campaign is upset about something, they call it racist," she said. "I will not be discriminated against because I'm white."

Tsk. Oh, OKAY. Here's Ehrenreich's piece, too.

4) Finally - on Hillary's talk of Bosnia. I'm actually willing to give her somewhat of a pass on this one. I mean, I can believe that she misspoke, and frankly, I don't really care all that much either way. What I do care about, though, is that she's mentioning Bosnia in relation to her foreign policy experience at all. Because the Clintons have nothing to be proud of when it comes to Bosnia. From Marc Cooper at Huffington Post:

[Journalist and author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power] took great personal risks during the Balkan wars to witness and record and denounce the carnage (She reported that Bill Clinton intervened against the Serbs only when he felt he was losing personal credibility as a result of his inaction. "I'm getting creamed," Power quoted the then-President saying as he fretted over global consternation over his own hesitation to act).

FWIW, I've read the book, and it's fucking amazing. You should all check it out.

And because it is such an amazing book, I was really glad to learn that Obama has read it, and not only read it, but read it and wanted to consult with her on developing foreign policy. From Jon Wiener, also at HuffPo:

In a recent interview I asked her why Obama called her. "His office said he had just read my book, and he wanted to talk about, literally, 'a smart, tough, and humane foreign policy.' No one from the US government had every called me - no mayor, no school board head."

(Um, sadly, Power called Hillary a "monster" to the press, and well, she's no longer a consultant for Obama. Frankly, I wouldn't agree with such a characterization of Senator Clinton at all, and I'm sure they say all kinds of nasty things about Obama over at Camp Clinton. Oh, well. That's how it goes.)

I wish I could remember where I found this...

The speech.

In a comment on my post on Wright, Stuff Daddy wrote:

"With out a doubt, I think it's the most important speech on race given by a public mainstream figure in my entire lifetime.

I am with him now more than ever. He is extraordinary.."

This is exactly how I feel.

I do not remember, in my lifetime, anyone saying anything like this, in this way, to a national audience. Even though he is not saying anything new, because he is saying it publicly, because America is listening to him, I feel like it's the first time in my life that any of it is being said outside of communities of color. And because of that, I want to focus on what I think is the importance of what he said to White people.

Much of what he talked about is stuff that White people don't generally hear, partly because, as Obama says, we are still a segregated nation (he's pointing to churches and the difference in what is said in Black and White churches; my pointing is more general). Many Whites simply have not heard this stuff before. And many others who have heard some of the anger Obama speaks of have been afraid or offended and thus haven't actually listened to what was being said. To hear it translated in so gentle a way, as an invitation to join with him, with all Americans, is a gift - and it is a gift to be able to translate it so skillfully.

I really do believe that we who live in America are not speaking the same language, even when we're speaking English. Whites hear Black anger at the persistent impact of racism as "reverse racism," hateful, and threatening. Repeatedly, when I read the words of people of color, I read "they don't listen to us." And when I read Whites' words, I read, "I can't listen to what they're saying because it makes me feel bad / offends me."

Obama's speech bridged this gap. He offered Whites a hand in clambering over this barrier between races. He made White people's love for racist relatives understandable, acceptable, simply part of the complexity of being human. And in offering that image of his White grandmother, he also explained clearly the complicated nature of love and loyalty and his connection to Rev. Wright.

He also reminded us, but without pointing fingers, that many people do, in fact, have serious disagreements with our "pastors, priests, or rabbis." How many Whites who themselves do not think of homosexuality as a sin nevertheless remain in congregations where the pastor condemns it? How many remain in congregations where the pastor, and perhaps other congregants, actively work to prevent gay people from having civil rights? How many Whites disagree with their priests on issues of abortion and birth control, yet stay to hear violent language about those who support reproductive freedom for women?

And so, Obama, by talking about race in very deliberate - and generous - ways, I think, managed to transcend it. He is still a Black man, and we White folks are still White. But in talking about race in this way, he elevated the discussion beyond the too-simple ways in which we generally talk about race. He talked honestly, out loud, about things White and Black people are sometimes afraid to say. He made it ok to talk about these things, and he made it ok that we are all stumbling around trying to figure out how in the hell we can talk to each other. He gave us a way to talk to each other - in the tradition of Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Barbara Smith, who have always spoken generously (if firmly) to White allies, he focused us on listening to other's stories and lending a hand to other's struggles. With this speech, he taught Whites the first lesson in how to be allies, and he did so without triggering White guilt. He made it ok to focus on the shared work at hand, on our unity rather than our differences, and so we begin to move beyond race as a barrier and into a new conversation.

And, what the hell, this already the sappiest post I've written in a long time - let me echo Michelle Obama and just say that, for the first time in a long time, I feel deeply proud to be an American.

(For some other responses to Obama's speech, check this out. I've been linking to Bfp a lot lately, and for good reason. If you aren't reading her regularly, you should be.)

Coming soon...

...a review of a new book on abortion;
...thoughts on Barack Obama's address on race;
...a response to one white man's journey to take responsibility for his ancestor's racist, deadly acts.

All that and more, coming just as soon as I catch up on the laundry, finish my grading, and make dental appointments for everyone. Stay tuned!

On Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

I have missed much of the national freaking-out about Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and so I'm in the process of catching up. In this process, I happened to read the post at La Chola by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, and I recommend it. An excerpt:

"Let’s be clear. American democracy has always coexisted with vicious, state-sponsored racism. The nation’s first presidents worked to establish an innovative, flexible, radical democratic republic while simultaneously codifying enslaved blacks as a fraction human and relegating them to intergenerational chattel bondage. After emancipation, as blacks helped make America the greatest industrial and military power on earth, the country stripped blacks of the right to vote, segregated public accommodations, provided inferior education to black children, and allowed and promoted the terrorist rule of lynch-mob violence.

This week Barack Obama was pressured to denounce Jeremiah Wright. But in the hundred years following the end of the Civil War more than five thousand African Americans were lynched and not a single president denounced the atrocities. Because of this history, black patriotism is complicated. Black patriots love our country, even though it has often hated us. We love our country, even while we hold it accountable for its faults."

Lovin' that Bean of mine.

I got a wonderful compliment yesterday. Bean asked me, at a dinner function that I took him to, "why are you always so nice to people? You always say, "hi!" to everyone!" So we talked about being friendly, and from that I segued into telling him that I was really excited for him to meet some of the people I know and like, and that I've told them about him and they were really excited to meet him. When I introduce him to people, he usually hides, and I've worked on trying to get him to at least wave or say "hi," even if he's shy. But that conversation seemed to make a difference, because after that, he was saying "hi" to everyone who said "hi" to him - and doing so very eagerly, like he'd finally realized that people weren't just doing that to annoy him, but because they genuinely were interested in him - and that I liked them, and so he might like them, too.

And also - my kid thinks I'm nice!

Sunday.

I have become someone who does absolutely nothing on the weekends except eat and sit at the computer. Which is not a good thing. I suspect this comes from working for 10+ hours a day during the week - by the weekend, I'm so exhausted that I only have energy to crawl out of bed to pee, eat, and maybe do a load or two of laundry. I read a little of the paper, because I get two Sunday papers and I feel like I should do something to justify, if not the insignificant cost, then at least the trees who bravely gave their lives so that I could have a Sunday paper. And I catch up on blogs and wish that I had more to say on my own blog. (I can't tell you how much I long to take my computer to Starbucks and blog there, while the sun streams in the window and the steam rises from my chai latte. I may have to write some snarky comments on certain mommy bloggers' sites at which this sort of description of their day is common.)

Some people came to the door a couple of hours ago to sell me their religion, and I was embarrassed, because whenever this happens, I am in my pajamas, hair uncombed, face unwashed, no bra, bare feet, child lagging behind me in various states of undress / dress-up. I feel like I might as well hang a sign around my neck that reads "heathen," especially on Sunday. I really miss having a buzzer so that I could find out who is at the door before I expend the energy to walk all the way down there.

Bean wants to go out and "do something," as do I, but I think it may be illegal for me to leave the house without first taking a shower. And also, I have to do laundry at some point so that we will have clothes for the week. And I'm not sure when I last changed the sheets, so that should happen, too.

And, on top of everything else, today we're back to Daylight Savings. I suppose I should be grateful, as that means that when I finally make it down to the basement to do the laundry, it might still be light outside, making the creepy basement a whole lot less creepy. But I hate losing an hour, and I will be very grumpy if I wake up in the dark tomorrow morning.

Sunday. Feh. I can't wait until break.

To the person who found my site by Googling

"girls on toilet without no clothes on and not covering up their vagina+pictures," I can only say, first, that it should be "without any clothes on" (otherwise, the double negative would mean that they did, indeed, have clothes on), and second, ew. Go away.

International Sex Workers Rights Day was March 4.

Renegade Evolution recently posted on her blog her great frustration that this was not a topic that was discussed in feminist blogland. She wrote about it, as well, on AlterNet, and lest you think that what she is after is a celebration of sex work, here's an excerpt of her post:

"Nary you mind that the way things are currently, however many sex workers could get robbed and raped tonight and have it laughed off by the law, nary you mind that sex workers pulled over by the law will be black mailed into favors, nary you mind that sex workers of all races, genders, classes, political bent, religion, will still be seen by the majority of humanity as less than human themselves, nary you mind possession of condoms in the highly vaunted Swedish State is cause for arrest and possible immediate deportation."

While I do think that this silence around this topic this week is worth noting, even more noteworthy (to me) are the responses she got at AlterNet:

Why are you looking for women to support an organization that promotes an industry responsible for the rape and enslavement of women all over the world? Why is it feminist to promote the idea that a woman's body is a commodity for sale? Why is it feminist to teach this to our daughters?

Why should I spend my time supporting women or men who voluntarily support the patriarchal status quo? What ever ‘sex workers’ may claim - it is not a ‘job like any other’ fair enough do what you want to do but don’t expect me (as a father of two daughters) to give any of my energy to supporting men’s perceived right to female bodies. It’s just not going to happen.

Good idea...men get a celebration of a seasonal Pussy on a Plate.
Wow - can't forget about the menz - you know, the oppressed and forgotten lot...

See, these are classic examples of what NOT LISTENING looks like. Mention sex workers' rights, and people are hearing "promote prostitution" and "help men buy women's bodies." If there was ever any doubt about what anti-prostitution advocates think about sex workers, there sure isn't anymore - from these comments, they don't appear to think of them at all.

Which is why acknowledging sex workers' rights is important. When a woman is thought to be unrapeable, when she is unable to demand safe working conditions, when she is punished for exchanging sex for money but the people who abuse her are not - these are violations of human rights. Fighting for sex workers' safety, for decent working conditions, has nothing to do with how one might feel about prostitution. If one is really trying to help sex workers, then one ought to listen when they ask for help.

But somehow, it becomes about promoting prostitution if we do anything to help sex workers, right? Gah.

The truth hurts.

I've spent a lot of time over the last ten or fifteen years alternately supporting Planning Parenthood and bitching them out. I recognize that, on the one hand, PP is operating in crisis mode ALL the time - the instructions for dealing with a bomb threat are usually posted on the wall behind the reception area, and the clinic attacks haven't stopped - they've just stopped being reported.

So I understand the defensiveness that comes out when PP is criticized.

Except...

Women of color have historically been, and are currently treated poorly by the pro-choice movement and by the very organizations set up to serve women and protect their reproductive rights. "Poorly" is a euphemism here. A big one. The reality is that women of color are not treated the same way that White women are treated by the healthcare system, and that includes Planned Parenthood. The reality is that women of color have had their health compromised, served as guinea pigs, been denied needed medical care, been sterilized without consent or under coerced consent, and Planned Parenthood and the healthcare system have been complicit in this.

Margaret Sanger is still somehow lauded as a birth control warrior, regardless of her blatant attempts to use it to limit the number of Black babies (that's called eugenics). When an organization holds her up as a role model or as someone who should be remembered as a pioneer (there's another interesting (and racist) term right there), what message does this send? Why would anyone expect that women of color would want to be part of such a movement?

And when the response to this criticism is "that happened a long time ago," what then? The implication is that a movement built on oppressing women of color so that White women can have birth control will be a liberatory movement. How could that be, even if the oppression had ended there? I would argue that, while it may be liberatory for some women, it is not a liberatory movement if it depends on the oppression of other women. And that is exactly how this movement has unfolded.

What happened a long time ago is not divorced from what is happening now. We are still living with that legacy. And further, what happened a long time ago continues to happen now. A quick look at the comments in some of the following links illustrates that fact. And I'll be honest - I wasn't aware of some of this. I knew that Norplant was tried out on nomadic women who would not be able to have it removed - and it has to be removed or else it causes serious, life-threatening problems such as ectopic pregnancies. I read Andrea Smith's work on this issue and I had a good sense of what the years since Margaret Sanger have looked like. But I didn't think about it in terms of what happens in daily interactions between doctors and patients, what assumptions color (I use that intentionally) the advice the doctor gives and what s/he hears.

Further, and you need to especially read the comments in the second to last link to get this, all this bullshit about Black Amazon and others somehow silencing Planned Parenthood supporters by criticizing Planned Parenthood (in Black Amazon's case, with one sentence in a post about something else entirely)? This is classic, right out of the textbook. To paraphrase Patricia J. Williams, whose book is unfortunately in my office and not convenient for a better paraphrasing:

A: Women of color have been hurt by Planned Parenthood.
B: I work for Planned Parenthood, and I can't handle what you've just said. I'm upset. I wish you'd never said that.
A: I'm sorry you're upset, but I was upset first. Please listen to what I am telling you.
B: Your upset is upsetting me. You are silencing me with your anger. It isn't fair for you to silence me. I can't listen to you.

Read this
and this
and this
and this
and this.

(Edited to add: Since I posted this, the second and fourth links have been broken as the posts have been taken down. I've pasted in those posts in the comments below.)

I continue to wrestle with what the right thing to do is here, given the current climate for reproductive rights. But I won't accept that we can't have these conversations because of this climate. If anything, this is the very time to have them. If we want to ensure reproductive rights for all women, then we need to ensure that we are promoting the health and safety of women of color - globally - and this means listening to the hard, painful truth.

***

Also, please help the Southall Black Sisters. This was, in fact, the point of Black Amazon's original post (already linked).

Andrea Smith denied tenure.

I learned about this on La Chola. Apparently, Andrea Smith had a joint position in American Culture Studies and Women's Studies. A few months ago, American Culture Studies recommended her for tenure, while Women's Studies did not. Last week, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts denied her tenure. This shocks me, because Smith is someone who is not only well-published, but whose national and even international status as an activist and scholar is well-established.

I'm pasting in below the statement from students and faculty at U of Michigan. This explains the situation and what we can do to help:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2008
Statement of University of Michigan Students and Faculty in Support of Andrea Smith’s Tenure Case
CONTACT: TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

On February 22nd, 2008, University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) issued a negative tenure recommendation for Assistant Professor Andrea Lee Smith. Jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies, Dr. Smith’s body of scholarship exemplifies scholarly excellence with widely circulated articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous books in both university and independent presses including Native Americans and the Christian Right published this year by Duke University Press. Dr. Smith is one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time. A nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Smith has an outstanding academic and community record of service that is internationally and nationally recognized. She is a dedicated professor and mentor and she is an integral member of the University of Michigan (UM) intellectual community. Her reputation and pedagogical practices draw undergraduate and graduate students from all over campus and the nation.

Dr. Smith received the news about her tenure case while participating in the United States’ hearings before the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Ironically, during those very same hearings, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that restricted affirmative action policies at UM specifically were cited as violations of international law. At the same time, there is an undeniable link between the Department of Women’s Studies and LSA’s current tenure recommendations and the long history of institutional restrictions against faculty of color. In 2008, students of color are coming together to protest the way UM’s administration has fostered an environment wherein faculty of color are few and far between, Ethnic Studies course offerings have little financial and institutional support, and student services for students of color are decreasing each year.

To Support Professor Andrea Smith: The Provost must hear our responses! Write letters in support of Andrea Smith’s tenure case. Address email letters to ALL of the following:

* Teresa Sullivan, Provost and Executive VP for Academic Affairs, LSA, tsull@umich.edu
* Lester Monts, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, LSA, lmonts@umich.edu
* Mary Sue Coleman, President, PresOff@umich.edu
* TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

Voice your ideas on the web forum at http://www.woclockdown.org/

To Support Women of Color at Michigan and the Crisis of Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies: Attend the student organized March 15th Conference at UM!!!! Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex is free and open to the public. Speakers include renowned activists and scholars Piya Chatterjee, Angela Davis, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Ruthie Gilmore, Fred Moten, Clarissa Rojas, and Haunani-Kay Trask. For more information and to register, visit: http://www.woclockdown.org/.

TALKING POINTS YOU CAN USE IN YOUR SUPPORT LETTER:
• Smith is author of the following books:
o Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
o Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances
o Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites
• Smith is editor and/or co-editor of the following anthologies:
o Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology
o The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
o Native Feminisms Without Apology
o Forthcoming on theorizing Indigenous Studies
• She has published 15 peer reviewed articles in widely circulated academic journals
including American Quarterly, Feminist Studies, National Women’s Studies Association Journal, Hypatia, Meridians, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
• Smith is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards from organizations such as the Lannan Foundation, University of Illinois, Gustavus Myers Foundation, Ford Foundation
• Smith was cited in the U.S. Non-Governmental Organization Consolidated Shadow Report to the United Nations
• A co-founder of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations, she has been a key thinker behind large-scale national and international efforts to develop remedies for ending violence against women beyond the criminal justice system. As a result of her work, scholars, social service providers, and community-based organizations throughout the United States have shifted from state-focused efforts to more systemic approaches for addressing violence against women. In recognition of her contributions, Smith was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
• As of June 2007, Professor Smith’s book, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (2005) had sold over 8,000 copies. Three-fourths of these sales have gone to college and university courses. In addition, the leading Native studies organization, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association organized a special panel about this book at their last annual conference (2007). The international impact of Conquest is evidenced by its reprinting in Sami (Sweden) and in Maori Institutions in New Zealand; by Professor Smith’s invitation to participate in an academic workshop in Germany based on the book; and by the book’s frequent use in Native Studies classrooms in Canada.
• She has also played a key role in contributing social-justice based research, teaching, and community building at the University of Michigan.
• Under Andrea Smith’s mentorship, a large number of undergraduate and graduate students have grown as intellectual members of the UM’s campus community.

FACTS FOR DR. ANDREA SMITH’S TENURE CASE
• Her intellectual work contributes to the fields of Native American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Religious Studies, and American Studies.
• Smith is jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies at Michigan.
• The Program in American Culture gave a positive recommendation for Smith’s tenure, while the Department of Women’s Studies gave a negative recommendation. After the tenure recommendations were released from the two departments, the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts reviewed the tenure file and also gave a negative tenure recommendation.
• She is currently the Director of Native American Studies at Michigan.

Can we go there?

I've been participating in - mostly reading - a discussion about biracial kids and White moms, and someone mentioned the issue of hair, and of having overheard a white mom say that she wished her biracial daughter had hair like her own because it was easier to take care of.

I've been pondering this for a couple of days because my immediate reaction is to wonder if perhaps no one ever showed this mother how to care for her child's hair. I wonder this because I'm a White woman with hair that none of my White family members and hairdressers ever knew how to care for until, as a grown woman, I finally went to a hairdresser who specialized in "ethnic" (this was in South Dakota, where "ethnic" is never used to refer to White Americans) hair and who had two biracial daughters, herself. I've never styled Black hair, but I know what my own hair is like, and I wonder - is there really so much difference in terms of ease of care? I mean, it's not uncommon to walk into a wall of hairspray in public restrooms where White women are primping (not so much lately, I guess, but years ago this was certainly true), and I do occasionally see PTA mom haircuts that are, essentially, helmets - and this means that the hair takes time and work to do. I mean, sure, a lot depends on what exactly you do with the hair, and its texture helps determine that, but I suspect that when White people say things like this, they maybe have no idea what to do.*

And what I'm being too nice to say is that when White people say things like that, it's racist.

I'm actually not going to talk about the politics of Black women's hair right now.** I'm going to instead talk about my own hair, because something I've gradually become aware of is how race has operated for me in terms of my hair. It's an example of how race is constructed, because it was only the fact that I thought of myself as White that stood between me and having well-groomed hair. I did not learn, until I was an adult, that I could not care for my hair the way most White people I knew cared for their hair.

When I was a kid, this is what White people did with their hair:
1) Shampoo
2) Rinse
3) Condition (this was new, back then!)
4) Rinse
5) Blow dry / curl / comb / put in a ponytail.

If you have hair like mine and you try this, you will be rewarded with a mess. And still, I used to brush that hair, determined to make it behave. I tried mousse. I used cans of AquaNet. I remember crying to my mother that I was going to have to shave it off and buy a wig. This was not a bad hair day. This was years of not being able to take care of my hair and of feeling down-deep ugly because of it, despite the fact that there were plenty of women of color around me, plenty of hair products for their hair around me. It just never, not once, occurred to me that I was looking in the wrong places. I just figured that there must be something wrong with me.

This prompts me to post an excerpt from something I wrote several years ago:

My hair. My aunt tells me, laughing, "When you were little, we used to say that you had Angela Davis hair." I'm never sure what to make of this; I don't think my aunt means this as a compliment. My mother remembers, "You would cry and cry when I'd wash your hair. You kept pleading with me, saying 'Mommy, I be good! I be good!'" And I think of how they used to try every morning to get a comb through it, pulling so hard I thought I'd end up bald, forcing my hair into position for a few minutes, until the wind and humidity got into it. My father would lecture in his stern voice: "If you would brush your hair a hundred strokes every morning and every night, you could train it to straighten out."

My baby pictures show reddish blond curls that stuck up all over my head, seemingly weightless. Later pictures show hair that is much darker and heavier.

But my hair did not gleam. It sat, dully, sticking out in every direction no matter what I did. Often it stood straight up from my head, particularly if I'd recently pulled off my knitted cap. The hairstylist who cut our family's hair, didn't know what to do with me. When I was thirteen, he cut my hair into a short Afro so that it curled up all around my head. I liked it, and let it grow longer and longer, picking it out as far as I could. My friends were amused by what my junior high school principal referred to as "a Zulu haircut" (another comment not meant to be a compliment). But I was supposed to be white, and there was no way for my hair to fit into white beauty, except as a joke. No white movie star had an Afro. I knew damn few Black people who had an Afro in 1982. The younger sister of my best friend started calling me "frizzbomb".

In high school, I used to get up early so I'd have time to curl my hair. No matter how carefully I wound the strands around the hot iron, there would always be one long piece that stubbornly hung down in front of my face. I spent my classes trying to tuck this piece in behind the rigid curl that ran the length of my forehead (my attempt at an eighties version of a Farah flip). Within seconds, it would untuck itself and slide squarely between my eyes. Once, as I was twisting and twisting to no avail, I looked up and caught the eyes of a boy who was grinning at my futile efforts.

I always longed for long, straight hair. I used to pretend, when my hair was wet after a shower, that my hair was really that straight. For a long while, I would hope every time that it would stay that way when it dried, but of course, it never did. I used to drape the towel over my head and pretend that that was my hair.

I let my hair grow long, twice. The first time was in ninth grade, when my hair grew past my shoulders, long enough for my mother to braid it down the back. It refused to hang straight though, and it would buckle the braid that tried to contain it, finally pulling its way loose, so that by the end of the day fierce tufts would poke out toward freedom. And no matter how long my hair got, I could never wear it in a ponytail. Instead of falling down gracefully from the elastic band, it would stick straight out in an uneven puff.

The second time I let my hair grow was in college, after all but shaving it off completely. Two years after graduation, it was long and free, and I loved it. It was a wild mane, too heavy to curl tightly, but when freshly washed it would kink up beautifully. When it got wet, it would hang in long locks, and if I didn't separate them with my fingers they would stay that way. Every morning I'd have to pull apart the dreadlocks that threatened. It was so thick I couldn't pull it back into just one barrette, and so heavy that, when wet, it took effort to lift my head. My hair was so big and so full that it didn't just hang down my back, but radiated out from my head so that I couldn't see over my shoulder when moving into the passing lane.

For the record, here's what I do these days:
1) Shampoo (I don't actually use shampoo, but I use other cleansers for curly hair)
2) Apply about a handful (yes, really) of a very thick shea butter conditioner
3) DO NOT rinse
4) Apply something else, I don't know exactly what it is, but it helps hold the curl
5) DO NOT rinse
6) Apply a finishing glaze
7) DO NOT rinse
8) Wrap my hair (upside down, so the curls are accordioned) for 20 minutes
9) Go.

It takes far less time than I used to spend in high school, and there's never any crying.

Note, too, the absence of a comb or brush.



*this very issue of White moms not knowing how to style their biracial daughters' hair comes up pretty frequently in multiracial writings.

**though I do want to say in passing, and maybe I'll post about this later, that when we are in the midst of Love Your Body and such day/week/month, I think it's a good idea to think, not just in terms of loving your curves and not purging your dinner, but also in terms of race. We tend to interpret these events as only about eating disorders, but we should also be thinking about how whiteness is central to what is portrayed to us as "beauty" and about things like skin bleaching and the ways that women of color see their bodies and are made to feel about their bodies (a great video on this is here).

Drugs and consensual sex are wild; exploiting women, not so much.

On my way to the gym this morning, I was singing along with Nickelback to "Rock Star":

'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars and
Live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blonde hair
And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary of
Today's who's who
They'll get you anything
with that evil smile
Everybody's got a
Drug dealer on speed dial, well
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

Except, the station I was listening to bleeped out the word "drug", so the line was, "The girls come easy and the ... come cheap." And, you know, I take offense at that. It's ok to talk about women like they're disposable, but God forbid we talk about drugs?

Even more funny to me is that the next line about staying skinny and not eating kind of depends on the drug reference.

And everyone can figure out what a "bleep-dealer" is. I mean, you wouldn't have a car dealer on speed dial, right?

But what really ticked me off was that the next song was Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side." And in this bizarro land of radio censors, "giving head" is not ok and needs to be bleeped, but "colored girls" can sing all they want to.

To recap: Drugs and consensual sex are bad. Treating women as disposable sex objects and talking about women of color as "colored" is just dandy.

Fucking censors.

The persistence of sexism.

This is cross-posted at Dakota Women.

I've written a lot about racism in the public discourse around Hillary and Obama's candidacies, but I have not written much about the very real moments of sexism she's faced. I'd like to rectify that, not so much by writing about it myself* as by sharing with you a few links I've received recently** that help to show both the scope of this sexism and also the way racism and sexism are interwoven so tightly in our national discussions.

Teaching Tolerance has a special edition of the Anti-Bias Classroom that is focused on teaching about the elections. I have not had time yet to peruse the whole thing, but the first page sums up problems with the national discussion so far quite nicely.

The Hillary Sexism Watch - just what it sounds like, and worth reading.

And lest you miss it, go here to see why Axe sucks. I mean, we KNOW they suck, but this is pretty bad.

*At the moment, I don't have anything to add to the good writing that is already out there.
**Thanks to the WMST-L Listserv.

The thing about "barbaric."

I wrote this post last month, at the same time that I wrote my FGE post, but it's timely to post it now as I've just seen this response to the FGE post. The blogger, and a commenter, as well, suggest that "barbaric" is not, in and of itself, a problematic word to use. Below are my thoughts.

In the discussion on FGE that I mentioned, one angry woman, who didn't understand why Western women's opposition to the practice was perceived as imperialist, challenged someone else's comment that "barbaric" was an offensive term. Why, she asked, did we consider "barbaric" to be imperialist and offensive?

The obvious answer is that we in the West, particularly but not exclusively white women, tend to use "barbaric" only to talk about "other" cultures. For example, we almost never call "barbaric" the mainstream forms of body modification, such as high heels. Partly, this is because when we compare high heels to, say, foot binding, we feel safe in the knowledge that high heels only deform the foot and leg a little, and they may slow some women down, but they at least leave her mobile. So, we see high heels on a spectrum, and on the spectrum, they're not so bad.

We also tend to see mainstream forms of body modification as, well, mainstream - fairly safe, fairly accepted (except by radical feminists, bless their hearts, who remind us of what these practices actually do to our bodies), things that don't make us gasp. Pierced ears, for example. Tattoos. Many plastic surgeries are quickly becoming these kinds of accepted practices, such as breast augmentations and lifts and reshapings, or stomach "tucks", or face lifts. Many of these things hurt (a lot or a little), but the person having them done recovers, and our perception is that they are not life-threatening (though certain plastic surgeries that are common, like liposuction, are) nor do they impede sexual pleasure (though breast surgeries frequently result in significant loss of sensation). When it comes to more extreme types of body modification, things that are not so mainstream - like tongue-splitting, for example, or even, for many, spreaders in ear piercings - we are quick to say "barbaric!" because it doesn't describe many of us, or our family members, or our friends.

Against footbinding and FGE, these procedures look tame.

IGM (Intersex Genital Mutilation), performed on nonconsenting infants and children, and male circumcision, also performed on nonconsenting infants and frequently without anesthetic, are not really taken seriously by some feminists. Many pooh-pooh objections to these practices as a waste of time, when there are more serious issues, like FGE, to address. Some point out that IGM (they often don't call it this - they feel that using this terminology diminishes the brutality of FGM) only affects a very small percentage ofthe population. And often, it is pointed out that male circumcision doesn't have lasting negative effects, or if it does (loss of some, but not most, sensation), they are minor.

Maybe it's time now to define "barbaric".
From Merriam-Webster:
"1 a: of, relating to, or characteristic of barbarians b: possessing or characteristic of a cultural level more complex than primitive savagery but less sophisticated than advanced civilization
2 a: marked by a lack of restraint : wild b: having a bizarre, primitive, or unsophisticated quality."

So "barbaric" means primitive, wild, unsophisticated, savage. These are terms that have historically, repeatedly and EXCLUSIVELY been used to refer to people of color and poor people.

And yet - we use them to talk about a certain level of brutality, right? While we refuse to see the brutality within our own culture.

I could post pictures of IGM to prove a point - or, for that matter, videos of plastic surgeries - but I won't.

Finally, I'd like to suggest that "barbaric," in addition to being a racist term, is also offensive in that it comes from "barbarian." Terry Jones (yes, THAT Terry Jones) writes in his book, Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History:

"Nobody ever called themselves 'barbarians'. It's not that sort of word. It's a word used about other people. In fact, it's a form of otherness. It has been used by the Ancient Greeks to describe non-Greek people whose language they couldn't understand and who therefore seemed to babble unintelligibly...The Romans adopted the Greek word and used it to label (and usually libel) the people who surrounded their own world.

Once the term had the might and majesty of Rome behind it, the Roman interpretation became the only one that counted, and the peoples whom they called Barbarians became forever branded - be they Spaniards, Britons, Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Persians or Syrians. And of course 'barbarian' has become a by-word for the very opposite of everything we consider civilized. In contrast to the Romans, the Barbarians were lacking in refinement, primitive, ignorant, brutal, rapacious, destructive and cruel.

...

We actually owe far more to the so-called 'barbarians' than we do to the men in togas. And that fact that we still think of the Celts, the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, the Visigoths and so on as 'barbarians' means that we have all fallen hook, line and sinker for Roman propaganda...Now, however, we are beginning to realize that the story of a descent from the light of Rome to the darkness of Barbarian dominion is completely false."

So let's just examine our subject positions, shall we, when we invoke words like "barbaric" and use them, both to slander ancient civilizations as well as contemporary cultures? Perhaps there is more accurate and honest, and less imperialist, language we can use to mount a critique that will help save women's and children's bodies. Perhaps there are better ways to be allies than by pointing out how wild and savage those "other" cultures are.

Racism, feminism, and the issue of FGE.

Once again, a dust-up around FGE (Female Genital Excision) has erupted on a professional listserv that I am on, and once again, the mere mention of the practice has prompted all kinds of accusations and leaping to conclusions.

It used to be that we - "we" being Western feminists - used the term FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). We did this because that's how we saw it. Only - surprise! - African* women don't like being told they have mutilated genitals. And, too, they didn't appreciate the Western imperialist approach that cast their societies as backward and evil, while Western feminists ignored the brutalities within our own cultures. (This is where some readers on the professional listserv said to themselves, "aha! She said there are brutalities within our cultures! She is equating FGM (they don't much care what language other people choose) with things like high heels and male circumcision!" More on this in a minute.)

African women have tended to use the term FGE to describe the practice. Other terms that are used in an attempt to work with African women as allies and to be respectful and culturally sensitive include FGS (Female Genital Surgery) and FGC (Female Genital Cutting). There are, indeed, many terms in use, and there are politics around which terms one uses. One may be completely opposed to the practice and call it "cirucmcision," for example, which is a word that many Western feminists oppose because they think it doesn't do justice to the "barbaric" nature of the practice. (They get mad, too, when you try to point out the racist and imperialist attitudes that are illustrated by using words like "barbaric" to talk about non-Western cultures.)

There seems to be no way to get a certain segment of the feminist population to understand that it is possible both to oppose practices like FGE and still seek to use respectful terminology. This is perceived as attempting to "whitewash" (an interesting phrase, since we're talking about mostly White women slinging racist slurs as mostly Black women) the issue. In fact, on several occasions when this issue has come up, it has progressed in the following way:
1) Someone uses terminology that is other than "mutilation," or suggests that Western women have been imperialist in their approach to the problem in the past;
2) Someone responds with, "how can you not care about this terrible practice?! If you think it's so great, why don't you have it done?!"

And immediately, it is third grade, and we are on the playground again.

Meanwhile, what does it do for African women in America when so many American feminists have considered opinions about their genitals? I'm not saying we shouldn't care about FGE, and I do oppose it. But I mean, we don't say, "What can I do to help?" Instead, we say, "Those poor women have mutilated genitals! Ew! How disgusting and horrific! I'm so lucky that I live somewhere where that wouldn't happen to me!" And then we go off to the bathroom to vomit our lunches, or to the dermatologist for our Botox, or to the plastic surgeon for a boob job, or whatever.
Again - not equating. But why are we so fixated - to the point of distraction, really - with Black women's genitals? And meanwhile, the women whose vaginas so intrigue us may not have clean water, or adequate shelter. They may be living, for the short remainder of their lives, with HIV. They may be being raped repeatedly when they leave the refugee camp to get water and firewood.

One feminist (who gave me permission to post this here) wrote the following on the listserv:

I just want to ask why [FGS] is getting so much attention when, if you poll a large number of women on the African continent, I have the sneaking suspicion that FGS would not top the list of priorities with regards to the struggles they face as "Global South" women. (This isn't to say FGS would not be listed as an issue of concern, but would this be the main issue?)

I've been wondering about feminist discourse of late and whether or not we can truly transcend our "vagina" politics (monologues or dialogues) to create complex perspectives about women's experiences and struggles for social change and social justice.

If we continue to get stuck viewing all women's struggles as only existing between her legs, we are going to miss viewing these issues through a wider lens and to assess our body politics within the larger political arena of neocolonialism, global poverty, etc.

One thing I know, without knowing the different ways in which FGS is practiced, is that these practices do not exist in a vacuum.

One thing I also know is that I will not teach on the subject of FGS in my Women's Studies classroom. I don't feel like reducing present-day African woman's bodies to their genitalia - with the historical examples of Sara Baartman, the "Hottentot Venus," and enslaved women, I think more than enough of us have been contemplating and capitalizing on their vaginas for far too long.

I am dismayed that prominent feminists cannot, or will not, hear the voices of women of color telling them "I want your help, but I don't want you to cast me as someone with a mutilated vulva and vagina. I don't want to be an object of pity. I don't want you to talk about my culture in ways that focus only on the problems, while you proclaim yourselves to be the Great White Hope and ignore your own racism, ethnocentricism, and imperialism in approaching me. I want to speak for myself, and I want you to respect me and to listen."

It is, of course, the same debate over and over again. Trans. Sex work.** Racism in the Women's Movement and in Women's Studies. "I will not use your language because it does not say what I want it to say. It says what you want it to say, but you are not in a position to name yourself. You do not speak for women. I am your rescuer. Shut up and let me rescue you."



*Africa is not the only place in which FGE is practiced, but this discussion focused on Africa.
**The feminist who let me post her words would disagree vehemently would this connection. I don't want it to appear that she shares my particular argument re. sex work.

"If someone said that about a Black person..."

I've been thinking - yet again - about the use of race as an analogy in discussions about the primaries. In Robin Morgan's "Goodbye #2," Morgan repeatedly makes mention of race. However, she does not mention race in order to talk about moments of racism that Barack Obama, or, indeed, any Black American has faced. She mentions it as a measuring stick. Her sole purpose in mentioning race is to suggest that, while there is no tolerance of racism (a big "HA!" must be inserted here, or I shall go crazy), there is tolerance of sexism. And so, she repeatedly suggests that if [insert racist image/comment/stereotype] were employed against Obama, we as a nation would not tolerate it.

I'm not going to refute this here, as I've already done so the other day. But what I do want to note is just how often I hear this phrase: "If it were about Blacks, it wouldn't be ok."

I've heard it so frequently lately, and not just in relation to Hillary Clinton, but about l/g/b/t rights issues, that the phrase is literally begining to ring in my head. I will admit, I have said it myself in the past. I have seen it as a valid thing to say. After all, the point is that we, as a nation, have come to recognize that some comments/stereotypes/behaviors are just not cool. The public response has shifted. Black people are now, some of us White people have thought, seen as fully human by the larger (White) American public, where once they were not.

Here's the problem (again, leaving aside the issues of whether racism still exists (Duh!)): in referencing race and racism in this way, we are USING other people's oppression for our own advancement. And on top of that, we are MINIMIZING other people's suffering.

When, for example, Robin Morgan mentions "this nation's deepest scar - slavery" and then goes on to completely ignore the legacy of slavery, the suffering of an enslaved people, the devastation that this wreaks - that is using Black suffering to make a point. She wants us to hear that women are sexual slaves. Why not just say that? Why, in order to drive home the point that something must not be tolerated, must we refer so dismissively to someone else's suffering?

And further, why must oppression against one group of people be measured by whether or not it would be tolerated against another group of people? And how must it feel, as a Black lesbian, for example, to hear White queer people confronting homophobia by arguing, in essence, that since we can't use racial slurs, we shouldn't be allowed to use homophobic slurs? (No, no one really argues that, but that is part and parcel of using Blackness as a stepping-stone for the advancement of another political agenda.)

It's time, White people, to stop referring to what gains Blacks have won as a way to make a point about what struggles still need to be fought. We should be able to call a crime a crime without running it past the Black-o-meter. We should be able to simply say, "that's hateful and oppressive." And - oh, yeah - we should be able to fight on more than one front. Racism is still with us, and I don't believe it will ever go away. With that in mind, it is far more appropriate to focus on how racism and homophobia are connected, how racism and sexism are intertwined, than to suggest that the Black battle has been won and that the rest of us are simply playing catch-up.

I'm off...

OK, my little chickadees, I'm heading to Vegas for the weekend. When I get back, I will try to post on Black Feminist Thought, as it is Black History Month and as I just taught this topic tonight!

Now, I must go pack.

Last night was hell, but I'm glad I did it.

It took about twenty minutes just to find a parking spot. Then we had to stand a block away, in the cold, waiting in line to even enter the building. Once inside the building, we were packed in like sardines (I'm NOT kidding). It took another twenty minutes or more just to get to the right room because of the crowds. There were so many people that I has hanging on tight to Bean, for fear of losing him.

All the good swag was gone, of course. I asked for an Al Franken sticker (I wanted to keep it as a memento), but the guy peeled it off so I had to wear it.

I am not registered to vote in Minnesota. They didn't even look at my ID. They just had me write my name and address in their files and sign. I was planning on not registering for a particular party, but for all I know, they may have registered me as a DFL-er.

They gave me a tiny blue square of paper with a full list of names, including all the folks who've dropped out. I had to borrow a pen. I marked off my candidate, dropped my bit of paper into a cardboard box that reminded me of the boxes you make in Kindergarten to collect Valentines, and left. As I was walking out the door, the caucuses had been going for only an hour, and one of the guys staffing the door said to someone else, "We've already had 10,000 more than last time." (Imagine that amount of people - 10,000 MORE - in your average small junior high school! Now imagine that all those people came through in one and a half hours, because the caucusing only went from 6:30-8.)

The whole thing took about an hour or more, and at several points I almost gave up and went home. But, I'm glad I stayed.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man.

Lately, it seems, feminists who should know better - including feminist academics - are saying some really cringe-worthy things in the course of defending Hillary as a candidate. For instance, I'm really sick of hearing - and I have now heard this from several sources - that overt racism is no longer acceptable while overt sexism is, and that therefore, Hillary is getting the worst of the abuse. Yet, some of these same (White) people will turn around and confide that they are worried that if Obama were elected, someone would assassinate him. I have not yet heard from anyone the concern that Hillary would be a target for an assassination. She might be told to iron someone's shirts, and she might have her appearance repeatedly analyzed, and she might have to pander to the American public's need for her to be both strong and warm, feminine and powerful, but she is probably not in great danger of assassination for being a woman.

It may not be acceptable to say "the n-word" on broadcast television, but it is apparently acceptable to let hundreds of Black people drown rather than rescue them from a flood that everyone knew was coming and that we had resources to rescue them from. The number of Black men in the prison system is epidemic, and they are there while White men who commit the same crimes receive lesser sentences - or no sentences. Black women are far more likely to die from preventable and treatable diseases than are White women because they do not have access to healthcare and because the healthcare system doesn't give a damn about them when they try to get help (witness the woman who just died in her home in the Twin Cities because her doctor didn't believe anything was wrong with here when she went to see him, and sent her home). Is someone really going to tell me that this is not overt, public racism?

I've also heard more than one person refer to this as being another case in which Americans must decide who goes first: Black men or White women. If that's true, and if people are really thinking this way, then it is also likely to be another case in which White feminists will sell out American Blacks without a second thought. Again.

I've heard a lot of talk about how, if Obama were a woman, no one would look twice at him, at that Obama woman with "no experience." (No one ever mentions that being Black might have anything to do with that - nope, it's all about gender.) I've heard that if Hillary weren't a woman, she wouldn't have had to deal with all the scrutiny and nasty comments (probably true) and would therefore be way ahead in the race (like John Edwards, the White guy?).

But so far, I haven't seen anyone really examine what it might mean for the race if Hillary were a White man. So let's consider it, and let's think particularly about what kind of support she'd be getting among feminists and among women more generally.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, then all the White feminists who are furiously fanning themselves at the thought of having to choose between betraying womankind and looking like a racist would immediately back Obama. They would point out that we've had enough White men in the White House, and that this is a historic moment for change. National feminist organizations would be falling all over themselves to be first to endorse him. Meanwhile, they would be pointing to Hillary's war record as signs of disregard for the poor people and people of color who have had to give their lives for the war.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, her comment about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work only coming to fruition because of the work of a benevolent president would have drawn criticism from White feminists.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, there would be more, not fewer, remarks about how she would continue Bill's legacy (were she his son).

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, we'd be looking now at a race between Edwards and Obama.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, no one would accuse female Obama supporters of voting with their crotches. (Interesting that no one said this about Edwards supporters. And, what, are there no lesbians supporting Obama? Hmm.) Instead, they'd be accusing female Clinton supporters of voting with their crotches.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, at least I wouldn't have to listen to what is passing for feminism but is really thinly disguised racism.