at last, the religious right gets honest

From Exposing the Christian Right's New Racial Playbook News & Politics AlterNet:

At the Freedom Federation meeting, Rodriguez's rhetoric epitomized how the religious right is reframing its core issues to build a new army for "spiritual warfare" on sexual impurity and its consequences. Appearing on a panel moderated by Richard Land, who for decades has been the public and political face of the Southern Baptist Convention in Washington, Rodriguez said, "Let me be very blunt here. I don't believe white evangelicals or white conservatives alone can repudiate the spirit of Herod, the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah, the spirit of Jezebel."


During the summit's closing rally, Rev. Arnold Culbreath, an African-American minister from Cincinnati, Ohio, admonished young women for their lack of purity. Culbreath is billed as the urban outreach director of Life Issues Institute, Inc., an anti-abortion organization, and the leader of the group's Black Life Initiative. "I want to say a word to the young ladies: Stop making it so easy for the young men," Culbreath said. His words were met with applause. "God has designed us to be the pursuers," he continued, "and you to be the pursuees." [emphasis mine]

Before, the religious right had always tip-toed around their obsession with gender roles and appropriate feminine behavior. Oh, sure - they want to save babies and segregate gays, but they'd never cop to the charge that they focused on these issues because a reproductively autonomous woman or gay man/woman challenged notions of hyper-patriarchy and 'natural order.'

They'd just chalk it up to God or the Bible and hide their intentions behind mealy-mouthed Jesus-talk.

But at last, their agenda is overt: in order to break the hold the Dems have over African American and Latino votes, the christian right is overtly positioning themselves to be the voice of pre-modernity by going after those issues that cross all racial/ethnic lines: killing teh babehs, gays, and sluts.

What's the spirit of Herod? Abortion.
The spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexuality.
The spirit of Jezebel? Those goddamned women who like sex, have sex and use birth control, aren't married, flout (male) authority, work outside the home, feminists, loud-mouthed bitches and so on. In other words, women like me. Or you. Just .... women.

The social ick factor posed by abortion, homosexuality and feminism for religious conservatives has never been in doubt. But it's interesting to see how they've pitched race out the window in order to unify disparate factions under a banner everyone can get behind: hetero-coersive patriarchy.

Can I get an amen? (I'll write later about thoughts of how this movement appeals to the not so latent patriarchal tendencies among some black clergy and how it soothes their fear of the 'Sapphire' and tries to build a cage around black women's agency in order to support and protect the black male ego.)

And they're willing to build a socio-political movement behind it:

That vision of social justice is -- like the traditional religious right -- anti-government and theocratic. For the "multiracial" Freedom Federation, it is focused on saving black and brown babies from the spirit of Herod. In a panel discussion on social justice, Engle said, "prostitution in America is fueled majorly [sic] out of the foster care system. Government is going to produce that kind of thing. Here is where the church becomes the outrageous lover, the outrageous answer." [emphasis mine]

(It's interesting to note how Engle's thinking turns the government into a pimp - and, of course, there won't be any thinking about how such a hyper-patriarchal model of gender creates the man who buys the trafficked woman... )

The way Engle connects domestic trafficking to the foster care system makes me take a closer look at the ways that evangelical groups have begun to advocate around international and domestic sex trafficking and wonder how their advocacy on those issues(the presence of which anti-violence against women groups have warily welcomed) is going to merge with this new fight to rescue America from the Herods, Sodomites and Jezebels among us.

And how are their wary feminist/pro-woman partners going to navigate that?

(I'm thinking specifically of particular 'rescue and restore' ministries that have worked with established feminist anti-trafficking groups; these groups have very heavy 'American patriot' overtones/imagery and a definite vibe of 'manly Christian men rescuing endangered frail, corrupted woman in order to restore her to home and hearth, where she rightfully belongs.' It is a discourse ripped directly from the 19th century Victorian playbook.)

The religious right has always fascinated me. One, because I come from it and understand it; and two, because their narratives and goals are so very, very narrow and familiar. Throughout history there have been those who have fought to hold back time and progress. Despite the lessons to be learned in literature, history, art and psychology about the unhappiness and damage such a narrowly defined culture can produce, they fight on.

And keep losing. For every women who is educated, employed, empowered and autonomous, beholden to no one, they lose.

I hope we women are strong enough for this fight again.
...
Bible story time!
Who is Jezebel?

It's one of the most vivid and violent stories in the Old Testament. I read it constantly when I was a little girl.  Jezebel is married to Ahab, who covets a man's land. Ahab dithers so his wife strategizes to steal the land, kill the owner and make the land a gift to Ahab. The prophet Elijah forsees doom because of their sin and when the kingdom is attacked, Ahab dies in battle and Elijah orders Jehu to find Jezebel and throw her from the highest tower. The dogs lick her blood and eat her body, leaving only her hands, feet and head - the tools that schemed, wrote the order and delivered the gift to Ahab. 

And....that's who sexually impure women are supposed to be: scheming, murderous, manipulative sluts who deserve to be thrown off a tower and eaten by dogs.

(Think I'm exaggerating? Church folk interpret this story exactly like this.)

a very cool shout out to this blog!

Thanks so much for reader Pamela, who gave me a heads up about this:
SmallChangeFund.org My Earth Day Wish? For Stories to Flourish!

It's great to see all the thinking prompted by Chimamanda Adichie's presentation.

My exRoomie also loved Adichie's story and we were talking last night about how it started her thinking about the complexities of our stories and how this should build empathy and hope between us. (Or something like that - we had a few apple beers.)

Anyway, if you're interested in being a donor that cares about more than one story, I'd start with the Small Change Fund.

the limits of the single story

This is so perfect, I don't want to ruin it with my prattling: People of colour are not a story of suffering . . . Or resistance. « Restructure!

We should be familiar with the 'single story' told by our most familiar -isms: racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, cisism, etc.

But:

What is the 'single story' that feminism tells?
What is the 'single story' of our national identity?
What is the 'single story' of your city or town?
What is the 'single story' of your religion or political party?
(Even the Tea Party has a 'single story' being told by the MSM and others.)

What is the 'single story' of your work - especially if you work for a non profit human services organization?

This is not a weird question: the 'single story' most orgs tell is of the broken down - nevermind the agency that these populations have shown, or that these populations very well might have their own stories to tell. But the 'single story' we tell about these populations is a direct product of the racial/class power and privilege of those of us who work in these orgs.

A friend of mine recently confronted this single story issue when she was preparing a proposal for a large corporate donor for one of our service areas. She was in the middle of writing it when something began to niggle at her. The whole thing felt wrong. The women we were purporting to serve weren't in it at all. It was all stats and 'statements of need' that made it seem like the west side of Chicago was just a bombed out crater, where women wandered the streets begging for bread and children lived in boxes. It was a standard grant narrative that painted the worst picture, without any room for self-determination, agency or stories other than the one we told of poverty levels, literacy rates and lack.

So my friend retooled her proposal to make that niggling itch go away.

It's significant to note that my friend is a woman of color (it is.) And when the proposal was reviewed by a non person of color, the shift in frame was immediately noted - and instantly edited. My friend was told that the single story of women's experiences on the west side is the preferred story to donors - this is the reality that needs to be made even more starkly solid, and repeated everywhere we go, and to everyone we solicit.

The voice of our org, therefore, must reflect "No possibility of feelings more complex than pity." We must reify, no matter how problematic, unfair or racist, a power and privilege that has "the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person."

As a writer I know that I've been guilty of telling only one story. It's an easy shorthand to fall into, especially if this is the way one's sector works. I don't quite know how to end this post except to hope that those of us who are privileged to be in the position to tell the stories of others take our storytelling seriously - and resist the impulse to tell them singly.

in the weeds

I am a Bruin from the early 90s. I went to UCLA at the apotheosis of Derrida, the battles for ethnic studies, Bloomian debates about the value of multiculturalism, the identity wars, the canon wars, and the LA Riots/Uprising.


Two events stood out for me during that time: my introduction to semiotics and becoming a AAP tutor for first generation students of color. (If there are old Bruins of color out there from the 90s, give a shout out if you were AAP, too.) The two events stand out because they reinforced each other.


I remember reading some text, about Saussure, explaining the signifier, the signified, the sign and how this can be a lens through which to create meaning, or interpret meaning, in the world and it was like that moment in The Matrix, when Neo could finally see the code running behind everything. It was the concept of systems of meaning, of 'hidden' ideologies and values that fascinated me. It was glorious play to break down the semiotic system of the Western, for instance; or to disassemble the semiotic system of a Vogue magazine. Lay over this a growing gendered and racial politicization through hanging out with feminist and proud brown undergrad and grad student tutors in AAP (who could even politicize math) and suddenly my way of looking at the world changed.


Like Paul on Damascus, my scales had fallen away.


There are no accidents, my reading taught me. There is no 'But, it's just a monkey!' Because the chain of signification doesn't end with the word or image 'monkey.' Every piece of the sign has its own signifier and signified, and these bits have cultural histories and meanings of their own. The words and images are fraught with ideological, culturally hegemonic meaning; for something to be without value or meaning, its conception would need never to happen.


It is sheer mental laziness that people cannot ask simple critical questions about what is going on around them:

What does this mean (both literally and ideologically?)
Where is this coming from?
What is the value system manifested by this event/image/language, etc.?
Where do I meet these values?
Where do these values come from? (what is the context?)
Who wants me to agree with these values and meanings?
Who benefits from my agreement?
Who doesn't?


From my Tweets, you can probably tell I've been taking a look at the Van Jones resignation and the rhetoric that led to his resignation.

What does this resignation mean? It means several things. It
means that we lost an important policy maker and progressive on the frontline of
green economies and policy; it means that it will be that much harder to bring
green economic empowerment to urban (i.e., of color) communities; it means that,
once again, a smart man was brought low (however temporarily) by mediocre minds
beneath him.

From the opposing side, it means that the Big Black Buck stereotype
works.

It also means that the progressive movement is wearing a target on its
front.

Where did this come from? It came from Glenn Beck who has lost all
his major advertising sponsors because of the petition campaign waged by
ColorofChange (of which Jones was a founder) in protest to his white supremacist
remarks about President Obama. He, and other conservative hosts, drew a
target on Jones and went for it.

What is being valued? In the action against Jones, racial
stereotypes, racialized anxiety about communists and militants and 'un-American'
behavior is in play. In the larger political drama, the values of the
status quo are firmly supported.

Where do I meet these values? They bother me, deeply. Beck's
campaign was as big an example of race-baiting that I've ever seen.

(Let's pause here: what distinguishes the campaign that ColorofChange
launched against Beck and the one Beck ran against Jones? Ideological
honesty. ColorofChange is an anti-racism and racial justice organization;
Beck's language was identified as supporting the ideas of white supremacy and
they petitioned sponsors to distance themselves. Were Beck's words white
supremacist? Yes. In contrast, Beck's campaign was fabricated out of whole cloth
- both the rationale for it and the claims made in it. Would he admit his attack was racially motivated? No. But it is, because no other explanation has merit.)

Where do these values come from? They come from long-standing white
supremacist history and practice of demonizing people of color who threaten the
perceived status quo or current power structure.

Who wants me to agree with these values? The side Beck fights
for. Those whose interests would not be met by a green economy benefitting
poor communities and communities of color. Those whose interests would not be met by a successful Obama administration.

Who benefits from my agreement? The side Beck fights for. Those
whose interests would not be met by a green economy benefitting poor communities
and communities of color. Those who have an interest in a failed Obama administration.

Who doesn't? Those outside the power structure Beck supports.
(meaning: the rest of us)

Systems are systems. But they aren't impersonal systems. They come from us and we, whether we're talking about race or gender or sexuality or class, have a choice to support the system, to critique the system and/or to dismantle it. (If that's even possible.)

The Van Jones action, and others planned by men like Dobbs, Beck and Limbaugh, has made me look closely at the continuing activities of the GOP and their operators against this administration. It's hard to find what's redeeming about them, anymore.

Do they really want to become (in the words of Tim Wise) the Afrikaner party of the United States? Do they want that? Do they really want to hang a sign on this country that says 'For Whites Only'?

Because if that's what they want, we should call it what it is.

busted: my knee and race relations

I sat in the Northwestern ER for 3 hours yesterday because I misjudged the distance between a curb, a flowerbed and a sidewalk at 2 am on Sunday morning. I fell, bounced and landed so hard on the edge of a concrete step, a divot of flesh was wedged from my knee and I barely avoided smashing my kneecap.

Some moments from the past 48 hours:

Sitting in my kitchen, both of us ready for bed, my leg in his lap, while we both look at my divoted knee, getting totally grossed out at all the bloody flesh. He looks up and says, 'It'll be ok, babe.'
I say, 'I might need stitches.'
He says, 'Do you want to go to the ER?'
I say, 'No...it can't be that bad, right?' Despite how wrong we both were, it strikes me that, other than my parents and my very close friends, no one has taken care of me before. Correction: I have not allowed anyone to take care of me.

Post-makeshift bandage, kissing in my kitchen, while the thought runs through my head that blood or no, busted knee or no, there is always room for a frolic.

The next afternoon, hobbling and exhausted after 3 hours in the ER, hearing a knock at my door and there's M- on his bike who dropped by to check on me and feeling a little, 'awww!'

And before the fall (heh), waiting for my hot dog at the Portage Theater during the monster flick triple feature, while M- runs into an acquaintance and hearing him introduce me as his girlfriend.

A milestone? Or is it a milestone when *I* start introducing him as my boyfriend, instead of 'my friend, M-'?
...
In other, more serious, news that has nothing to do with Ding's new relationship, here's a post on the Gates/Crowley Affair from the Tenured Radical about the 'danger' posed by white folks. (Thanks to SybilV's Tweet at Bitch, Ph.D.)

This whole thing has only made it obvious to me that conversations about 'race,' 'race relations', etc. are woefully uneven and won't ever get to any useful point because, frankly, we're all at different reading levels. It has also made it clear that the training I received from UCLA re: semiotics comes in handy. Because when we talk about race, we are really talking about conflicting systems of knowledge and conflicting mythologies that form the foundation of that knowledge.

There is a mythology (of history, of human interactions, of experience) that most North American white people unblinkingly buy into and which people of color (unless they have been privileged by class - and even then, only very rarely) have never had the luxury to believe.

Like, the policemen are our friends. Or, Bridgeport is a perfectly nice community to live in. Or, missionaries just want to read the bible to you and give you blankets. Things like that.

Using Pat Buchanan as an extreme example, there won't be any common ground wrt race relations until we first see the Buchanan mythology of America as intrinsically flawed, one-dimensional and, at its core, the product of white supremacist ideology. Or, if that phrasing makes one uncomfortable, then perhaps White Racial Frame is more palatable.

(what Feminism 101 does for basic feminist discourse, RacismReview does for academic studies of race/anti-racist work and is a gem of a site if you're honestly interested in anti-racist discourse.)

I remember using one of Pat Buchanan's early essays about the 'manifest destiny' of America, waay back in the early 90s, as an extreme tool to challenge the idea of 'neutral' values (as well as provide the ideological backdrop of cowboy narratives.) Values are never neutral. Some ideology, or interest, is at play. And, frankly, since the White Racial Frame constitutes the foundation of our western culture it is, unfortunately, everywhere. Right thinking people naturally distance themselves from a Buchanan because he is so blisteringly and overtly racist (and his Southern accent doesn't help) but fail to see the how the White Racial Frame invisibly informs our culture and our experiences and, consequently, makes them complicit in disseminating it.

Which brings me back to the Gates/Crowley Affair. Listening to our national media, and the pundits - as well as the folks around here - speak so simplistically about it makes me think that, unless all parties get on the same page, 'talking about race' with most non-people of color will continue to be like speaking to a Stockholm Syndrome victim.

'responsibility' has more than one face

Hip Hop Leaders: Jesse Jackson’s Time Up | RaceWire

Two things:
1 - This is the reason why Season 1 of the Real World was the shit and they should have stopped there: Kevin Powell is running for Congress!

2 - I wonder if Powell and Nas, as the 'new' faces of black activism/accountability, are what folks think of when they deflect the conversation away from white privilege with 'when are black people going to start taking responsibility' waah waah waah whine whine whine?

Meaning, I think folks have a different picture in mind when they start saying, before we start unpacking white privilege, black folks should get their act together. (See Bill Cosby, whose talks about what's affecting various black communities never addresses structural issues.)

When they say 'get their act together' what are they talking about?

In my opinion, I think they're talking about conformity to a bourgeois/middle class identity. (And, no, I'm not talking about 'talking white.') I'm talking about the not so subtle codes that comprise middle class ideology: heterosexual normativity, 'bootstrap'/rampant individualism mythology, appropriate Judeo-Christian religious conformity (without any hint of liberation theology to it, and don't even think about being a part of the Nation), law and order obedience and a firm belief in, and support of, capitalism and its tools.

While middle class ideology has such an unshakeable belief in the Self it forgets that the Self comes handily wrapped in a colored skin. Middle class ideology, unfortunately, assumes we're all white. It is, in fact, built on the premise of white skin privilege and the access that white supremacy can bestow.

Now, turning this lens briefly to myself, I won't say that I, a brown woman, don't faintly resemble what I've just described. However, I am not unaware of niggling and persistent social structures that act as barriers for everyone to achieve the middle class dream. Let's call one such social barrier, oh, INSTITUTIONAL RACISM. If we begin to look at the world through this lens (and it's difficult and burdensome to do so because you start realizing that there is a lot of problematic shit all around you), then you begin to see (white) middle class ideology as a luxurious myth that's available to some people but not really to all, despite whatever aspiration they might have toward it.

I'm wandering a little. Let me go back to the RaceWire post, showing two very different young black men addressing black political identity and agency in different ways. Actually, there are 3 black men here:

Kevin Powell, Gen X writer, activist and candidate for public office. He is progressive, inclusive and looks good in a suit. He, presumably (and because I remember my Real World 1), listens to hip hop and is 'down.' Is he what black responsibility looks like?

NAS, hip hop artist and someone I'd never heard of before a month ago. (Shrug. I never liked carrying that black card, anyway.) His latest album was previously titled the N-word and he, uh, apparently has some strong opinions about the direction of his community:

"His time is up. All you old n---as, time is up. We heard your voice, we saw your marching, we heard your sermons. We don't wanna hear that sh-- no more. It's a new day. It's a new voice. I'm here now. We don't need Jesse; I'm here. I got this. We got Barack, we got David Banners and Young Jeezys. We're the voice now. It's no more Jesse. Sorry. Goodbye. You ain't helping nobody in the 'hood. That's the bottom line. Goodbye, Jesse. Bye!"

Is Nas black responsibility?

And the aforementioned Jesse Jackson, Sr., bogeyman for white conservatives and FOX News, the blurter of bigoted epithets and iambic pentameter-spouting symbol of a (bygone?) civil rights era. Likes to march a lot. We've already seen what Jesse has to offer. (Poor Jesse.)

I guess I'm asking if folks - the folks being asked in all these polls about their comfort with a black president and being asked if racism was really over and being asked what needs to happen for racism to go away without being asked about their own white privilege - would really want to see black self-empowerment and self-determination if that same empowerment was really politicized, conscious and aware that the myth of middle class aspiration isn't enough if you don't address our country's institutionalized race and ethnicity issues, among our other issues.

(Like upended dominoes covering a floor, one toppled piece must impact others.)

I mean, if there was a black leader leading a movement that really understood intersectionality and not just accumulating or accommodating power (like Jackson or Sharpton, easy targets, both of them), wouldn't that mean serious critiques of, and serious work against, our current power structure would have to take place? And wouldn't that mean that those who benefit from that power structure - those who are primarily privileged by it - are also implicated in that critique?

I guess I wonder if people really know what they're asking for when they call for a 'responsible' black community because, to me, a responsible black community is one that's grounded in politics, history and tradition - and its own interests, not necessarily the interests of the larger society. I'm not sure if this means a complete inward consideration, a kind of community self-hibernation while we work to change things, or something not so scary for other folks.

(Which reminds me of something my friend Prof. A- would say to me: 'Girl, there ain't nothing scarier than a black man with a degree.')

Responsibility perhaps isn't what people think it is. (And let's face it; our country does not have the greatest track record dealing with communities of color exercising self-determination, know what I mean?) For whom is the black community responsible? To whom or what is the black community, or the various black communities that exist, responsible? From where I sit, it's not the folks who want us to get our act together before addressing theirs.

I don't know. I'm just asking questions.

not far enough

it's thursday and i really must get some work done so i'll just throw up some links to some articles i think you should read against one another.

Liking What White People Like - TIME is a rather soft piece that falls apart a little trying to problematize the word 'white.' or something.

then we have the blog Stuff White People Do, which takes a slightly different view of the 'empowering' laughter at white culture.

at the same blog, there's a post up about the 'mask' of whiteness that, though i think it could have gone a little deeper, touches on an aspect of white performativity that is very different from What White People Like ever imagined. (it also has a rather revealing clip of a very angry woman who, perhaps, might want to rethink some things.)

and then there is this, Tim Wise's strongly-worded post about that very mask of whiteness slipping in some circles. (is Wise's tone a bit sharp? yes. how else to get people to pay attention to anti-racism work?) there is a (very) brief discussion of it on Bitch PhD, but it's funny how the whole whiteness conversation gets swallowed by a discussions of gender, class and a 'heard it before' discussion of electoral strategy.

anyway, carry on.

not so funny now, huh?

stuff white people do is not stuff white people like.

where the latter is mild satire, poking fun at a certain class of white folks, SWPD is a blog where the writer lays down some serious posts about white privilege and the funnies are...rare.

personally, i love it. it's so much better for my blood pressure when white folks say things i get tired of pointing out. if only there would be a post about from a white person why it's bad to be too preoccupied with a black woman's hair...oh, wait. there is.

via Alas, a Blog, here is a really good post (and scary photo) on whiteness and trustworthiness that says things i have only ever said to other people of color: i don't expect much from white folk.

('but, ding,' you say. 'you have white friends!' indeed. my really close white friends are, to me, exceptions - in much the same way white people have said to me: 'oh, ding, you're not like other black people.')

but for every other white person, when it comes to race and identity issues, i set the bar waaaaay down here. why? cuz y'all's track record ain't so good.

from his post:
"Most of the people reading this blog believe that it’s racist and unfair to mistrust a black person, simply because he or she is black. And I agree. But as I’ll try to show here, in most cases it’s actually realistic, not racist, for a black person to withhold trust from a white person. This is because black people tend to know more about white people than white people do about black people. And what they tend to know is that white people who haven’t untrained themselves can be annoying, and even dangerous."

read the post. read the whole blog, actually.
you won't chuckle but you'll learn something.

my nappy nappy hair

'Glamour' Editor To Lady Lawyers: Being Black Is Kinda A Corporate "Don't" - Jezebel

1. does that even look like latifah on the cover??
2. i thought a secret memo went out to everyone - don't tell a black woman what she should/shouldn't do with her hair. period.*

and 3. really, Glamour, really??

[*since i'm always telling folks to pick up a frakking book before asking really stupid questions, here's a selected bibliography on the politics of black hair, taken from Kitchen Tales: Black Hair and the Tension between Individual Subjectivity and Collective Identity, Shawan M. Wade:

Ashe, Bertram D. “Why Don't He Like My Hair?: Constructing African-American Standards of Beauty in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.” African American Review 29.4 (1995): 579-592.
Banks, Ingrid. Hair Matters: Beauty, Power and Black Women's Consciousness. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Benthall, Jonathan, and Ted Polhemus, eds. The Body as a Medium of Expression. London: Allen Lane Penguin Books, 1975.
Bundles, A' Lelia. On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker. New York: Scribner, 2001.
Byrd, Ayana, and Lori Tharps. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001.
Cade-Bambara, Toni. The Black Woman: An Anthology. New York: Penguin Books, 1970.
Chinzera, Ayoka. Hairpiece: A Film for Nappy-Headed People. 1982.
Clarke, Cheryl. Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women. Second ed. New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983.
Cleage, Pearl. “Hairpeace.” African American Review 27.1 (Spring 1993): 37-42.
Cobbs, William H. and Price M Grier. Black Rage. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968.
Craig, Maxine. “The Decline and the Fall of the Conk; or, How to Read a Process.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 1.4 (December 1997): 3999-419.
Davis, Angela Y. “Afro Images: Politics, Fashion and Nostalgia.” Critical Inquiry 21 (Autumn 1994): 37-45.
Dent, Gina, ed. Black Popular Culture. Seattle: Bay Press, 1992.
Driskell, Murray and James E Webster. “Beauty as Status.” American Journal of Sociology 89.1 (July 1983): 140-165.
Gates, Henry Louis. “The Trope of a New Negro and the Reconstruction of the Image of the Black.” Representations 0.24 (Autumn 1988): 129-155.
Gayle, Addison, ed. The Black Aesthetic. Garden City: Double Day and Company, Inc., 1971.
Harris, Juliette, ed. Tenderheaded: A Comb-Bending Collection of Hair Stories. New York: Pocket Books, 2001.
hooks, bell. “Appearance Obsession: Is the Price too High?” Essence August 1995: 69-73.
hooks, bell. “Back to Black: Ending Internalized Racism.” Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. New York: Routledge, 1994. 173-182.
Kelley, Robin D.G. “Nap Time: Historicizing the Afro.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 1.4 (December 1997): 339-351.
Mercer, Kobena. “Black Hair/Style Politics.” Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures. Eds. Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Cornel West. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990.
O'Neill, John. Sociology as a Skin Trade. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1972.
Piess, Kathy. Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture. New York: Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company, 1998.
Riggs, Marlon. Black Is, Black Ain't. 1995.
Rooks, Noliwe M. Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996.
Rushing, Andrea Benton. “Hair-Raising.” Feminist Studies 14.2 (Summer 1988): 325-336.
Sagay, Esi. African Hairstyles: Styles of Yesterday and Today. London: Heinemann, 1983.
Smith, Feilpe. American Body Politics: Race, Gender, and Black Literary Renaissance. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1998.
Ture, Kwame and Charles Hamilton. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. New York: Random House, 1967.
Tyler, Bruce M. “Black Hairstyles: Cultural and Socio-political Implications.” The Western Journal of Black Studies 14.4 (1990): 235-250.
Wade-Gayles, Gloria. “The Making of a Permanent Afro.” Pushed Back to Strength: A Black Woman's Journey Home. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
Walker, Alice. “Oppressed Hair Puts A Ceiling on the Brain.” Living by the Word. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1988. 69-74.
Ward, Margo Okazawa-Rey and Tracie Robinson and Janie Victoria. “Black Women and the Politics of Skin Color and Hair.” Women Studies Quarterly 14.1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 1986): 13-14.
Welsh-Asante, Kariamu, ed. The African Aesthetic: Keeper of the Traditions. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993.
White, Shane and Graham White. Stylin': African American Expressive Culture from its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Willis, Susan. “I Shop Therefore I Am: Is there a Place for Afro-American Culture in Commodity Culture?” Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women. Ed. Cheryl A. Wall. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989. 173-195.
Wolfe, George C. “The Hairpiece.” The Colored Museum. New York: Grove Press, 1988. 19-23.

or you can just search 'black hair politics' in google scholar and see for yourself.]

Orange Tangerine: Skinny girls

this post from Orange reminded me of a reality tv show with petra nemcova called a model life in which she hand picks 6 very young girls to put them through their paces while dangling a modeling contract in front of them as a prize.

on the surface it's a less campy version of America's Next Top Model; it's supposed to have a gushy heart at its center but i think the heart that beats inside this show is more of the same hard-nosed misogyny that makes up the whole of the fashion industry. (and the more i watch shows like this, that hardened, cynical, sexist face becomes more visible.)

while the people who inhabit the world of NEXT modeling are, in typical fashion, shallow and bitchy, there is a level of conscious hatred for natural female bodies that seeps through and makes my mouth purse in a really distasteful moue. the two 'handlers' for the girls end every show with stern words of advice for the week's winners and losers ("your photo shoot went really well and you can really pose" or "you're stiff and need to do whatever the photographer tells you") but they also enjoy a private review session that is an object lesson in How to Make a Woman Hate Herself (a paraphrase):

[two unlovely new yorkers looking at a photo of a pretty girl in a red bathing suit showing lots of cleavage]

BitchyBritishGuy: ugh. lucy. she's cute - incredible eyes - but there's just nothing there. she's so bland.
BlackBitchyGirl: yeah. she's just...ok. and her body...
BBGuy: yeah, a lump. unacceptable. she really needs to tone up.
BBGirl: yeah. she needs to learn that if she wants to make it in this business her body has to be really...you know.
BBGuy: yeah. fashionable. we have to want to wear the clothes. but i look at her body and all i see are curves and tits. unsubtle.
BBGirl: exactly. we need to see the clothes. she needs to learn that. let's tell her to get with a trainer, like, immediately. we need to take care of it. NOW.

[photo switches to pale genocide victim in a bathing suit]

BBGuy: well, no curves to speak of here. love it.
BBGirl: me too. she photographs so high fashion. this might not be the best suit for her but it still screams 'editorial', you know?
BBGuy: exactly. she's so unusual looking. you'd think it wouldn't work but it does. we should bring her in and tell her to keep doing what she's doing. i can't wait to see how she progresses.
BBGirl: me too.

[they smirk at each other]

the most disturbing thing about this show is its cognitive dissonance. maybe it's not cognitive dissonance. maybe it's just plain hypocrisy. the industry folks clearly prefer the two most sickly looking girls because they photograph 'high fashion' but are brutal to one girl because she's a (gasp) out of shape size 2; even so, they make a feeble stab at encouraging 'healthy' body images.

in an earlier episode, the woefully thin michelle was berated by their fitness trainer for having the lowest BMI he'd ever seen and lucy was declared 'perfect' for having a BMI that fit in her range for her height, weight and age. michelle insists she's normal and has always been like this (which she may be but it's not the point) and lucy is excited that she received approval. but by the end of the episode, fashion reasserts itself (not normalcy) and we see lucy chastised for being 'out of shape' and borderline fat while michelle moves up the list of frontrunners.

in this horrifically crazy world, size 2 = horrifically obese and unacceptable.
where can women go if a 2 is considered obese??

i don't think this whole thing can be laid wholly at the feet of those who choose or 'create' the image of the model. the designer is an active collaborator. while part of me (the part that watched Project Runway) can sympathize with the practical struggle to make fabric hang in a pleasing way, we need to stop using the designer's struggle as an excuse to shield an industry that consistently proffers a really whacked image of female bodies. the designer has no concept of women, real or otherwise. and any enterprise that ellides the presence of the woman i call misogynist and patriarchal.

their vision (and ours as well because we see through their lens) is becoming skewed in such a way i'm afraid the designers, critics and all the attendant folks in the fashion industry won't be satisfied until there's just a hank of hair and a pelvic bone moving down the runway.

Orange Tangerine: Skinny girls

bad mommy monday: celebs have moms, too

over on Church Gal, i wrote this morning about a piece in the nyt mag on family leave and workplace discrimination and how it focuses on working mothers (though working fathers are also targets).

then i came across this article in the style section. (note: really good articles on gender and society can be found in the style pages, i think.)

it's more on the way our culture judges and scrutinizes mothers - even celebs' mommies:

But the amount of derision directed at mothers seems out of proportion.
“We still have a virgin-whore binary in American pop culture, and this governs motherhood as well,” Professor Douglas said. The same way in which girls are labeled either good or bad, so are mothers. The same level of censure does not seem to apply to sons, whose risky behavior is often seen as merely a rite of passage.
Professor Douglas thinks the reproach directed at some celebrities’ mothers speaks to the particular kinds of lessons that mothers are supposed to teach their daughters — lessons Lindsay, Britney and Paris seem not to have learned. “It’s supposed to be a mother’s job to train her daughter into how to domesticate her various desires,” she said. “If we see a young woman who hasn’t done that, the mother has failed her tutorial.”

i love that phrase: 'domesticate her various desires.' good mothers are supposed to teach us how to tame desire, make them homey, safe, appropriate. let's put a frilly apron on those rampant desires and make them 'feminine.' i also like the connection the piece makes to bourgeois class values and idealizations of womanhood. so victorian.

and it's clear that these attitudes aren't just fodder for literary or academic smart-assery; if you go to these different gossip sites (where female judgment runs rampant), you'll read that these lessons about appropriate motherly/daughterly behavior are well-ingrained and often-expressed. (though, apparently, easily discarded, as well.) whether we like to admit it, we LIKE judging other women, women's behavior, women's mothers and their behaviors. it's the first place we go to when we wanna snark on someone.

but, as the article notes, scrutiny of the father and of sons is avoided - and perhaps this is a serious cultural oversight. where is the surveillance of fatherly behavior? where is the constant preying on the behavior of sons gone bad?

(where is the chastising of joe francis' parentage, for instance? why has his home training gone unnoticed, while the parenting skills of the girls he preys on becomes fodder for vicious speculation? i.e., 'what kind of parent would allow their underage daughter to go to spring break blah blah blah?' come on. you know you've said it. i have.)

how would our popular discourse change if we, for instance, began to take a hyper-close look at sports figures and their daddy issues? (or their absent daddy issues?) would we say that doping and cheating and violence and dog-fighting and sexual assault could be laid at the feet of these athletes' fathers? (even if the fathers aren't present, their absence IS a presence, one could argue.)

but no. that's not as much fun as looking at a woman self-destruct and then blaming her mother. so much better to kick a woman than scrutinize a man.

Sometimes Mothers Can Do No Right - New York Times

from behind the iron curtain: dowd on michelle obama

i don't know why, but MoDo consistently pisses me off.

like, what's the point of this column? the rezko deal? michelle obama ain't as great as everybody thinks she is?

have you noticed she does this with every single candidate's wife? she takes women who, in real life, would actually be pretty cool to know and then suddenly, because they're the candidate's wife, paints them as fake, emasculating Lady MacBeths who can't really be trusted to stick to the 'spin.' or they've somehow fallen down on the job of being 'wife.' or, now, they're just wrong, for some reason.

what's her deal? what would it take to actually make maureen dowd say about a candidate's wife who isn't the quiet smiling type, 'hm. she's ok.' her snittiness, makes me want to write dowd a letter and say, 'for the love of god, get a boyfriend already!' i know. you don't have to tell me how wrong and sexist that is. but what the frak is her problem??

anyway, the article is below:

She’s Not Buttering Him Up
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 25, 2007

WASHINGTON

Usually, I love the dynamics of a cheeky woman puncturing the ego of a cocky guy.

I liked it in ’40s movies, and I liked it with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel, and Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis in “Moonlighting.”

So why don’t I like it with Michelle and Barack?

I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal — a comic routine that rests on the presumption that we see him as a god.

The tweaking takes place at fundraisers, where Michelle wants to lift the veil on their home life a bit and give the folks their money’s worth.

At the big Hollywood fund-raiser for Senator Obama in February, Michelle came on strong.

“I am always a little amazed at the response that people get when they hear from Barack,” she told the crowd at the Beverly Hilton, as her husband stood by looking like a puppy being scolded, reported Hud Morgan of Men’s Vogue. “A great man, a wonderful man. But still a man. ...

“I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There’s Barack Obama the phenomenon. He’s an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right?

“And then there’s the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy’s a little less impressive. For some reason this guy still can’t manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn’t get stale, and his 5-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is.”

She said that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she’d like to meet him sometime.

Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband — under fire for lacking experience — as an undisciplined child.

At a March fund-raiser in New York, she tweaked her husband for not “putting his socks actually in the dirty clothes.”

And at a lunch last week with Chicago women, she gave the candidate a fed-up look about that melting butter and said, “I’m like: ‘You’re just asking for it. You know I’m giving a speech about you today.’ ”

She throws in nice stuff, too, about how he’s “the real deal” and a trustworthy “brother.” But this princess of South Chicago, a formidable Princeton and Harvard Law School grad, wants us to know that she’s not polishing the pedestal.

The Chicago Tribune profile of “Barack’s Rock” on Sunday noted that her career had caused her husband discomfort: “Critics have pointed out that her income has risen along with her husband’s political ascent. She sits on the board of a food company that supplies Wal-Mart, which Sen. Obama has denounced for its labor practices.”

The Obamas are both skeptical of hype. Michelle dryly told a reporter at her husband’s Senate swearing-in that perhaps someday, he would do something to earn all the attention he was getting.

But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam J.F.K. into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffins. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk the mystique?

Besides, the coolly detached candidate, striving to seem substantive, is good at turning down the heat himself. He manages to tamp down crowds dying to be electrified. He resists surfing his own wave of excitement.

Michelle conveys the appealing idea that she will tell her husband when he’s puffed up or out of line. She aims high — she ordered her husband to stop puffing on cigarettes as he started campaigning. But then, why didn’t she see the red flags on the Rezko deal?

In order to get a bigger yard for their new house on Chicago’s South Side in 2005, the Obamas got into what the senator now confesses was a “boneheaded” real estate arrangement with a sleazy political dealmaker named Tony Rezko, who has been indicted on influence-peddling charges.

On Monday, The Chicago Sun-Times reported more shady Rezko news: “Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko’s low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems,” from a lack of heat to no lack of drug dealers and squatters.

Mr. Obama riposted that “it wasn’t brought to my attention.” But isn’t that where a dazzling, tough, smart and connected wife could help a guy out?

yeah, i'm successful: i'm wearing silky panties

Speaking Chic to Power - New York Times

in addition to my brown silky bikini panties, i'm also wearing a matching lacy brown bra underneath a sheer silk blouse, which is underneath a black nipped in blazer on top of a crisp pair of black boot cut trousers. on my feet, a pair of black/white plaid, kitten heel flats with a scarlet rhinestone buckle. (it seems gaudy, but you have to see these shoes - they're cute as hell.)

and what did i have to do today (nay, this week)?
plan/organize a board meeting for this morning, take minutes, manage the board members, set up/break down; juggle various presentations, senior managers, consultants, vendors, logistics, agendas, materials for a staff retreat; remain cheerful, supportive and efficient; take my knocks and step up when things didn't go as planned, much to my CEO's displeasure, and basically make sure that everything, by hell or high water, got frakking done for 150 people tomorrow (for whom i will be up at the crack of dawn again, onsite, helping the facilitation team, getting our bill paid and smoothing over whatever gaps/cracks appear over the course of one very long, arduous day.) am i successful? i'd like to think so.

now.
what do my panties have to do with any of that?
apparently, a lot, if you take this article seriously.

from the article:
“You don’t have to grow up to look like a librarian,” said Lauren Solomon, founder and director of LS Image Associates, which has clients in the corporate and political fields. “But you don’t have to look like a hooker, either.”

nice. librarian/hooker. these are our choices when we're women of substance. clearly our media is still new to the idea that there are thousands of women in our offices and universities, hospitals and courhouses who manage to avoid this nonsensical binary every single day.

why women ain't funny: our uterus sucks out all the funny

Adam Ash: Christopher Hitchens explains why women aren't funny

have you read the hitchens piece about why women aren't funny (faithfully reproduced on adam ash's space)? it's a doozy. shorter hitchens: women aren't funny because mommies are never funny.

that's right; for hitchens, every woman is a nagging, churchy, fecund, humorless, authority-loving priss just dying to kill the funny. in other words, vagina dentata. that toothy vijayjay inhibits everything that makes men funny - irreverence, irreligion, rebellion, and defiance. we're too soft, too emotional, too serious, too dreamy, and too damn biological to be funny.

(however, if we're fat, dykey or jewish, we've apparently got funny to spare.)

never in my life have i laughed as hard, snorted or accidentally farted than when i'm with my girlfriends telling them the latest B- disaster or listening to what happened at so-and-so's birthday party/wedding, or reading the sharply worded, hilarious emails sent from various scattered family domiciles while we're trapped in hometowns for the holidays. (i remember one string of christmas emails from roomie, A- and J- that had me snorting and blowing wine all over my dad's laptop. 'the baby jesus blows!')

women don't like dirty or crude? hitchens, we could make you guzzle a whole bottle of Hendricks with tales of monstrous blood clots, menstrual disasters, catastrophic sexual encounters, embarassing visits to the doctor, the unfortunate thing that happened at grandma's funeral and the reason why sometimes my friends call me Puddles. there's nothing dirtier or cruder than a bunch of women hopped up on tequila, my friend. nothing. (just ask what a bridal party did to the cowboy troubadour they hired then drunkenly held captive until they finally released him, shaking and traumatized, the following day.)

women can't be funny in the face of death? too bad hitchens wasn't at my roomie's mother's funeral this past summer. the tears were expected; the guffaws halfway through my roomie's speech were a welcome surprise. it takes guts, strength and a finely tuned sensibility to get a whole church full of mourning midwesterners to give up the funny.

his tone wavers between 'admiration' of our inherent biological/moral authority over men and a smarmy castigation of it but what's most clear is that hitchens (and other men who always seem to ask these dumbass questions) has never really eavesdropped on a real conversation between groups of women. or maybe it's because he only knows neurotic white women. (expose yourself to a little diversity and suddenly you have a lot of funny.)

neurotic women aren't funny. confident, self-aware women are funny. women willing to look ridiculous are funny. women willing to point out the ridiculous and the neurotic in others are funny. women who tell the truth are funny. women in touch with their anger are funny. (bitter, but funny.) oh, we're funny, alright. just depends on who's listening to us.

is he kidding? jonah goldberg can kiss my minority ass.

so here's his piece: Racism by another name is `diversity' | Chicago Tribune

and here's mine (perhaps to appear in a newspaper near you sometime soon):

Mr. Goldberg is probably correct; if all children, across all economic and racial strata, had access to the basic building blocks for stability - adequate housing, nutrition, health care, family support and quality early childhood education from the start - then perhaps affirmative action would be moot. But we all know that hasn’t happened, yet, and perhaps Mr. Goldberg should look outside his own privileged background and take a reality check.

While we work towards a level playing field – and to date, other than to suggest black people should be happy with less challenging schools, Mr. Goldberg hasn’t offered a single recommendation how to make that happen – let’s ask ourselves what our universities and colleges would look like without affirmative action now?

To answer that question let's look at California; ten years since affirmative action was banned in California minority enrollment at the state’s best schools has plummeted. In 2000, nine African American first year law students enrolled at UC Berkely; in 1996, that number was twenty. University-wide numbers show that since 1995, African-American undergraduate enrollment dropped to 4,780 from 5,016 while white enrollment remained steady, hovering in the 50-55,000 area; in 2005 at UC Berkely alone, there were only 829 African-American students enrolled compared to the 1,200 back in 1995. In contrast, during that same period, White student enrollment remained steady.

If the white student population has not been significantly affected, why call for less opportunity for students of color? (It's not true that if you make room for Black Joe you take away from White Tom. In fact, what you've just done is make White Tom the default.)

There was a hope that eliminating affirmative action would force us to change the way we pipeline underrepresented students into higher education – we hoped that improved K-12 education would eliminate the need for so-called racial preferences. But that hasn’t happened, either. Disadvantaged school districts still lack the AP classes and counseling necessary to boost even their top students’ GPAs to the level of a student from a more privileged school district. In addition, recruiting students of color is now illegal under the California law, making it even harder to put students of color in the pipeline for higher education. And so, ten years after the California Prop 209 initiative, we can see that the desired affect has been reached; there are practically no students of color on any UC campus and Michigan wants to do the same thing in their state.

(Of course, Michigan also has a long tradition of being a racially segregated state so perhaps they're just going back to their roots. After all, it is one of the remaining states with bunches of sunset towns still operating in them.)

The privileges of the upper/middle class should be enjoyed by everyone. While affirmative action is an effective tool to give access to opportunity to students who need it, it's important to continue to ensure historically underrepresented populations have those basic building blocks necessary for a full and autonomous life – economic stability, family stability, physical and educational stability.

Maybe those who don’t like affirmative action can work on that.

the guy behind 'girls gone wild': nutbag freak

the la times piece on joe francis is great.

talk about holding up a skeevy mirror to a guy who has a lot of influence in shaping young male sexual identity:

In short, Francis wants to insinuate himself and his view of the world into the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the vacations you take and the entertainment—filmed and glossy—that you consume. He sees "Girls Gone Wild" as the ultimate lifestyle brand. "Sex sells everything," he says. "It drives every buying decision . . . I hate to get too deep and philosophical here, but only the guys with the greatest sexual appetites are the ones who are the most driven and most successful."

if that's the case, and after reading this profile, you'll hope a flaming meteorite lands on joe and all that's left is a crater. his vision of the world is one that turns every woman into a pink hole.

why is it always women pointing out the total scary inappropriateness of guys like this? why aren't men the first to hold up the mirror and say, Dude - you're fucked in the head and have a serious problem with women.

follow the links in the feministing piece for more discussion and analysis.

[update: here is another really fascinating take on the times piece which says that hoffman is a bad reporter for doing it. read to the end when he wonders what kind of world we live in that a pig like francis won't get clocked by a woman he's just assaulted? i say that it's a world where women are afraid of the bastards who hurt them. the same kind of world where we force a rape victim to watch a videotape of her own gangbang and the kind of world that allows a man to make money coercing barely legal drunk girls to have sex with him and his crew.]

dude, wake the fuck up.

(note: let's not forget this is also the joe francis who was in court last year because some guy broke in his house and made him say/do something 'sexually humiliating' with a dildo. i remember writing that if anyone deserved a big bite of karma it was him. let's hope this expose is just the beginning.)

making it work - your way

it's sunday afternoon, a rare day that i've been able to enjoy without 'running errands' or otherwise being outside in some heatwave.

i've stumbled across two articles today in the 'paper' that are sort of like bookends to one another; one looks at the declining number of men without college educations marrying and the other looks at women, with educations, entering financial services and what they encounter - as well as the adjustments some firms are having to make because of them:

Facing Middle Age With No Degree, and No Wife - New York Times

Wall Street's Women Face A Fork in the Road - New York Times

what's interesting to me about both these articles is how they avoid the tone of a fake 'crisis' (unlike the Times' previous shoddy Opt Out articles, which one of these is a tonic for) and they show how the idea of what's 'traditional' is changing because people (men and women alike) are saying up front 'this isn't working for me.' and their rejection is saying something about the way our worlds, social and corporate worlds, are organized.

when looking at the low trends of young women entering financial services it's offered that 'Generation Y cares less about money if it comes at too high a price, ...throwing a wrench into Wall Street’s past assurance that it could demand cultlike devotion from employees in return for fatter paychecks than any other profession.' instead, younger men and women (even those who'd like to return) are demanding something less insane than working around the clock to the detriment of their personal/family lives.

and the guys featured in the marriage piece - they seem ok with their status, whatever their reasons for remaining single (financial stbility, fear of divorce, can't commit.) to the pressure of marriage, the effort and expense of it - they're saying no. while the article makes a lot of the stats showing how the pool of available women has shrunk for these men, their own personal stories tell a different story - they just don't want to marry. it's working for them.

of course it makes me think what things will look like down the line when most folk in my generation will be living as roommates, unmarried and pretty happy about it. it'll be unlike life as we've known it (or heard about from our parents and grandparents).

that'll be sort of interesting.

the hypocrite as housewife

i read this essay in the back of my roomie's latest Time mag while taking a morning constitutional and i had a suspicion that something was wrong.

1. the whiny victim tone. sweetie, you're not a victim. the image of ms. flanagan, homey homemaker, being marched back to the protective arms of the GOP while the mean girls of the Dem party hoot bad names and vulgar gestures because ms. flanagan is a nice girl who'd rather stay home than hold a picket sign is ridiculous. from all reports, ms. flanagan is just as privileged as her husband; she is an accomplished writer who earns money with her writing, and has a staff to help her do it. how many traditional housewives get that? (and, frankly, the notion that only SHE gets to have a dead mother whom she misses desperately is sickening and offensive.)

2. the sticking up for the white male. does the White Male (as signifier) really need another apologist? really? is it stigmatizing the WM to reveal the existence of those on the outside, rather than to always cater to those on the inside with ultimate cultural privilege? (like any other upper middle class white woman, she's uncomfortable with having privilege revealed and being called out on it.) i think it's interesting that she chooses to frame her argument like this, rather than say that the Dem party has abandoned the working man - which it hasn't and she'd be hard pressed to show that it has.

or perhaps her allegation would ring truer if she wrote that the 'beer-guzzling, union-dues paying' white guy got the shit scared out of him by the GOP when 9/11 hit. rather, flanagan makes the WM a victim like herself and we all know how much they suffer, don't we?

3. she's wrong. perhaps i'm watching the wrong Democratic party but i've always felt that the party has been abject in its pursuit of the Housewife. it's women like me the party's abandoned - single women, single women of color, single working men and women. in my particular case, the post-election backpedaling on the choice issue is one such example; discussion abounded that perhaps the language of reproductive choice was too scary for those housewives living in places like naperville; it was too angry. and where are the policies that look out for the interests of the people like me in the party - people who don't live in a subdivision, people without children, but still people who work hard and believe heartily in progressive causes? instead we watch as the party fumbles for its nerve and makes concessions to those easily upset.

so if anyone is being alienated by the Dems, it's not a housewife. and it's certainly not because of contempt. to muster contempt, a party must have vast stores of anger and the GOP spits it continuously while we swallow ours and hope no one notices.

TIME.com: We're Here, We're Square, Get Used to It -- May. 08, 2006 -- Page 1
Joan Walsh about Flanagan on the Huffington Post

I think people who drive without seatbelts deserve what's coming to them.

You drove without a seatbelt and now you're crying. You should have known better. You should have made better choices. You're nothing except an irresponsible wanton seatbelt derelict.

How can you expect people to sympathize with you when you knowingly got in your car and drove without a seatbelt? You forgot? Your seatbelt malfunctioned? What a bunch of crap. You broke the law; you chose to break the natural law of good driving that says 'Click it or ticket.' You and that Gary Busey (who doesn't want to wear a helmet) - all you individual rights whiners, 'i wanna feel unrestricted'- well, all you 'this is my life' freaks need to shut up and toe the line.

And what gets me is all these people who want to make 'safe driving' part of our curriculum. Drivers Ed - give me a break! There is no 'safe' driving. Encouraging 'safe' driving encourages irresponsibility and a reliance on untested methods - like so-called 'defensive driving.' Just wear your seatbelt.

I mean, it's consequences, man. You drive without a seatbelt and - wham! You know what's coming. Don't whine. Don't cavil. You deserve it. Natural consequences.

This world would be so much better if people just suffered a natural disincentive for their actions...

[insanity via bitch phd]

uh, it's poverty thursday

I'm about to get wonky on you. Get ready. Bear down.
The point of this post isn’t to make us feel guilty for being well off or comfortable; I’m proud of what I’ve earned and accomplished. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I’d like us to start realizing what it’s like for people on the other side of the street. And if poverty is a complex social issue, which it is, then why are we willing to fob off uncomplicated and superficial remedies (like marriage policies, like bashing immigrants, like trickle down economics and tax breaks for the rich)?

Note: Most of the numbers mentioned in this post are from a report that can be downloaded from here.

What's poverty?
There are actually four kinds of poverty, based on our federal index which is based on what a family would need annually to earn to feed them (no, it's not a perfect measure, but it's the way we measure poverty now. If you want to read more about how the index is measured and critiques of how it's measured, go here:

Here's our federal poverty level index for 2006:
Family size - 2006 poverty guidelines:
1 - $ 9,800
2 - 13,200
3 - 16,600
4 - 20,000
5 - 23,400
6 - 26,800
7 - 30,200
8 - 33,600

You are Income Poor if you fall within the parameters of the FPL
You are in Deep or Extreme Poverty if you live at or below 50% of the FPL
You are Low-Income or Near Poor if you live at or below 200% of FPL and have trouble meeting your basic needs because of rising costs (child care, housing/rent, health insurance - if you have this at all.)
A household is Asset Poor if it doesn’t have enough net worth to live at the poverty level for 3 months - if you experience one significant life event (medical crisis, job loss or divorce) you can end up homeless or go straight into Poverty.

(While this index is based on food cost, which probably needs to be changed, here's what the index doesn't include: cost of transportation/commute to work, cost of child care, cost of utilities, or the rising cost of housing. Factor those costs and the number of those who qualify as poor would probably increase rather than decrease.)

Who’s poor?
You might be poor if you are old; nearly half of IL seniors would be in poverty if not for Social Security benefits; Social Security benefits are primary source of income for two-thirds of IL seniors; 70% of senior women living alone live near poverty. Senior men had a median income of $20,363 in 2003 and senior women had a median income of $11,845.
(Dude. Who can live on that??)

You might be poor if you are a child; 37.2% of children lived in low-income families in 2004; 15% of children in IL lived in houses where the head of household didn’t finish high school (an indicator of poverty); 11% lived in crowded housing.

You might be poor if you are disabled; in IL the monthly SSI payment is $564 (the national average is $617.02); a disabled person would have to spend more than ALL of their SSI income to rent a one-bedroom apartment.

You might be poor if you are a woman; IL women have higher poverty rates than men; 13.3% were living in poverty compared to 11.5% men in 2004; 31.4% lived in near poverty compared to 26.7% of men; compound that with the worst gender wage inequity of the 5 most populous states and you have women working their asses off for not a whole lot in return. Most single heads of households in the state are women.

You might be poor if you are Black or Latino: nearly 30% of the black population in IL lives under the FPL; 16% of the Latino population in IL lives in poverty.

Maybe most of us think of the victims of Hurricane Katrina when we try to envision who’s poor – they were visibly destitute, almost sharecropper poor. But that’s just one face of poverty; not the only face.
I argue that the more quotidian face of poverty is probably the face of someone you already see: the woman who provides you with childcare; your company’s receptionist or assistant; the security guard in the lobby of your building; the woman who checks out your groceries.

You might not be poor if 4 crucial areas of your life’s needs are stable:
Economic well-being. Are you earning a living where all your basic needs can be met? Can you live on your wage? Do you have a ‘cushion’ of some sort?
Health Insurance. Does your employer provide them? Are you relatively confident you won’t have to lose your house if your appendix bursts?
Housing Affordability. Can you pay your rent or mortgage easily and without much stress? Can you afford to live where you live? Have you never had to choose between food or rent?
Education. Do you have a college degree? Do you have a professional degree? Have you graduated from high school? Are most of your friends and neighbors literate?

Before indulging in a superficial discussion of poverty ('poor people suck!'/'poor people are saints!') I think it's important to dispel a couple of assumptions:
* poor people are lazy welfare queens who don't work and
* poverty is about bad financial planning

Poverty is about a maelstrom of bad breaks: illiteracy, generational poverty, economic downturns, cuts in social services, no education, rising costs in the standard of living; lowering wage values, no access to health care. Access to work. In Illinois, one quarter of our work force lives below the federally defined 'poverty line.' These are people (most of them single moms) who work full time jobs; they work 40 hours/week just like you and I work. And yet, they're poor. And these are people who, every day, make crucial financial planning decisions – the thing is, they’re making these decisions with less money than you or I can even think of using to even live.

I was at a retreat for an organization for whom I sit on the Board and a woman made the point that, for most of us, we think of low wages as entry-level wages; we think "Oh, I made 28k when I was out of school for my first job! That's totally livable!" But for many of the working poor, 28k is not entry level. That's a life wage. That's a wage that won't change. Ever. No bonus. No signing bonus. No relocation bonus. No holiday bonus. Through children, illness, divorce, and death - that wage won't change.

Think $30k goes a long way? I earn a little over that amount in my new non profit gig. But I don’t have children, I have health insurance, an education and my rent kicks ass. (And I have a roommate who makes triple what I make and is willing to buy me a beer or a movie once in a while.)

But how far does that $30k go for a family of 4?
Or, maybe it’s $25k.
Or, maybe it’s $19k.
If you made $19k/year and had to support a family of four (or even three), what kinds of decisions would you make?

These?

Yeah, Jesus said the poor will always be with us.
But that doesn’t mean their lives have to suck.