sundries

[rm]

Folks, sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, sometimes I don't have all the data, sometimes the answers aren't clear cut. I often assemble these sundries as I'm going through my day, which particularly means the "sometimes I don't have all the data" thing comes into play a lot. There are also lots of cases where I feel information should be out there, even if it's not information I feel qualified to make a thorough judgment on.

Anyway, last night (when I had no Internet! it's broken at home again) rosefox alerted me to this thread regarding an ICFA-related scholarship opportunity for PoC. Talk about: 1. me not having all the data at first (yikes!), 2. the situation not being clear cut (more opportunity for more people; GOH is Nalo Hopkinson vs. ugly RaceFail history) and 3. Me being entirely not qualified to say how anyone should proceed as a I am not an ICFA member/participant, a person offering a scholarship, or a PoC.

So! There's a scholarship opportunity. And there's some important concerns about it. And now you have links to both. As always, I appreciate when you guys have got more than I've got on things and can help me fail better.

Meanwhile! Patty and I are seeing Quartett at BAM tonight. It's based on Dangerous Liasons.

Link from keori: Alan Grayson truly gets how and why politics should be theater.

Bath & Bodyworks employee fired for being Wiccan. Thanks to hughcasey for the thorough write-up.

Large Hadron Collider now felled by birds and baguettes! No, really. Via firefly_124.

"Kiss me where I can't" -- Gilded Age Monuments and Secrets.

WHUT?

Apparently only men tell important stories. Wait, haven't I heard this before? From unpublished exes of mine that wanted my career to be as non-existent as their own?

via lipsum: What the whole God, guns and gays thing is really about -- one particular construction of masculinity as an excuse for irrational, fear-based behavior.

Instead of The Innocence Project's results being taken seriously, the involved students grades have now been subpoenaed to find out the "real motivation" for their justice-related work. Northwestern is refusing to comply.

LGBTQ issues that should be on everyone's radar right now? ENDA. Sadly, I imagine it will be a tougher sell in a bad economy -- the evil gays may take your job. Also, a moment of rage: President Obama, where are you? If you are such a strong advocate for my rights why not even one mention on the Maine situation? Why no emails to Dems in Maine before the vote?

I'm totally worried about how this whole Ft. Hood shooting thing is going to play out. We should probably be discussing the mental health of our soldiers, but instead, I (and many others) worried that it will just be one more excuse for anti-Islam rhetoric. On another note, the civilian police officer who stopped the shooter happens to be a woman.

I'm glad Precious is getting good reviews.

I am up to 7,247 words on ConSweet. The quality of some of my writing is going downhill, because I haven't figure out how to do everything I need to do, but the quality of my first draft writing is actually usually much higher than first draft quality, so me actually writing a first draft and Getting Shit Done is probably fine. Oddest thing current in book: a shopping cart full of pineapples.

via feyandstrange: Doctor Who cufflinks. The rubber Dalek ones are supercute I think. Ianto cosplayers, note Cybermen cufflinks; yes, I fucking dare you!

Comments

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I've got new for you. Slavery exists to this day. Sometimes even within our own country (unless you don't think women brought from other countries to be used in the sex trade doesn't count).

I find the rest of your arguments rather lame. Yes you could be accused of rape, but the chances of you being so are extremely small. Not one in three. And you know what, you could be raped. But your chance of being raped or seriously beaten is not one in three.

And that's my point. I'm sick of hearing about the oppression of the white straight male. You still make $1.00 for every $.85 cents a woman makes in the U.S. normalizing for years of experience and education. You still hold almost all of the CEO positions in this country and the vast majority of political positions from the Senate to the Dog Catcher. You have no idea how good you have it. As for false accusations, do you have any idea how many black men have been exonerated after being convicted of a murder and put on death row. How many white men? The difference is staggering.

You want to feel prejudice. Try swapping places with someone who isn't part of your priviledged class and see how you like it. Go to your house of worship or cemetary and find it constantly dessicrated. Walk down the street in fear of being beat up because of who you love. Find your opportunities limited by the color of your skin or your country of origin. Then you might, just might have a clue with what the rest of us live with in the good old US of A every fucking day of our lives.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I was assuming that you meant slavery in the sense of European settlers trafficking in African slaves in early American history. I agree that other forms of slavery including the sex slavery trade do exist and even thrive in some parts of the world.

As for the rest , in my industry to my observation women have made similar achievements, get the same pay as I do and do just as good of a job as I do - perhaps I'm unique that I work in technology - as a security engineer. However the company I work for has two female executives at VP level or higher and I can assure you they make more than I do on any given scale. I believe that the wage difference and lack of upper positions exists - but I have not seen it first hand. In my professional career I have worked with , and for many women who do not fit the description you are painting. This is a career spanning 20 years in upper level work. I think your data may be outdated.

As for swapping places with someone who is not part of my privileged class, I think you need to step back and admit that there are disadvantages to my class, and maybe even try to figure out what my class is first.

I don't have a house or worship, because I belong to no religion. I am constantly scorned by people of all religions for that.

I have been beat up numerous times for various reasons. Sometimes for being white in the wrong neighborhood, sometimes for being a " geek " or a " brain " , once because I said out loud " of course a woman could be president " ... but that was grade school. I also have been threatened or had people I am with threatened while walking down the street for being "goth" , and by association a " fag ". I've had people throw things at me from rooftops while walking to a club. I've had animal blood thrown on me and punched numerous times while working as a clinic escort. Ever been chased down the streets of New Orleans for yelling at frat boys who would not stop hounding a woman to show her breasts? Fastest 1/4 mile I ever ran in my life.

My opportunities have been limited by the color of my skin. At least three times I have been passed over for jobs and told afterwords that they had to give the job to another person in order to meet EOE quotas. I had a Native American blame me for " Raping all the women and killing all the buffalo ".
To this day there are songs out there glorifying killing me because of the color of my skin. " Kill the white devil any one will do " and so on.

I am also overweight, and technically handicapped due to a spine injury. Want to see how " the rest of you " treat someone who is out of shape? Heard any good fat jokes lately? Do you enjoy the privilege of shopping in the mall instead of having to go to the one store in town that has clothes in your size? Look Around at all the media , never see 1 ounce of body fat there - and hey everyone knows if you aren't a size 4 or have 6 pack abs you are worthless. Ever get yelled at for walking too slow because you are in 24/7 pain?

Here's a better one - try being a white straight male who loves and supports his GBLT friends and coworkers, and yet because he is white and male is assumed to be part of the problem and the reason why things are so screwed up every time he walks down the street. It's not fun being hated, and I know because I am hated.

All I'm saying is - I may have it " better " by your reasoning , but it's not a cakewalk ... there may be advantages, but there are also downsides and it's time people recognized that. I won't go so far as to say that the privileged white male you speak of does not exist, but there are fewer of them than you think, and not every white male on the street is one.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

The thing about privilege is almost everyone has it in some quarter. I have privilege as a white person, I have privilege as a person with education and qualifications, I have privilege to a certain degree because of where I come from. Straight PoC have straight privilege. Gay guys can have male privilege. Identifying where you have privilege doesn't mean you need to be made to feel bad about being what you are, nor does it mean that people think you don't have problems, or that the problems you do have aren't meaningful - it's not a competition. It about learning to see how your experience is different from some other people's. If you can acknowledge the areas in which you have privilege, you can see the flipside, where other people don't, and it'll help you be a better, more understanding friend and ally. If someone's trying to tell you (generic you) something about their experience, and your response is, well, I have problems too, that's not listening to them; that's derailing the conversation and making it all about yourself.

I agree the joke was maybe not in great taste (hey, some of my best friends are straight white guys) but a joke at the expense of the powerful majority is quantifiably different in the level of damage it can do than a joke about a minority, which acts as another prop to further reinforce the marginalization and otherness of certain groups in society.

Regarding the rape issue, I understand how awful and damaging it is for an individual to be falsely accused - this happened to the father of a friend of mine. It's a shitty thing to happen, but it's a problem on an individual level, it's not something which is sympomatic of a wider system of marginalization or oppression (at least, not of men - one could argue that feeling powerless and voiceless could be a motivation on some level for a woman to falsely accusing someone, and no, that's not the way to deal with it, but then our society doesn't really cultivate a healthy culture when it comes to this issue).

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I agree with the idea that everyone has some kind of privilege , what I object to the assumption that being white and male instantly makes you guilty of abusing that privilege. It's not a competition , but more often than not you hear about white male privilege as a negative thing - as if its no good and no good can come of it. I like to compare problems and not ' derail ' , for example a person may say to me that they were beaten by someone they were dating, and I can say well I was beaten by a school bully so I have some idea what it's like. I'm trying to find common ground and show empathy, not sympathy. I'm not trying to have a contest, I'm trying to show that I'm not just simply giving an empty " Oh wow I understand that's soooo horrible " , but relating to how it must feel by similar experience. In fact I'm trying to not make it all about me, but building a bridge of understanding by personal experience.

Because honestly, if you have never been beaten by a gang of people you really don't know what it's like. Just like I'll never really know what it's like to have a period, give birth to a child, or be objectified.

If two women were talking , and one says ' I was raped ' , and the other replies ' I was raped once too, I know how it feels ' would you tell the second woman that she was derailing and making it about her?

a joke at the expense of the powerful majority is quantifiably different in the level of damage it can do than a joke about a minority, which acts as another prop to further reinforce the marginalization and otherness of certain groups in society.

I can't say I agree with that. I think that the amount of damage is irrelevant because it can't be accurately measured. By making a joke about a group of people or a person , you are marginalizing them and pointing out their otherness - regardless if they are a majority or a minority. If we want to create a place free of that kind of treatment we have to stand against it in all instances , not just when it's convenient.

I'm no saint, once when I was called on the carpet for a questionable joke and shown that saying something hurtful is just saying something hurtful. If you (generalized you, not personal) rally against jokes that marginalize one group , then crack one that that is hurtful against another ... what is really being said? Do as I say, not as I do?

Once upon a time in a bar I was listening and partaking in a group of people telling the worst most offensive jokes they knew. Nothing was held back , race, religion, women, men , and so on .. right up until someone told a joke about a child molester. The man who had just told one about a woman with two black eyes flew off the handle and started screaming at people that being molested was no joke.

Now granted this makes for the big question - when is joking joking and not offensive? How do you know what to say and when? It's a challenge and many people loose. There is no easy answer - but saying that it's ok to dump on one group and not another is not one of them - regardless of the reason.

" We make jokes about you because you are a minority , and different than us "
" Oh yeah ? well we make jokes about you because you are the majority and different than us "

who is right, who is wrong?

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying about empathy, and of course that is a good thing, but you do also have to understand when you're comparing like with like - and that you can't assume that you can always get the experience of someone who faces a completely different set of challenges to you. Say if one woman tells her friend she was raped, and the friend replies with a story about how she got hit by a car one time, that's really not the same thing. Or say she confides in a male friend, and he tells her about this time he got mugged. Being run over or being mugged are both awful things, and they both present their own set of challenges, but it isn't the same as being raped, and by bringing it up you (generic you again) risk changing the subject, you risk making it about you rather than her, and you risk demonstrating to this woman who already feels about as shitty as a person can feel that you're not really listening to what she's saying.

I get this as a transgendered person sometimes, to a lesser degree; I have people who tell me they were always a tomboy growing up too, or how much they hate wearing skirts too, or how, God, putting on make up is such a hassle they sometimes don't even bother either - it's not the same thing, and while I get that they're trying to be kind and to empathize, what I'm hearing is that they don't understand. It's not their fault they don't understand, it's a complicated issue, but if they won't listen when I say, actually my experience is not the same as that - that is their fault. People can usually tell if you're telling them about something that's actually not the same, even if you can't, and this can have the effect of making them feel even more isolated. There are times when the thing to do is just listen, or even to say, "I really can't imagine what you're going through." Because you, me, and most other people have privilege, so yeah, there are going to be times when we really can't imagine.

Regarding the joke, if a group has overwhelming power within a society, you can't take that power away from them just by making a joke. But if someone doesn't have power, and their lack of power is reinforced in tiny ways by society and on an individual level every day, then that's what your joke is contributing to. You're kicking at someone who's already gone down. When discrimination against straight white males becomes something which affects every facet of their life - their employment opportunities, their earning power, their safety walking down the street, the way service staff and law enforcement officers treat them, their right to marry whom they choose, etc, then jokes about white straight males will be the same kind of problematic (and note I am not saying no straight white male ever has problems in any of these areas, but if they do, it is not *because* they are straight, white and male).

Note also I didn't say I thought it was okay to tell jokes at the expense of anyone - but I did say it was different, and that's why I think it's different. I was with a friend and his kid the other day, and at one point the kid was telling his dad how he (the dad) was stupid. Not very kind, but the kid is 3 and his dad is 32 - I think he can handle it. It doesn't actually matter what his toddler thinks of him, he's still the guy with the power. I don't think I have to explain how much more damaging it would be if Dad were to tell his kid in all earnestness, and repeatedly, that he was the one who was stupid. You probably couldn't quantify that damage either, but that wouldn't make it any less real. It matters who has the power, who has the agency, over the other person; that's how they can actually hurt you, not with what they say.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I understand that as a transgendered person you face more fear walking down the street any given day than most people do their entire lives. I watched as a preop friend who is an antiques dealer get ripped off by people who counted on her fear of going to the police as their angle to get away with robbing her.

I ran this by a friend of mine who responded :

"A slap at a minority does no more to keep them down than does a slap at a majority bring them down. This statement is about how people view the world..."

having been the butt of many jokes , both cruel and harmless I can tell you that they sometimes had quite the opposite effect. I believe that the impact depends on the individual. Also , as I have said in other comments, the concept of it being ok to slap at someone just because they are in the majority is as wrong as thinking its ok to slap at them because they are in the minority.

Role reversal is not equality. If it is wrong to do to one person then it's wrong to do to anyone.

This is strictly IMHO.

and note I am not saying no straight white male ever has problems in any of these areas, but if they do, it is not *because* they are straight, white and male)

I disagree. I personally have been targeted for being white and male in some rather nasty places. North Las Vegas for one. Try walking down the street in parts of Brooklyn and being a white male - you will be lucky to come out alive. The gentrified starbuced parts are not what they were ten years ago. Try refueling your car in Atlanta at 3 am sometime.

Ever hear white hate music? http://home.att.net/~phosphor/introtogrammys.html
Check out what some grammy winners have to say in their music ...

Law enforcement : http://gothamist.com/2009/10/12/nypd_has_new_name_for_hipsters.php NYPD calls hipsters marshmallows because they are white and soft.

And on a personal note , being supportive , defensive and caring about my GBLT friends, coworkers, and family of choice when I hear someone whose rights I respect and support with my money, my vote and with my emotions make negative stereotype jokes about me , a white straight male, it hurts. It makes me ask why do I support people who cut me down? The answer for me is simple - there are people out there I respect and care about who need my help. Who have treated me as an equal, or that I consider a mentor in teaching me the right way. I owe them that much regardless what others think about me.

I had to learn this the hard way. I have done my share of wrong, hurtful things. Even when I had reason to , I knew that it wasn't the right thing to do but what I had to do to survive.

The father should not have told the kid he was being stupid, he should have told him he was being disrespectful, and why it was wrong. Kids think if you give them a chance.