On the joys of breakfast
I’m not a morning person at all. This morning I was supposed to shower, iron a shirt so I could wear something clean and pressed to work, and get to work early. If a friend hadn’t texted me during the night, thus prompting me to stay awake long enough to text her back when I woke up this morning, thus allowing the brain to cough and lurch into gear, I probably would have hit the snooze button for an hour and gone in to work after deciding that I didn’t need shower until tonight and that the shirt in the closet wasn’t all that wrinkled, really.
It was a lovely morning. I woke up, sent some texts, and showered. For once, there was hot water, because I got up before the hot water in the building was drained by the morning shower folks. Then I made polenta, because last night I wanted polenta but decided it was the better part of gastrointestinal valor to leave it for today. While the water was boiling and the polenta was bubbling, I filled and heated the iron, and started ironing a shirt. The polenta finished, and as the layer clinging to the sides of the pot cooked through and then burned, it filled the kitchen with the smell of grilled corn. I grated some parmesan in, then took it to the bedroom to eat while finishing up the ironing, then ate it from the pot, sitting at the table while sunlight streamed in through the big windows.
I cleaned up, put everything away, and made an attempt to straighten things up so that the flat wouldn’t be too messy, and headed out the door, clean, warm, fresh, filled, and happy.
Then the cell phone rang and I had to rush and bus to work instead of walking, and then the computer started doing a bad impression of a brick, and then a small hill of work fell on my head. But I got to read while busing, and it was still a nice morning. Sunny, nice, a small piece of time to read, cook, and enjoy the brilliant sunlight. Not sure if I’ll make a routine out of waking up early enough to do more than cram morning hygiene, dressing, and running out the door in less than ten minutes, but it’s a nice thought. And tomorrow, I don’t have to iron anything because today’s shirt is reasonably unwrinkled and clean, so the ironing time can go to making a cup of espresso instead. Espresso and sunlight. Mmmm.
Dear Sharpton & NAACP
NAACP National Headquarters
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore MD 21215
National Action Network
Rev. Al Sharpton
106 W. 145th Street
Harlem, New York 10039
To Whom It May Concern,
I recently heard about the NAACP’s involvement with the Dunbar Village rapists’ case. Seeing as how the NAACP’s mission statement is to “Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination,” I thought for certain that the NAACP was standing up for the victims in the case, who suffered rape, assault, disfigurement, and grievous bodily and mental harm. Advocating for them, providing legal counsel, pressing law enforcement agencies to do their utmost to find the six rapists currently not in custody, and ensuring that the cases of this black woman and her son would not be lost. That injustice would not prevail again in the case of a population that has consistently been disregarded, silenced, and abused.
I was horrified to find out that instead, the NAACP is standing up for the rapists. This is completely unconscionable, particularly given the DNA evidence and confessions, and the magnitude and monstrosity of the rapists’ crimes. By standing up for the rapists, you’re telling every woman of color in this country that we do not matter. Our suffering does not matter. When we’re raped, assaulted, abused, and victimized, even a group supposedly committed to fighting racism and injustice will not be our allies. Instead, you will ignore women and ignore children, because in your eyes, we don’t matter.
With your actions in this case, you do no more than perpetuate the subhuman status of women of color in American society. By standing up for these rapists, you are not fighting racism for a world of equality–you are fighting for a world in which white men and black men are equally patriarchal and can rape with impunity, while everyone else is left cowering in fear, unheard and oppressed. If you were fighting racism, you would have stood up for the victims and would have advanced a case where, for once, sexual violence against a black woman and a black child are being taken seriously rather than dismissed.
I am completely appalled, and furthermore, I will never support or contribute to the NAACP until you renounce your position and demonstrate a commitment to helping all people of color–remembering that people means women and children, and not just men.
Sincerely,
Me.
Feel free to take, copy, expand, make much more eloquent, whatever–just so long as you print and mail to the NAACP and Sharpton.
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, Children’s Rights Are Human’s Rights
Last time I checked, women were people. Children were people. Men were people. The word people encompassed all those groups and more. People did not exclusively mean men.
Al Sharpton and the NAACP apparently aren’t operating by the same dictionary as I am. The NAACP’s mission statement reads, “Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.” (emphases mine) You’d think that’d mean standing up for all people, now, wouldn’t you?
Apparently not. The Dunbar Village rapists:
On June 18, 2007, a black woman was gang raped by 10 youths and forced at gunpoint to have sex with her own 12 year old son in a housing complex called Dunbar Village in West Palm Beach, Florida. The young men not only viciously punched, kicked and sliced this sister and her son with glass objects, but they also blinded her boy by pouring nail polish remover into his eyes.The young men forced this sister and son to lay naked in a bathtub together, and attempted to set them on fire (they could not find matches). The youths boldly took cell phone pictures so that they could enjoy their violent, immoral and sadistic acts at a later time. The violence continued for more than three hours, and although this sister’s neighbors heard her screams, no one called the police or came to her aid.This sister and her son had to walk a mile to the hospital, because the assailants stole her car, and threatened to kill her and her family if she told the authorities.
Only four of the young men have been apprehended, while the remaining six are on the loose, doing Lord knows what in our communities. There is no manhunt for the remaining suspects.
Al Sharpton and the NAACP are involved. Sounds good, right? They must be advocating for the woman and her son, right? They must be standing up for individuals who are generally discriminated against, un(de)represented, and don’t receive justice, and they must be pressing the cops to search out the other six gang rapists, right?
WRONG. Sharpton and the NAACP are standing up for the rapists, arguing that because some white rapists are free on bail, it’s unfair that these black rapists are being held in jail. Look–I think that all of the rapists should be in jail, and although it’s possible that there is racism at play in the refusal of bail, it’s also possible, and highly probable, that the Dunbar Village rapists are being held without bail because of the magnitude and monstrosity of their crimes. BlackAmericaWeb has a discussion of the two rape cases and the difference between them.
Bail is usually granted based on the defendants’ risk to the public or whether they pose a flight risk. And it doesn’t take a genius to see that the Boca Raton teenagers who got drunk and had non-consensual sex with drunk, underage girls who they were hanging out with pose less of a danger to the public than the West Palm Beach teenagers who armed themselves with guns, staked out a stranger and committed every act that their perverted imaginations compelled them to do.That’s why they need to stay locked up.
BAW also points out that despite their supposed missions of helping all black people, the NAACP and Sharpton’s actions in this case do nothing more than betray the majority of their constituents and enforce the societally subhuman status of black women and black children:
Black women are 12 percent of the U.S. population, yet we make up 13 percent of all rape victims. And scores of black women are silent about rape because of the kind of thing that Sharpton did. They believe they won’t be listened to; that no one will care.Sharpton bills himself as a spokesman for the voiceless. Too bad this time, he decided to lend his voice to the ones who needed it the least — and guarantee that more raped black women will continue to suffer in silence.
Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems’ call to action is below. Please, please call, write, and email Sharpton and the NAACP. In this fucking world, we aren’t going to receive anything gratis. We–women, minorities, women of color, and everyone else who isn’t a rich, straight, cisgendered, white man–have to demand our rights and fight for them. Don’t be silent. Speak up.
Read the rest of this entry »
Street Harassment Project
Following up on my last post, a few links:
Street Harassment Project – an NYC-based campaign against street harassment. Their mission statement begins
BECAUSE women are terrorized daily in public spaces, our personal space violated by men who block our paths, stand too close, use a too intimate and insulting language toward us…BECAUSE this behavior is implicitly menacing and threatening and often becomes overtly threatening when a woman expresses her anger at these affronts…
BECAUSE the line between verbal harassment and physical menacing is often crossed…
BECAUSE they create offensive adult sites on the internet like ass parade…
BECAUSE on June 11, 2000, hundreds of men assaulted, stripped and fondled over 56 women in the public space of Central Park and the rage of women in the city exploded…
The Street Harassment Project was (re)initiated on June 15, 2000 and has been meeting weekly ever since.
For more information on street harassment and explanations of why catcalls, so-called “compliments,” insults, gropes, leers, whistles, and other forms of unwanted attention are in reality sexual harassment that implicitly threaten me and demean me for daring to participate in public life as a woman, see the rest of their mission statement.
Holla Back NYC: Street Harassment: The Failure of the Law to Protect Women has information on the legal intricacies of street harassment and how street harassment is often a fun three for one deal: racism, sexism, and classism in one neat package.
Fun and Joy of Being a Korean-American Woman
Yesterday, I went to the Ferry Building to run some errands. I was walking through the plaza reading Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead when I heard a call behind me.
“Hey, beautiful!”
It wasn’t coming from someone right behind me, so I ignored it. It sounded like he was ten feet away or so, and whatever–it’s not worth my time to face off with some jackass catcaller. It was just one comment, and maybe that would be it.
“Do you love me?”
The passive response of ignoring him clearly isn’t working. I was irritated at the first comment and I’m growing angry, but I tell myself that maybe he’s not yelling at me. Maybe he’s yelling at someone else, not that it would make the situation any better–by not facing him and not calling him out on his verbal harassment, whether it’s me or someone else he’s catcalling, I implicitly condone him harassing a woman because she’s a woman and she dares to walk outside in the city. Dares to exist and live in public spaces.
“You don’t love me.”
Okay, I’m angry now. Goddamned right I don’t love you, you jackass fuckwit asshole. I don’t like sexist jackasses who yell indiscriminately at women and feel entitled to sexually harass women and think of women as sex objects for their viewing pleasure rather than as people and make women feel unsafe, unwelcome, and afraid in public spaces. I’m thinking about facing him and calling him on his shit.
“Fine. Go back to China!”
Ok, that’s it. That is absolutely it and I’m not taking racist shit from anyone. Sexual harassment is bad enough, but the combination of racism and sexism makes me see red. I stop, whip around, and see that I’m the only stereotypically “Chinese” woman in the vicinity, so there’s no question that he’s been yelling at me the whole time. I see one man in the area, an African-American man lugging a suitcase.* I yell, “Excuse me, are you talking to me?”
He looks at me. “Yeah.”
I’m furious. Livid. Sexual harassment simply for being a woman is run of the mill for me–I don’t like it and I’m increasingly likely to not tolerate it, but the racist comment just broke my restraint. I yell at him, “What the hell makes you think it’s okay to yell at random women and harass them, you asshole?”
He sulkily replies, “You harass us all the time.”
I see red. I yell at him, “I’ve never harassed you in my life, and it is not acceptable to harass random women. Fuck you!”
I’ve never seen this man in my life. I’ve never harassed an African-American person in my life. I’ve never harassed anyone for racist or sexist reasons in my life. His bullshit attempt to use anti-African-American racism as a justification for anti-Asian racism and anti-woman sexism is complete bullshit and it doesn’t even work as a justification. If anything, having experienced racism himself should have taught him that racism is wrong, period, and it’s poisonous to everyone. Using it himself is hypocritical and it makes him petty, vindictive, and immature. I learned in kindergarten that two wrongs don’t make a right, and his attempt to use racism to justify racism and sexism is simply nothing more than perpetuating the system.
He walks away and I storm off, mind awhirl with anger, loathing, fear, and adrenaline. Facing a harasser always results in the volatile emotional cocktail of the flight or fight response. While I’m fighting, the anger burns away almost all of the fear, but as soon as it’s over, I’m left shaking and the fear lurches back. Women are told not to respond to harassers because as soon as they know you’re paying attention, they’ll ramp it up. They might grow violent. And so we have to endure the verbal and physical attacks on our persons and let them go on, because if we don’t, something worse might happen. Dum dum dum. Fuck that shit, I’m not listening anymore to that passive endorsement of harassment and a patriarchal society where women are advised to endure harassment because they can’t expect anything better. Fuck that shit, I’m not putting up with harassment from sexist individuals anymore.
Behind every “Hey, beautiful!” is the notion that I, a woman, exist for the harasser’s viewing pleasure. I’m walking along the sidewalk so harassers can stare at me and remind me that because I’m a woman, I don’t deserve respect. Because I’m a woman, I don’t deserve to feel safe outside. Because I’m a woman, I’m a sex object and I shouldn’t be outside running errands, jogging, working, or living. Because I’m a woman, I deserve to be catcalled and intimidated.
Insults and catcalls aren’t just words. First of all, words have power. They’re the predominant form of communication between humans and they’re used to cajole, placate, threaten, thrill, and more. Words matter. Second, behind every catcall, every reminder that in the harasser’s sexist worldview, women exist for men and women are inferior to men and he’s entitled to treat me as lesser, is the reality that one in every six women is raped at least once and far more women are sexually assaulted. I turned around and yelled at my harasser, but the entire time, I was thinking about how he was larger than I was and quite capable of assaulting me. If someone thinks it’s okay to act sexist and racist, that person might not have qualms about attacking someone perceived as inferior for sexist and racist reasons. The entire time I was in the Ferry Building, I was scanning the crowd, looking for him so that I’d be prepared if he tried to grab, grope, shove, bump, or hit me. This alertness and fear is part of being a woman, even in liberal, progressive San Francisco.
I faced the harasser and stood up for myself. It’s my way of challenging every sexist harasser who thinks it’s okay to objectify me–to break out of the box they put me in and say, fuck you. Fuck you and your attempts to make me a passive object who’ll succumb to your oh so charming insults and swoon before you, or a victim who’ll stoically endure your fucking insults. I am a person, an individual, a woman, and I am active. I deserve respect, civility, and safety by virtue of being a human being, but if you think you can take those away from me because I’m a woman, I’ll take them for myself.
————————————-
* I only note his race because it’s relevant to his pathetic justification for his racist sexual harassment. As pocochina says, I don’t give a flying fuck if a man harassing me is white, black, yellow, brown, or any other color. He’s harassing me and that’s what matters to me; his ethnicity is irrelevant.
Awesome Moments
I must confess, I’m still shocked that a woman is a serious contender for the U.S. presidency. It’s glorious. It’s wonderful. And yet, it’s incredible. When I was little, I was taught that girls could do anything that boys could and that if I worked hard enough, I could be anything I wanted. I could achieve anything I wanted. Somewhere along the road, those ideals were dented and battered such that at random moments, it hits me that Hillary Rodham Clinton is genuinely in the running for the presidency and I’m breathless all over again. She’s going first and taking incredible slams and attacks. She’s making it easier for every woman who follows in her path and every woman who strikes out on a new path. By running for the highest, most visible office in the nation, she’s elevated the profile of women everywhere. We are people. We are human beings equal to everyone else. We can do anything, even when the stakes are against us and people are trying to drag us down simply for being women.
Thank you, Senator Clinton, for reminding me of the possibilities. As I grew up, I unconsciously shrank the limits of my expectations and became small-minded, but now I have a view of the horizon once again. It is clear, it is expansive, and it is glorious. It is bounded by no limitations other than those I set myself.
I’ve been thinking about the most awesome moments, the most awesome pieces of speeches, that I’ve read during this campaign. So far:
I want to thank all my friends and family, particularly my mother, who was born before women could vote, and is watching her daughter on this stage tonight.
- Remarks on Super Tuesday
I tear up every time I read that because it makes my heart and my head ache. It’s so simple and it packs such a wallop in one sentence. Historical perspective is so short and it’s so easy to forget that women didn’t have the right to vote until August 26, 1920. It’s so easy to forget that my alma mater didn’t admit women until 1969. I have met alumni who graduated before the first class of female undergraduates set foot on campus and I have met two of the amazing alumnae of Yale’s first coeducational class. It’s still easy to forget how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.
“Iron my shirt!” yelled a man, who stood up in the middle of a jammed and stuffy auditorium at a high school in Salem, N.H., and held up a yellow sign with the same text. He repeated it over and over.
Mrs. Clinton asked for the lights to be turned on, and the shirt man was removed along with another man who had stood up too.
“Oh, the remnants of sexism are alive and well,” Mrs. Clinton said.
When everyone had settled down a bit, she said, “As I think has just been abundantly demonstrated, I am also running to break through the highest and hardest glass ceiling.”
Her words were drowned out by a cheering, now-standing crowd.
“That’s one of the things I love about it,” she said. “It’s never predictable.”
- Iron My Shirt (NYT) (emphases mine)
This one’s not from the campaign, strictly speaking, but I’d never heard it before and it’s awesome:
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard….
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes — the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.
Let — Let this conference be our — and the world’s — call to action. Let us heed that call so we can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future. That is the work before you. That is the work before all of us who have a vision of the world we want to see — for our children and our grandchildren.
- Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Plenary Session in Beijing, China: 5 September 1995
What are your favorite speeches, quotes, and comments so far? I know I had more than these three, but I forgot to note them down.
Five Years On
I’ve tried to pull my thoughts together on Iraq and failed. What I’m left with is incredulity. Six and a half years ago, I couldn’t believe it when someone rushed into a classroom full of high schoolers at CSU LB and announced that the U.S. had just bombed Afghanistan. A year and a half later, the drums of war were rattling, and I couldn’t believe that, either. Ominous murmurs in the newspapers, online, in the political sphere, all of them repeating, discussing, denying, supporting, rejecting, proposing war, war, war.
I was against the invasion from the beginning because — because why? Because I was, and am, against war. It’s simplistic, but there you go. It’s my basic principle. I am against preemptive, unprovoked invasions. It’s a simplistic position because it doesn’t take into account that sometimes, you have to fight. Sometimes, as in WWII, you have to fight because it’s the only way to defeat evil, and to stand by and watch is nothing but cowardice and passive evil. But Iraq was different. They hadn’t invaded or attacked the U.S., and despite Saddam Hussein’s atrocities, surely they didn’t justify invading a country and razing it to the ground. Surely they demanded diplomatic efforts and aid. War is a blunt force tool. It’s a bomb. You can use it to demolish hospitals and kill innocent civilians. You can use it to demolish prison walls and set people free. You can use it to demolish enemy encampments and kill enemy soldiers. It’s not targeted, it’s not limited, it’s not careful. It’s a ravening beast that burns down more than you’re aiming for.
In the jingoistic drum-beating prior to the invasion on March 19, 2003, I think the warmongers forgot that. Not everyone who supported the war was a warmonger–some people wanted revenge, some people wanted safety, some people wanted to help the Iraqis. But the bellicose pundits, pols, journalists, writers, bloggers, and talking heads who wanted war and gloried in it–I think they were pumped up about war, about blowing things up, about using big guns and big tanks to “liberate” an oppressed country, and forgot that war means sending real people to kill other real people. They’re not numbers. They’re not casualties. They’re friends, they’re enemies, they’re the boy in my brother’s Boy Scout troop who enlisted after high school, they’re the boys in my class who went to the Air Force Academy because they wanted to fly. They’re people who look at the ROTC and the military as a way to serve their country. They’re people who want to help other countries. They’re people who are looking for a path into college and out of poverty.
In another time, in another country, going to war would’ve meant saying farewell to my father or my cousins or my brother or my uncle–Korea does not have a volunteer military. It is only by the grace of money–class privilege–that I don’t have any family members currently serving in the U.S. military. But just because I’m not personally impacted, just because my family is not at risk, doesn’t mean that I can forget about the people who are in Iraq. To do so is selfish and inhumane.
Every death is a person. Every number adding up to 3,982 stands for a person. That’s only deaths, and that’s only U.S. military personnel. It leaves out the casualties, the civilians, the mercenaries. It leaves out the Iraqis, the soldiers from the “Coalition of the Willing.”
Call your senator. Call your representative. Call Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, and John Edwards (don’t have info for him). Tell them in no equivocal terms to end the invasion of Iraq. Tell them to work for U.N. intervention. Talking about time lines, goals, projections, costs, and progress is so much obfuscation at this point; the war is completely fucked and the country has descended into a hellhole, thanks to incompetent leadership by incompetent, greedy, evil people. The military can’t do nation building and right now, while it rushes about putting out brush fires, people are dying. It’s a no-win situation, because as soon as they stamp out violence in one area, it flares up elsewhere. End the occupation.
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights–And What About The Children??
As for overseas travel, the papers show that Clinton did spend some time conferring with foreign leaders on strategic issues. But the records suggest she spent a lot more time fulfilling the traditional role of the first lady: meeting the leaders’ wives and focusing on women’s and children’s issues.
As Melissa says, “The contempt for “women’s and children’s issues” could not be more palpable.”
I am incoherent with rage right now, so I’ll leave you a numbered list:
1. Dismissing “children’s issues” when the tabloid-esque so-called ‘news’ of the big corporation-owned media conglomerates are usually whining, “But what about the childreeeeeen?” How hypocritical. How dare you. How dare you dismiss children’s issues as unimportant because it’s in the purview of the First Lady. This framing only hammers home what Pocochina said in her post I Am Hillary Clinton:
When Senator Obama derides the eight years of political and diplomatic service First Lady Hillary Clinton gave to this country as “tea parties with ambassadors,” he is personally benefiting from a patriarchal system which only values work done by men, and grants the value of work done by women to men, and because I am not a man, he is saying that whatever work I do, its value belongs to someone else.
Similarly, the LA Times dismisses the work that Clinton did because she is female. The work that she did is irrelevant because it’s done by a woman, is what the LA Times is implying. Focusing on womens’ issues and childrens’ issues – health care, education, poverty relief, reproductive rights, sexual violence – is unimportant, because that’s what the First Lady does. It’s a woman thing. It doesn’t matter. Here are some “women’s issues”:
- Ignoring genocidal rape (The Curvature)
- Iraqi women substantially worse off since the war, even though “women’s rights and gender equity were mentioned as symbolic issues for Iraq’s new national agenda”. (BBC)
- International Women’s Day protests highlight violence, inequality: “The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia.” (Agence France-Presse)
- Women’s lives worse than ever (The Independent)
Six years after the US and Britain “freed” Afghan women from the oppressive Taliban regime, a new report proves that life is just as bad for most, and worse in some cases.Projects started in the optimistic days of 2002 have begun to wane as the UK and its Nato allies fail to treat women’s rights as a priority, workers in the country insist.
26.9% optimistic about the situation in Iraq
63.9% said violence against them had increased
76.2% said girls in their family were not allowed to attend school
68.3% described the availability of jobs as “bad”
70.5% said their family cannot afford to pay for the necessities
43.6% did not think that the circumstances of women were considered by decision-makers
Notice a recurring trend, here? People don’t pay attention to women’s rights. People don’t pay attention to forced marriages, rape, sexual assault, gender-based violence, the denial of education, unequal pay, domestic abuse, denial of reproductive rights (and thus agency over your own body), and the denial of basic human rights to women, and the LA Times article both reflects and perpetuates the reason why: women are not valued. Work done by women is not valued. Work done by women for women is even less valued. It is thought to be irrelevant, it is thought not to matter, because it is done by women, for women, about women.
As for “children’s issues”:
- President Vetoes Second Measure to Expand Children’s Health Program (NYT). “President Bush vetoed another children’s health bill on Wednesday, effectively killing Democrats’ hopes of expanding a popular government program aimed at providing insurance to youngsters in lower- and middle-income families.”
- U.S. Curtailing Bids to Expand Medicaid Rolls (NYT). “The Oklahoma Legislature voted in May to cover 42,000 more children under Medicaid by increasing the income limit to 300 percent of the poverty level, from 185 percent. “In recent weeks,” Mr. Fogarty said, ‘we got a very clear signal from federal officials that we would not be allowed to go beyond 250 percent of the poverty level.’”
- Leave No Child Behind (excerpt from Bushwhacked, in Austin Chronicle). No Child Left Behind = Lots Of Children Left Behind. Too bad for them and society at large – but good for test prep businesses!
- Congress Votes for a Stimulus of $168 Billion … And Forgets The Children (NYT). “In those talks, Ms. Pelosi dropped Democrats’ demands for an extension in unemployment benefits and an increase in food stamps, two strategies that economists rate highly for providing a quick stimulative effect, and instead agreed to a plan centered on the tax rebates favored by House Republicans and the Bush administration.” (emphasis mine)
- Hunger 2008: Working Harder for Working Families (breadfortheworld): “Three decades ago, a low-wage job was enough to lift a family of three out of poverty; today, it scarcely comes close to getting them to the poverty line, and without food assistance and other government support a family struggling to get by in the low-wage economy would be on the absolute edge of desperation.”
This is what happens when we dismiss “children’s issues”: children receive shitty education. Children are uninsured. Children grow up poor and hungry because EBT and WIC programs are dropped because no one cares enough to go to bat for “children’s issues” in the government. Children suffer and society as a whole suffers as a result.
2. “the records suggest she spent a lot more time fulfilling the traditional role of the first lady: meeting the leaders’ wives”
The sheer ignorance, or perhaps the willful ignoring of reality and how the world functions, is dumbfounding. Raise your hand if you’ve been in business and wined and dined a prospective hire, a prospective client, a boss, a client, a friend of a client, a friend of a colleague. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in academia and seen your department wine and dine prospective grad students and prospective hires. Raise your hand if you’ve ever made or heard a joke about political elites working out deals in smoke-filled back rooms, lawyers working out deals while golfing, power lunches, power breakfasts. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to an industry cocktail party, parties at trade shows, parties at conferences, charity galas where the rich and powerful schmooze and make connections. Raise your hand if you’ve joked about making connections at posh schools or secret societies.
What’s my point? The point is, politics, business, and life generally function via meet and greets. Via lunches. Via cocktail parties. Via meetings that at first glance appear to be pointless: chit chat with friends of friends or leaders’ spouses, even “tea parties.” You go to those to make connections, to meet the people you’ll be able to call in for favors, to do favors for people, to get leverage. You go to those to subtly hammer out deals, to talk about what issues matter to you and which issues you’re willing to trade on, to work through channels more subtle than official negotiations or official diplomacy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken people out to lunch as a favor to a friend or colleague, for which they owe me or vice versa; how many times I’ve seen deals closed over a nice dinner; how many times I’ve seen people pass business along to friends of friends or casual acquaintances; how many deals I’ve seen come in because the client and a colleague got drunk together at a party.
Why is “meeting the leaders’ wives” then dismissed as unimportant work? Why is it dismissed as fluff? When it’s men meeting each other for business meetings or diplomacy or rounds of golf, it’s accepted as standard business schmoozing and a good practice. Why is there the unspoken assumption that when politically active, high-powered women meet each other, it’s unimportant and they’ll be talking about–I can’t even imagine what they’d be talking about that’d be worthy of dismissal. Political issues, government issues, foreign policy issues, diplomacy, “women’s and children’s issues.” I think those are goddamned important. The unspoken assumption is that at their “tea parties,” these women will be talking about the latest fashions and TV shows or god only knows what. That assumption rests on the belief that women are too dumb to wrap their minds around more important concepts, even when they have a record for standing up for health care, foreign policy, children, and, yes, women. That assumption relies on harebrained stereotypes that dismiss anything a woman does because she is a woman and therefore it’s only to be expected that she’ll talk fluff and do fluff. We evaluate women based on stereotypes rather than taking a second to think about the woman in question and consider her record.
That is sexism.
To the writer of that awful LA Times articles and to everyone else who disregards the work of everyone who focuses on “women’s issues” or “children’s issues,” I would like to remind you:
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. I believe that now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:
It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed — and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend — or have been prohibited from fully taking part.
Now it is the time to act on behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too. Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care. Families rely on women for labor in the home. And increasingly, everywhere, families rely on women for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives.
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes — the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.
Let — Let this conference be our — and the world’s — call to action. Let us heed that call so we can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future. That is the work before you. That is the work before all of us who have a vision of the world we want to see — for our children and our grandchildren. — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Plenary Session in Beijing, China: 5 September 1995(emphases mine)
“Women’s issues” and “children’s issues” are human issues.
I have a wine collection!
If two bottles counts as a collection, that is. It’s only the beginning of a collection by virtue of the fact that I tend not to have wine with dinner when I’m cooking for one, and that’s most of the nights that I cook. So I had one bottle, then I received another one today, and in all likelihood they’ll still be in the cabinet when I get more for my birthday this year. By the time I’m dead, I’ll have a cellar!
I should throw dinner parties. Then I could cook and have people over and we could eat and drink the lovely, lonely bottles sadly mouldering away behind the mixing bowls, the flour, and the pasta machine. That would require acquiring more chairs and more friends, however.
The original reason I started writing about red wines tonight was the label on the Ca’ del Solo Sangiovese, and then somewhere along the line it digressed into nostalgic thoughts about how I relate to food (with memories and emotional context) and what red wines mean to me (Rome/happiness, friends, joy). Here’s the label:
Sangiovese is often a fairly rustic grape variety, but occasionally seems to rise above its putative station and provide a tasting experience of great elegance and intelligence. Such is the case with our ‘05, a highly concentrated, spicy and sanguinous, explosively delicious cherry bomb. The wine is absolutely brilliant with bisteca fiorentina, wild boar, or as an antidote to wild bores.
The photo illustration on the reverse displays a sensitive crystallization of our 2005 Sangiovese. Sensitive crystallizations create a visual representation of a wine’s organizing forces–a snapshot of its internal harmony. By featuring this representation, we hope to demonstrate our commitment to natural, vital wine and to the great virtue of transparency.
Sanguinous is an adjective that gives me pause, but cherry bomb? Bisteca fiorentina and wild bores? Made of awesome! I love the humor and I love puns. The sensitive crystallization, though–I wish I could find a picture of the label to put up here, because when I looked at it, I wondered if the picture was supposed to be a balloon, a desiccated cross section of an orange, or a weird mineral formation.
Remember the GOP
I’ve been following the Democrats’ mudslinging over the past two weeks, but haven’t said anything because, well, what is there to say, other than that I’m profoundly disappointed in both the primary campaigns for the Democratic nomination? I realize that the point of the primary is for the candidates within each party to fight against each other until there’s only one person standing, at which point the party bases are expected to forget the past couple years (years!) of insults and mudslinging. We’re expected to rally behind the party’s candidate and fall in line for the causes that the candidate ostensibly stands for, which are ostensibly the causes we support, at which point the narrative changes to the Democratic and Republican candidates fighting viciously with each other until there’s only one person standing. It’s a system built on immediate conflict: fight the enemy you’ve got right now and make that contest seem like the end all and be all of the world, then pretend that you (and your campaign and your supporters) haven’t been insulting the intelligence, ethics, liberal street cred, life experiences, and humanity of your opponent (and campaign and supporters) and expect them to fall in line behind you while you get up and fight the next enemy.
That’s stupid. It is inherently stupid to call people racist, sexist, classist, ignorant, gullible, stupid, etc., and then expect them to work with you and support you. I think that most liberals, whomever they’re supporting now, will vote for the Democratic candidate in November, whether or not they have to hold their noses, but banking on that is not the smartest move. Disaffected voters who feel that they’ve been coerced into voting for you simply because you’re better than the GOP candidate and better than the status quo are probably not going to be enthusiastic about campaigning for you, donating to you, actively supporting the Democratic party, or doing anything beyond filling in the arrow by your name come November. This situation does not make for a cohesive Democratic front against the GOP attack machine and it certainly doesn’t make for an effective, cohesive liberal movement after the election.
I’m not saying that conflict is bad or that partisanship is bad or that division is bad. On the contrary, I generally embrace all of those things and think that arguing can be useful and productive.* However, right now, I think that the opression Olympics and mudslinging between the Clinton and Obama campaigns are a fatal error for the following reasons:
1. It makes it more difficult for the loser’s supporters to get on board with the nominee.
2. It distracts attention from the real issues at hand: not the policy differences between the candidates, but the problems with George W. Bush’s status quo.
3. It distracts attention from the fact that McCain is far worse than either of the two Democratic candidates.
I’m not saying that we need to hold our noses and vote for the Democratic candidate in November. I’m not saying that we need to stop holding our candidates responsible for the shit that they, their campaigns, their supporters, and the mainstream media spew. I’m not saying that we need to stop agitating for our candidates to represent our views.
I’m saying that it would be more productive if, instead of competing in the oppression Olympics, we could have civilized, thoughtful discussions about the effects of sexism, racism, and other systems of prejudice. They’re important issues. I’m a fan of airing dirty laundry and at least we’re sort of talking about racism and sexism now. Kinda. Not in a productive fashion – we’re still stuck on the name calling. But it’s something, I guess. It’d be nice if we could move on to something more thoughtful than pointing fingers. Both sides have grievances, obviously, and they’re complicated. Namecalling isn’t going to solve the prejudices or lead anywhere but bitterness.
I’m saying that it would be more productive if, instead of painting the opposing candidate as the devil, we could refocus and remember that the devil actually walks the earth in two forms these days: the current White House occupant and the candidate he’s endorsed.
At this point, I don’t know if I’m angrier at the campaigns or at the more vitriolic parts of the blogosphere. The obsession with keeping score and weighing wrongs (and I don’t exempt myself from this, although I’m trying to stop) is unproductive because it’s endless and subjective. I get the impression that at this point, most people I know have come down firmly in the camp of Clinton, Obama, or Undecided But I’m Voting Dem In November, and aren’t going to budge. If that’s true, can we remember that the GOP will be fronting a candidate in the general election, too, and the mainstream media loves him? McCain has the GOP attack machine and the mainstream media in his favor and it’s important to remember that McCain has a myriad of flaws because the media sure as hell aren’t going to point them out.** The race for president isn’t just between the Democratic candidates. It’s between the Dems and the GOP, and the sooner we start campaigning against the GOP as well as against each other, the better.
I’m not saying that you have to vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election because McCain is worse. I hate that rhetoric, the idea that I should settle for the Dem nominee because at least she or he will not actively abrogate my civil rights and it could be so much worse, dum dum dum! (I don’t respond well to threats or veiled intimidation tactics)
I’m saying that you can support your candidate, hell, you can fight with the other candidate’s supporters, but in the meantime, don’t forget to fight with McCain and his supporters. Anger is one of the few truly renewable resources and I think there ought to be plenty to spread between your candidate, the opposing candidate, and McCain, with an everflowing font left over for Bush. Basically, I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to shoot themselves in the foot come November. I don’t trust them to succeed against McCain, the GOP, and the mainstream media if they can’t even keep their campaigns from spouting racist and misogynist crap and drawing a bitter line in the sand in the primary.
I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago:
Pizza Diavola: if they were smart, both obama and clinton would be campaigning against mccain
Pizza Diavola: holding the press accoutnable for idolizing st john mcfuckhead
I stand by that.
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*Inevitable qualification: there are some issues over which, and some people with whom, I do not argue, because I know that the discussion is not going to be productive and the costs will probably outweigh whatever gains there are. Context matters.
**The only source I’ve consistently seen point this out is Shakesville, particularly Melissa McEwan. They’re pretty much the only non-partisan liberal blog I’ve found these days – the comments can get unpleasant, but the posts, by and large, remain civilized and intelligent.
Abortion Providers Appreciation Day
Via The Curvature and Pocochina.
March 10 is National Abortion Providers Appreciation Day. Without the doctors and nurses who do the work of providing abortions, the right to legal and safe abortions would be useless. Take, for instance, Miriam McCreary, who provides abortions in South Dakota’s sole abortion clinic: without her and the other doctors at the clinic, the rights that Roe v. Wade guaranteed to every woman in the country would be meaningless for those living in South Dakota without the wherewithal to travel to another state.
In the U.S., abortion providers risk their lives every day at the hands of anti-choice terrorists. They are reviled, harassed, stalked, injured, and murdered by anti-choice extremists, and yet they continue to provide vital care to women. They provide alternatives to dangerous, DIY or back alley abortions; they provide alternatives to carrying to term fetuses that women don’t want, can’t want, or can’t have, no questions asked*; they give women a new lease on life.
I had a pregnancy scare. It was the most terrifying experience of my life because I looked ahead into the next few months and saw my world abruptly shrink. I was afraid, and I couldn’t think of anything but my fears: am I pregnant? How do I hide it? When will it become too visible to hide? Will this interfere with work? How far along will it be before I can abort it? Will it be too late? I was scared and I was desperate. I saw the physical hardships of pregnancy, the emotional and logistical difficulties of hiding it, the slut-shaming, the slamming of the doors that I’d worked to open, the limitations on what I could do with my life for the next few months and possibly longer. Throughout it all, the one consolation, the one hope of fulfilling my plans of work and moving and grad school and more, was that I could go to Planned Parenthood and get an abortion if I were indeed pregnant. That was the only thing that kept me from drinking pennyroyal tea until I poisoned my kidneys; sticking a coat hanger up myself; drinking and fasting in an attempt to poison and starve any wannabe fertilized eggs out of my body; and trying any other DIY abortion method I could think of, no matter how dangerous.
I wasn’t pregnant. I was pro-choice before the pregnancy scare and I’m pro-choice now. However, I will never forget that what kept me sane was knowing that I could get an abortion if I had to. It wouldn’t be possible without the brave abortion providers who stand proud and firm and give women back their lives, their dreams, and their futures, one abortion at a time. So, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your work, thank you for making pro-choice activism a fight for something real. Thank you for my life.
I can take an anxious woman, who is in the biggest trouble she has ever experiences in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life. – Garson Romalis, “Why I Am An Abortion Doctor”
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*Well, except for the questions mandated by anti-choicers.
Romalis op-ed via Feministe
Another Poem
Had this lovely exchange on Facebook with a friend last night. The prompting factor was that I recently added the “I am a fan of … Hillary Clinton” sidebar on my profile.
Friend:
Oh, my dear [Pizza Diavola].I love you, but she really IS a monster!
Politics of Fear, man, Politics of Fear.
PD:
wow, thanks for the informative, persuasive comment.
Friend:
Anytime, man, anytime.
*sigh*
Have another poem, inspired by Glashoff Farms’ amazing blackberry preserves:
wine-dark seas
in a jar
but tastier
OM NOM NOM
Yes She Will!
Texas (Primary), Ohio, and Rhode Island! Clinton’s speech in Ohio, from her website:
Hillary’s Election Day Remarks in Columbus, OH
Thank you Ohio.
For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you.
You know what they say, as Ohio goes, so goes the nation.
Well, this nation’s coming back, and so is this campaign.
The people of Ohio have said it loudly and clearly: we’re going on, we’re going strong, and we’re going all the way.
You know, they call Ohio a bellwether state. It’s a battleground state. It’s a state that knows how to pick a president. And no candidate in recent history, Democrat or Republican, has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary.
[Audience: Yes, she will! Yes, she will! Yes, she will!]
You all know that if we want a Democratic president, we need a Democratic nominee who can win the battleground states just like Ohio. And that is what we’ve done. We’ve won Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Arkansas, California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. And today, we won Rhode Island, and thanks to all my friends and supporters there.
This is a great night, but we all know that these are challenging times. We have two wars abroad. We have a recession looming here at home. Voters faced a critical question – who is tested and ready to be Commander-in-Chief on day one? And who knows how to turn our economy around, because we sure do need it.
Ohio has written a new chapter in the history of this campaign, and we’re just getting started.
More and more people have joined this campaign and millions of Americans haven’t spoken yet. In states like Pennsylvania and so many others people are watching this historic campaign, and they want their turn to help make history. They want their voices to count. And they should. They should be heard. So please, join us in this campaign. Go to www.hillaryclinton.com. This is your campaign and your moment and I need your support.
For more than a year, I’ve been listening to the voices of people across our country. The single mom who told me she works two jobs; neither provides health care for her kids. She just can’t work any harder. The little girl who asked how I helped people without homes – turns out her family was about to lose their own. The young man in a Marine Corps shirt who said he waited months for medical care. He said to me, “take care of my buddies, a lot of them are still over there. And then, will you please help take care of me?”
Americans don’t need more promises. They’ve heard plenty of speeches. They deserve solutions and they deserve them now.
America needs a president who’s ready to lead, ready to stand up for what’s right even when it’s hard. And after seven long years of George W. Bush, we sure are ready for a president who will be a fighter, a doer and a champion for the American people again.
Oh, I think we’re ready for health care, not for just some people or most people, but for every American. I think we’re ready for an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, but every single hard-working American who deserves a shot at the American dream. I think we’re ready to declare energy independence and create millions of green collar jobs. We’re ready to reach out to our allies and confront our shared challenges. We’re ready to end the war in Iraq and win the war in Afghanistan. And we’re past ready to serve our veterans with the same devotion that they served us.
Protecting America is the first and most urgent duty of the president. When there’s a crisis and that phone rings at 3:00 a.m. in the White House, there’s no time for speeches or on-the-job training. You have to be ready to make a decision.
I congratulate Senator McCain on winning his party’s nomination and I look forward to a spirited and substantive debate with him.
[Audience: Yes, she will! Yes, she will! Yes, she will!]
I want to thank the wonderful people of Ohio for your support and your confidence in me. I especially want to thank Governor Ted Strickland and his wonderful wife Frances. Governor and Mrs. Strickland are working so hard on behalf of Ohio and they deserve a president who will work hard with them to give Ohio the future that you deserve. I want to thank Senator John Glenn and his wonderful wife Annie. I want to thank Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher and his wife Peggy.
And I especially want to thank Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. She does an extraordinary job for her constituents, and she has been a champion on behalf of the people of Ohio and America. I look forward to working with her to bring more opportunity to the people that she loves and represents so well. I want to thank my extraordinary staff, volunteers and supporters here in Ohio and across America. And I especially want to thank the two most important people in my life, Bill and Chelsea.
And, of course, to my mother who I know is watching, thanks very much, mom, for everything. And finally, to Senator Obama, who has brought so much to this race. I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the weeks ahead on the issues that matter most to our country.
I want to end by sharing with you a message that I got late last month from someone who didn’t have much money to spare, but sent me $10 for my campaign and sent an e-mail in which she wrote: “My two daughters are two and four, and we chant and cheer for you at every speech we see. I want them to know anything is possible.”
Tonight I say to them, keep on watching. Together, we’re going to make history. To those little girls, I say this is America, and we do believe you can be anything you want to be, and we want our sons and our daughters to dream big. I have big dreams for America’s future. The question is not whether we can fulfill those dreams, it’s whether we will. And here’s our answer: yes, we will.
We will do what it takes, and we will once again make the kind of progress that America deserves. We’re going to protect our country and preserve our constitution. We’re going to lead with our values. We will reach out to those on the margins and in the shadows because that’s what we do in America. We break barriers, we open doors, we make sure every voice is heard. Together, we will turn promises into action, words into solutions, and hope into reality.
It will take leadership and hard work, but we’ve never been short on either. So I hope all of you will join, join with the Ohioans who voices and votes have been heard today. Together, we will seize this moment, lift this nation, and heal and lead this world.
Thank you all and God bless you.
Video clips of speech:
Read the rest of this entry »
Thought of the Day
I can tell who the awesomepants people are because when they come over, they always go for the books.
Case in point: Sahiya immediately went for the bookshelves when she came for lunch and Tari’s eagle eyes picked out Nine Tailors from among a row of Sayers mysteries. Super awesomepants people are the ones who’ve also read, heard of, or can talk about the books they notice.
How do you tell who the awesomepants folks are?
