I’m not ____ist, but: A note on so-called moderates

The so-called moderate conservatives in Alberta have a lot of criticisms of the current NDP government. There is a common refrain that Notley was only elected to punish the arrogant Jim Prentice, the former leader of the now defunct “Progressive” Conservatives. I don’t doubt that there are a lot of uninformed voters who cast their ballot in this fashion–this candidate is an asshole, this candidate smiles nice–but they seem to miss the part where many of us voted for Notley because the Albertan NDP had a mostly sane, mostly evidence-based platform.

I’m glad to see that these so called moderate conservatives care about such issues as poverty, unemployment, rampant drug addictions, violent crime, sex trafficking, palliative care, overburdened healthcare providers, enormous class sizes, and so on. But increasingly I am noticing a pattern where actually resolving these issues with time tested methods is met with vocal objections by these moderates.

Canadian oil isn’t as attractive as it used to be, so fewer people are buying it, which means oil companies engaged in massive lay offs to protect their bottom lines in response to the tanking value of their commodity. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It happened under the previous government every few years, too. The nature of Alberta’s oil-dependent economy has always meant being extremely vulnerable to the whims of the global market since it’s the only thing we’re selling that rakes in the big bucks. And if nobody’s buying?

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Another god damn trigger warning & safe space debate

Content Notice: Trigger warnings. /snark

More serious content notice: I’ll use transphobia to make my point.

Imagine for a moment you’re in a class where today’s topic is “Freedom of Movement.” The professor introduces the concept and states today’s lecture is specifically about the contexts in which it is appropriate to restrict freedom of movement. They go over things like “a building is on fire and the fire department needs you to get out the way,” or “it’s one way to punish lawbreakers without causing permanent injury.”

Now imagine someone interrupts the professor to make an argument about how it’s wrong to expect them to get off of someone’s toes because it restricts freedom of movement. “I have a right to stand on Sally’s toes,” he says, ignoring Sally’s numerous protestations.

That is how fucking absurd this debate is. Every time it comes up–and this isn’t the first–you get a whole lot of talking past each other, because one side of the debate thinks they have a right to stand on Sally’s toes.

Problem #1: I don’t think that means what you think it means.

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Canada’s right wing radicals

MacLeans has a review of Canada’s very own alt-right, filled to the brim with ignorant white voters spewing a constant fountain of hate and violence:

It became such a concern for Brian Jean, the leader of Alberta’s populist Wildrose Party and the leader of the province’s official Opposition, that he stopped his relentless criticism of the province’s left-wing NDP government long enough to ask his Facebook followers to stop threatening to murder Alberta Premier Rachel Notley.

“Over the last few days, I’ve seen far too many hateful and even violent social media posts directed toward our political opponents,” Jean wrote in a Facebook missive two weeks before Christmas. “This needs to stop. These kinds of comments cross all bounds of respect and decency and have absolutely no place in our political discourse. This is not how Albertans behave.”

Jean says he felt compelled to go public after being struck by the number and nature of the threats against Notley. They began, Jean said, shortly after the Notley government introduced a farm safety law that extended compensation rights to farm workers. Bill 6, as it is known, sparked demonstrations from Alberta farmers, who worried it would prohibit them from hiring temporary labourers and recruiting volunteers.

“I’ve never had to do anything like this in my political career,” says Jean, a 12-year veteran of federal and provincial politics, of his note. “There was open hatred and actual threats of life. I even got threats myself after I posted the message. It shows the level some people will go to. It’s not helpful. It absorbs the importance of the discussion itself.”

You made your bed, Brian Jean. Now sleep in it. If your supporters act like monsters, it’s because every time the Dickweeds step up to the plate you engage in stochastic terrorism.

-Shiv

Transition Reactions p7: Feeling unsafe vs. Being unsafe

Content Notice: Abuse and violence of all stripes.

Context

I haven’t had a great year, so far. I left an abusive relationship in which I was sexually assaulted, and my vindication (snark) was to lose my chosen family because I spoke out about it. I had all the sting of family rejection–plus a generous helping of self blame. After all, I chose them. I don’t even have the excuse that they were thrust upon me by circumstance. I trusted them, and was rewarded with cold shoulders, victim-blaming, “taking no side”ism, etc. I had trusted friends tell me they believed my story and then… nothing. My abuser was still welcome at every venue we shared. “No drama” became the watchword. Shouting me down was the response any time murmurs of coming forward surfaced. That’s what my reputation became: dramatic, a ticking time bomb. Unreliable. Untrustworthy. Don’t play with her, she’ll malign you over a silly mistake (a “silly mistake” that has landed me in trauma counselling). Soon the rumours make a round trip through all the lovely cogs of rape culture and I get the freeze for “spreading rumours.”

Trying to grapple with that and the fallout of leaving an abusive relationship, including the PTSD?

Yeah. 2016–worst year of my life. And it’s not even over.

During all that I lost gainful employment, just as the economy started to really tank. What was painful about that was that it was a work place where I could be openly trans. I swore off the private sector after routinely being told to endure abuses from my coworkers. My boss basically said it was on me to go back in the closet if I wanted the workplace harassment to stop. Government employers actually did something about it, when it happened. And non-profit? I’ve never had a problem with a bigoted coworker. After all you don’t get far working for crisis resources by being an insensitive asshole. Emotional intelligence is a prerequisite.

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Defending the indefensible

You’ve probably heard by now that a number of beaches in France have banned the burkini. Far from a rational response, these policies are absurd, sexist, racist, immoral and entirely indefensible. And yet, I see many arguments even from so-called free thinking people defending this policy.

Excuse #1: The French have been victims of a string of terrorist attacks and are scared

This might be a reasonable explanation for how the owners of these beaches thought this was a great idea, but it does not actually excuse the policy. A random Muslim on the street is no more culpable for the Nice or Paris attacks than I am for the routine Planned Parenthood terrorist attacks carried out by self righteous white Christians. It is racist to presume that every brown-skinned person is complicit in the attack because they are not, AT THIS EXACT SECOND, protesting or otherwise condemning the violence. That is a backward and perverted idea of justice.

They’re people. They have errands to run and chores to do. Even though every mosque goes on record to condemn a terrorist attack the moment it happens, this is not enough. Brown people who are on their way to the grocery store? They’re complicit in the violence! Taking time to do housekeeping or paying the bills? Tacit approval! Engaging in self care–including trips to the beach? That’s practically an endorsement! Arrest! Deport! Publicly humiliate!

You wouldn’t try to argue I’m complicit in poverty because I don’t donate 100% of my earnings to shelters. You shouldn’t try to argue that because Muslims may have spoons invested elsewhere they agree with terrorists, particularly when they do adhere to your ridiculous demands and condemn the attacks anyway. Neither Muslims nor brown people should have to prove their humanity to you.

Fuck off. Fear does not justify irrationality, it causes it. Have some fucking perspective. After all, many of the victims at Nice were Muslims.

I have a question. What does the burkini ban actually solve? Are you intercepting finances directed towards ISIS? Disarming dangerous people?

Oh, here’s a good one, Excuse #2. “Liberating women.”

Excuse #2: We’re liberating women.

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Cishet kinksters expecting GSD minorities to protect their privilege

Benny over on The Orbit did a repost of one of his pieces. In his post, Benny more eloquently expresses than I ever could the sheer boiling rage I get from the “closet culture” that the cishet kink community exhibits.

The fear of the cisgender heterosexual kinkster is that someone, usually someone from work, school, or family, would see them with “weird” people out in public and suddenly realize this obviously means they must be a big pervert. This fear, the idea of not seeming “normal” is terrifying. They claim they could loose their jobs, spouses, children. Being even seen with us has the chance of taking away their enormous privilege.

Worse, they believe we have a responsibility to protect that privilege. In order for them to maintain their comfort and ability to keep jobs (jobs we could never get) we must appear normal or not show up. In order for them to have access to kinky communities without risk the rest of us – the queers, the trans* people, and the weirdos with facial piercings and green hair – need to change ourselves or stay home. They want privileged access to kinky spaces just like they have privileged access to everything else.

FUCK THAT. A trans* kinkster has no responsibility to be someone they are not just to protect the next person who walks through the door from the tiny chance that they might have to explain why they’re at the same coffee shop table with a man in a skirt. Every day that we leave the house we have to explain ourselves. Cisgender newbie? Welcome to our fucking world. That’s the way we’re treated all of the time.

Ra-fucking-men, Benny. Right there with you.

-Shiv

Jason Kenney generously runs a charity dedicated to himself

My best friend Jason “I don’t get caught up in the details” Kenney is running a non-profit called Unite Alberta. Is he building homes for the homeless? Fundraising for disaster relief? Providing resources for battered spouses? Starting a pro bono legal network for civil rights prosecutions? Pushing awareness for prostate cancer?

Nah. He’s financing his campaign for the leadership of the “Progressive” Conservatives without subjecting himself to oversight from regulatory bodies–because it’s not a campaign organization–it’s a “non-profit”:

And the vessel for all of this, Jason Kenney assured us, would be a non-profit that would carry out his campaign. Even his campaign website says Unite Alberta is a non-profit corporation. Except Unite Alberta Ltd. isn’t a non-profit at all.

When you do a corporate search and pull what’s publicly available for Unite Alberta Ltd. you see that it is a “Named Alberta Corporation” with the corporate access number 2019802210.

When you ask a registry agent to explain whether there is any way that Unite Alberta could be a non-profit the answer is a steadfast no. Based on the first two numbers of the corporate access number (the 20) there is simply no way Unite Alberta Ltd. could be a non-profit.

It’s worth pointing out that if Kenney had registered Unite Alberta as a non-profit society he would have been obligated to file his financials with Service Alberta at the end of the year and we’d be able to do more than just take Kenney at his word when it came to how much money his campaign had raised and spent. It’s a far more transparent organizational structure and one Kenney didn’t choose.

It’s also worth pointing out that any gifts that Kenney receives while he is a sitting MP would have to be declared to the federal ethics commissioner. Any professional service that is provided would have to be done and paid for at market rates or it would have to be declared. Remember Kenney hasn’t resigned his seat and is currently still drawing a federal MP paycheque while campaigning all over Alberta to be leader of the Alberta PCs.

So why is Kenney saying on his website and in the media that Unite Alberta is a non-profit when it clearly isn’t? I haven’t the faintest idea but inquiries with Kenney’s legal counsel about the discrepancy went unanswered by press time.

Bah. Details. You want transparency from the same party that “misplaced” $29 billion? Ridiculous! Just more red tape to cut through!

Must be some of that good Christian charity he wants to bring to government.

-Shiv, Fashionable Communist, Annihilator of Man

The politics of transphobia: We’ve been here before

Over on the TransAdvocate, Cristan Williams examines the history of the “bathroom panic” as the flashpoint of discrimination for minorities in the past century. She finds, unsurprisingly, that the same tactics used to justify discrimination of Black people, Jewish people, and Gay people are identical; as is the rhetoric used today to paint trans women as predators and disease carriers.

During the rally, CCS co-founder Danny Holliday told the crowd that the “leaders” of the trans rights movement were pedophiles who enjoyed having sexual intercourse with animals.

Political discourse situated around the minority use of bathrooms has featured significantly in numerous social equality struggles, from the fight to preserve racist Jim Crow laws to the sexist battle to keep the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from being ratified. Rhetorical themes featuring bathrooms, privacy, and safety concerns are integral aspects of a specific and identifiable political dialectic used to incite, promote, and sustain the fear that an oppressed group may well rape, molest, harass or infect the majority group should equality between the two groups come to pass. In contemporary times, this political dialectic features prominently in narratives supporting North Carolina’s recently passed law mandating that transgender people who’ve not been able to amend their birth certificate use the restroom assigned to them at birth rather than the restroom that matches their transitioned status, irrespective of legal identification or phenotype. Proponents of laws like North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill” assert that these laws are needed to ensure that A.) the privacy of cisgender people is respected[1]; B.) without these laws, rapists will dress in drag in order to molest little girls in the restroom[2]; and, C.) transgender people are actually perverts and pedophiles who need to be prevented from accessing women’s restrooms[3].

I first wrote about the ways in which contemporary anti-equality discourse situated around trans issues closely resembled the sexist discourse used against the Equal Rights Amendment in a 2013 Autostraddle article. In doing my research for the article you are now reading, I came across the work of Gillian Frank, PhD, a visiting fellow at Princeton. I reached out to Frank to help me better understand the ways in which the very discourse currently focused upon the trans community was used against other marginalized groups throughout American history.  What follows is my interview with Frank and a review of the ways anti-equality groups have historically cast oppressed groups as voyeurs and/or perverts, warning the public that should an oppressed group have equality, bad things may happen in public bathrooms.

You can read the rest here and support the TransAdvocate as a patron here.

-Shiv

Alberta to teach history properly — no more whitewashing

The NDP have announced they will be launching a program ahead of updates to the curriculum which involve teaching Albertan/Canadian history more accurately by including primary sources from First Nations–an uncomfortable move to genocide deniers, since the primary sources describe in great and meticulous detail the abuse perpetrated by European colonials as well as the racism that persists today. The program is to help teachers employ the new curriculum who may be uncomfortable admitting the history of brutal abuses of Indigenous populations by white Canadians.

Alberta teachers uneasy with tackling one of the darkest chapters of Canadian history in their classrooms are getting specific training.

Alberta will become the first province to establish a training regime for all of the province’s teachers to instruct in First Nations, Métis and Inuit history and perspectives.

“We know from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that there are some wounds that we need to heal,” Education Minister David Eggen said Wednesday. “We all live together with First Nations, Métis and Inuit culture. It’s important for all of us to have that education — turning some unfortunate past into a positive future for all.”

The provincial government will spend nearly $5.4 million during the next three years to provide professional development to 42,000 teachers, superintendents and other school staff. The move is to complement an ambitious reworking of Alberta’s school curriculum during the next six years, which Eggen said will include more First Nations, Métis and Inuit history and perspectives.

…

Staff from the centre will highlight information and resources from Alberta in particular, said director Ry Moran. It’s important students understand what transpired in their own backyard.

Alberta had 25 residential schools, the highest number of any province, Moran said. Many were concentrated in the Edmonton and Calgary areas.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission spent six years collecting stories and evidence of systemic assimilation, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse of indigenous people at the schools. The institutions were complicit in governments’ attempt to isolate indigenous children from their families and eliminate their culture and languages.

A truth and reconciliation centre survey found 30 per cent of Canadians haven’t heard of residential schools, Moran said.

Teachers need professional development and the right resources to empower them to tackle the difficult subject in age-appropriate ways, he said.

“Some teachers are a little reluctant to teach (human rights) issues. They don’t want to make mistakes, and they don’t want to offend anybody. And they also don’t really have a full sense of history themselves,” Moran said.

The public also needs to understand the abuse and neglect still affects survivors’ children and grandchildren today, Moran said.

Colour me impressed. This is the sort of substantive change I want to see. Hopefully it isn’t the first thing to go when Alberta carries on with its tradition of shooting itself in the foot every election.

-Shiv