Movie Friday: How to hit on an Asian girl

I live in Vancouver, which is a city that has a very large population of east and south Asian people. Having spent a number of years in Brampton, Ontario, and having done a degree at the University of Waterloo, I am more or less used to being in an environment with a large minority population. Some people, however, seem to have a difficult time dealing with the diversity, and retreat immediately into crude stereotypes when interacting with non-white people. If you think you might be one of those (and you are attracted to women), here’s a few handy tips:

Many people (mostly white people) express a great deal of incredulity when people of colour (PoCs) share stories like this. “How could anyone be so stupid?” they ask. Or, more commonly, “you’re exaggerating”. Life as a PoC in most cities in North America is emphatically not a non-stop barrage of racial insensitivity and adversity. However, it doesn’t take a lot of these kinds of comments to make you feel as though two things are overwhelmingly true:

  1. Your race/ethnic identity is the most important thing people see when they look at you
  2. You are the ‘other’ – a person who is tolerated but not part of the group

Now I don’t get hit on a lot (and when I am, most of the time I can’t hear the comments over the sound of me saying ‘yes’ and high-fiving myself), but it’s a pretty safe bet that when I’m flirting with someone who seems interested, at some point I will hear either “I just love black guys”, or “I’ve never been with a black guy before”. I’ve yet to hear “I’ve never been with a viola player before” or “health economists are so sexy” (and we really are – we’ve done extensive studies proving it through the use of computer simulation). It’s not a huge problem, but it’s just one of those things.

While it’s tough enough for women to walk down the street without being openly and unapologetically objectified by strangers, when you add race to that equation, life becomes even more difficult.

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Movie Friday: Thank You…

It’s my birthday today, and I usually take this time to reflect on the things that have happened over the last year. One of the things I’m most proud of is the way this blog has established itself. Obviously I will take the appropriate amount of credit for the success, but I’m not shy about saying that you readers are a major source of inspiration and motivation. I honestly wouldn’t have been able to do this without you, your comments and feedback, your e-mails, and the fact that there’s more of you every month.

But there’s someone even more important that I have to thank…

Fun fact: the guy who sings this song also sings the theme from Pokemon:

Obviously this is a joke (well, I hope it’s obvious but with some people you never know). I don’t believe in Satan, or any kind of supernatural force of evil. I leave such fantasizing and personification of human folly to theists. I’m not even really a big believer in the Satan of the LaVey church – the worship of the human spirit and individuality as supreme. But it is fun to see someone take the piss out of the cheesy gospel music that gives credit to a different deity for all the good things, without putting the corresponding blame on that entity for the bad stuff. Consistency is clearly not a virtue.

If there is a pro-Satan song that I like on its own merits, it would be this one by one of my all-time favourite bands. I’ll leave you with it for the weekend, and proceed to get my party on.

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Belief and self-limiting allegiance: crabs in a barrel

One of the recurrent topics of discussion within the freethinking community has to do with how one should treat religious groups with similar humanistic goals. Should we, for example, work with the Campus Crusade for Poseidon and the Hatmehyt Society to preserve ocean fisheries, even though their beliefs are opposed to our own (and each other’s, but we’ll get there later)? Is there ground to be gained by putting aside our fundamental differences to accomplish a mutually-beneficial outcome? Most people at this point of the conversation say ‘well of course’, but there is a second part to this question. Should we stop talking about our differences in order to foster ‘respect’?

This is an important questions, because it underlies the entire enterprise of working together. If our would-be allies are so turned off by criticism of their position, we’d surely lose their support. It would be therefore advantageous to treat them with kid gloves, right? It’s better than trying to ‘go it alone’ and have cumulative parts that are weaker than the whole trying to tackle a major problem, isn’t it?

This is the part where I (and those like me) part ways with this line of argument. It does me no good to have an ally with whom I cannot be honest, particularly if the areas in which we disagree are relevant to our work. Does the CCP want to preserve ocean fisheries so that they can ultimately defeat the Crab People of the Marianas Trench? Is the Hatmehyt Society trying to re-establish the lost kingdom of Atlantis? Yes, our stated goal of conservation might be similar, but our ultimate goals are diametrically opposed. Must I sell out the long-term problem of the fact that my allies are insane in order to solve the short-term problem of overfishing? Do I only begin to attack them when we’ve accomplished the short-term goal? What happens when my participation is no longer useful to them?

There is a real danger to allying yourself with people who disagree with you, unless you are able to make your differences clear and resolve them somehow. There is an even greater danger in following the old adage of keeping your enemies closer, and allying with people who outright hate your guts:

Liveprayer.com, an interactive Christian website with over 2.4 million subscribers, is calling for a boycott of Christian TV network TBN, according to a press release. Bill Keller, the leader of the site, issued the call after prominent Christian leaders such as Pastor John Hagee and David Barton expressed their support for Glenn Beck’s “restoring courage” campaign on the network.

“It is absolutely ridiculous for a supposed Christian TV Network, that purports to be propagating the gospel, like TBN, with major Christian figures like John Hagee and David Barton, to be supporting and advocating for a member of a satanic cult,” said Keller to The Christian Post. Glenn Beck, a professed Mormon, frequently identifies himself with other religious people such as Christians, feeling they all have similar values and can work together on “common interests.” However, to believers like Keller, this is deceitful behavior since he believes Mormonism is a satanic cult or a counterfeit form of Christianity, and that true believers should not align themselves with these types of faiths.

My first reaction when reading this story was to chuckle and enjoy a deserved glass of delicious schadenfreude as the extreme wing of the religious right begins to tear itself apart. After all, I pointed out the potential for this kind of fracturing within the supposedly-monolithic edifice of America’s nascent theocratic movement many moons ago:

The only people who would benefit from an erosion of state sovereignty by the religious establishment is those who agree completely with the leading class’ views. History shows us again and again that fractions will appear within religious communities as they grow larger and more powerful. There is no long-term benefit to the rule of religion – there will always be a group that is seen as heretical until there is only one absolute ruler. Religion knows no satiety in its appetite for power.

And while I do so enjoy being correct when it comes to matters like this, I will tamp down my instinct for self-congratulation and allow this news item to serve a different purpose. I will invite you, however, to take a moment and ponder that this is one of those few examples of a religious disagreement that is based solely on denominational/doctrinal grounds. Oftentimes, apologists for religion will say that ‘religious conflicts’ are ethnographic conflicts with the veneer of religion brushed over them. For the most part I will accept this explanation as valid (with the caveat that religion makes this kind of conflict much easier and more deeply entrenched). This is not the case, however, in the split between TBN and Liveprayer.

It’s also useful to consider how diametrically opposed this kind of backbiting is diametrically opposed to the more ecumenical version of religion that many apologists like to put forward as its ‘true face’. These are two groups that, in all likelihood, agree on 95% of their politics and theology. I don’t know who is more admirable here: Glenn Beck for attempting to build bridges between dissenting factions, or Bill Keller for at least having the integrity to be honest and forthright about his beliefs.

That dealt with, I do want to point out the minefield that these political marriages of convenience can pose. Aligning yourself with someone who disagrees with everything you stand for because your interests happen to overlap on some arbitrary topic is a tricky tightrope to walk. It’s made even trickier when that person is leaping up and down on that tightrope, threatening to throw you off every time you make a misstep. It is inevitable that we will disagree with each other from time to time, and we do have to find ways to compromise to get things done. However, when our disagreements go all the way down to the core issues, it may be in our self-interest to let that particular team pitch pass us by.

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Movie Friday: Jamie Kilstein

Those of you who are regular readers may have noticed that my use of language fluctuates from post to post. Sometimes I am crude and direct, other times I am flowery and expressive. Some of this is organic – I am actively trying to improve my writing and I think that repeated daily practice is accomplishing that. Other times it is intentional – trying to match the tone of my words to the topic at hand to elicit emotional impact. Sometimes, I will confess, it is simple laziness on my part.

I love words. I can’t really draw or paint, and while I am a musician my creativity in that department is not exactly exceptional. Where I think my real strength lies in in my use of language. Words on a page, properly arranged, can change the world. While my own personal aspirations are somewhat more modest than global metamorphosis, I do put more than a little bit of conscious effort into these sentences you read here.

Sometimes I run into someone who can knock me on my ass with their use of language. Jamie Kilstein is one such person:

Audio is definitely NSFW, but you shouldn’t watch Youtube videos at work anyway.

Yes, I recognize it’s crude, but I challenge you to find fault in the phrase “fist you into a meth coma”.

I’ve run into these kinds of arguments against gay marriage and gay parenting before. They are, quite frankly, ridiculous. There are heterosexual parents who do a far worse job of raising kids than a gay couple could ever hope to. There are single parents who do do an outstanding job without another person around (I’d offer my own upbringing as evidence of that possibility). Suggesting that a mix-gendered environment is a necessary component of a healthy childhood is easily put to the lie by even the most casual of scrutiny. Suggesting further that every gay couple will do a worse job than every straight couple is an even greater height of absurdity.

Jamie Kilstein does a great job of skewering these arguments with a fast-paced, profanity-strewn and impeccably-delivered 3 minute monologue. Of course, being in front of a sympathetic audience certainly helps the delivery, but even without the accompanying laughter it’s quite something to see.

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Movie Friday: A personal relationship

One of the things that Christians (particularly Protestants) like to brag about is how they have a ‘personal relationship’ with the divine. Of course, ask 100 Christians about what God wants, and you’ll get 200 different answers.

NonStampCollector points this out in his usual hilarious way:

The problem with everyone claiming to have a personal relationship is that there’s no consistency to the claims made. If Jesus was a real entity (which is a central Christian claim), and is accessible through prayer (another Christian claim), and responds to the faithful through the intercession of the Holy Spirit (another Christian claim), then we’d see a convergence of ideas. What we see instead is that the several religions of the world can’t split off of each other fast enough.

What I posit is that the only person you’re in contact with when you pray is the inside of your own head. It’s certainly easy to confuse your own conscience with the machinations of a disembodied force, especially if you’ve been brought up to accept revelation as a kind of evidence. I used to think that the voice inside my head that told me all this God stuff is bullshit was the devil – true story. I used to actively tamp down the voice of “the devil” while I was in church. It took me years to realize that what I was actually hearing was the rational part of my brain. It’s served me quite well since then.

The tragedy is that there are billions of people out there with whom one could conceivably have a personal relationship with, but who are of a different religious background. I’ve heard dozens of stories of people who are shunned from a friendship or romantic involvement because of religious differences. Entire countries have been split apart because of religious differences. Wars have been fought over religious differences.

All because we can’t get a straight answer out of our personal imaginary friend.

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Divine Law

It seems like it’s been forever since I enjoyed a solid bashing of religion (note: it has been, in fact, 3 weeks). My apologies for those readers who like me to get up on my soapbox and stick it to the religious establishment – it seems as though it’s been racial topics swimming around in my brain for a while. I’d apologize to those of you who are fans of my free speech stuff, but statistics suggest that you don’t exist :P.

A common complaint about anti-theists like myself is that we rail against a type of religiosity that nobody really believes in. After all, the complaint goes, most religious people just want to keep to themselves and exist quietly without harming anyone. Who am I, therefore, to rail against the evils of their religion? They don’t force their beliefs on me, so why should I try to force my non-belief on them?

Of course every anti-theist reading those words has just breathed a tired sigh and rolled their eyes for emphasis. It is, of course, not at all the case that religious people just want to be left alone to worship in peace. Anyone who thinks that is either not paying attention or finds the lie more comforting than the truth (but Crommunist, why can’t it be both?). Religious believers are constantly agitating for their beliefs to be mandated as laws that apply to believers and nonbelievers alike. The entire story of the gay rights, women’s rights, and black civil rights movements are perfect historical examples of religious people staunchly refusing to keep their beliefs to themselves.

How about some non-historical examples?

Hindu scripture order prompts row in Karnataka state 

Opposition parties and minority groups in India’s Karnataka state are angry that the Hindu scripture, Bhagvad Gita, must be taught in schools. The state authorities recently directed schools to teach the Hindu holy book for three hours a week. Education Minister Visveswara Hegde Kageri said that those who did not want to learn the Gita should leave India. Opponents of the move say that the state government order violates their constitutional rights.

So the funny thing about India is that they’re supposedly a secular country. But according to the education minister, it is only those who “want to promote religious ideologies of foreign countries” that believe that secularism includes the right to be free from religious indoctrination in public schools. I wonder if Minister Kageri knows that Hinduism has its origins in a foreign country too. Probably not. After all, that would require him to have the same quality secular education that I had, rather than the feeble interference of a backwards theocracy. Because it’s clearly too much to ask that the education minister be, y’know, educated.

Indian politicians place disagreements ‘before god’ 

Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa has been accused by opposition leader HD Kumaraswamy of corruption. Mr Kumaraswamy has threatened to expose land scams allegedly committed by Mr Yeddyurappa, in addition to accusing the chief minister of trying to “buy” his silence on the matter through intermediaries. In reply, Mr Yeddyurappa has rubbished the allegations as “humbug”, and has challenged his rival to stand before Lord Manjunatha and repeat his charge. Mr Kumaraswamy has accepted the challenge.

Okay, I have to confess that this one is just hilarious. First of all, the guy accused of corruption is called “BS”. Second, it happened in the same place as the Gita fight above, which suggests that these aren’t exactly the most… shall we say ‘enlightened’ people on the planet. Third, he actually used the word “humbug”. Fourth, he used it right before he challenged someone to swear his truthful nature in front of a god, as though he has no idea what the word ‘humbug’ means. At least his colleagues have the good sense to be embarrassed by this whole state of affairs.

Malaysian ‘teapot cult’ woman loses Islam legal bid 

Malaysia’s civil court has refused a woman permission to leave Islam to avoid being jailed for apostasy. Kamariah Ali, 60, says she should not be tried under Islamic law because she is no longer a Muslim. She follows the Sky Kingdom sect, known as the teapot cult because it built a giant teapot to symbolise its belief in the healing purity of water. But judges ruled that only Malaysia’s Islamic courts could decide on the case because Ms Kamariah was born a Muslim. Malaysia’s Islamic courts have authority over only Muslims – the rest of the population are not bound by their rules.

Where’s my ‘lolwut’ pear?

So apparently in Malaysia, there are two things that are true. One is that you can be assigned a religious belief by the courts. The second is that there are people that actually worship a teapot. Betrand Russel must be spinning in his grave.

Here’s the problem: while these stories are all hilarious examples of people doing stupid stuff because of their wacky superstitions, they’re all being taken seriously by the legal system. Instead of being justifiably bounced out of court or laughed out of office, the wacky “personal beliefs” of the people involved are actually granted the status of law. Why is this problematic? Well, aside from the fact that a secular state isn’t supposed to get involved in matters of faith, religious beliefs have no mechanism by which truth can be demonstrated. The only standard by which the ‘correctness’ of religious practice can be established is by sincerity of faith. I have no doubt whatsoever that Minister Kageri, Minister Yeddyurappa and the court presiding over Ms. Ali sincerely believe in the positions they are advocating. That doesn’t change the fact that from a neutral (read: scientific) standpoint, they’re all wrong.

Seriously? A teapot?

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The people you meet when you talk about race

Note: This article is cross-posted over at Racialicious.

If you’ve ever glanced at the links on the sidebar of this page, you may have noticed that I link to a *shudder* tumblr account. Yes, my guilty little pleasure is a fantastic tumblr called ‘STFUconservatives‘. It’s a sort of clearing house for random clips of stupidity that fall from the lips and fingers of conservative (mostly) Americans. Most of it is the kind of run-of-the-mill myopia and lack of critical thinking that I’ve grown accustomed to seeing from those on the right (and to be sure, there is a STFUliberals site – it’s somewhat less populated), but every now and then they put up little gems like this one:

The People You Meet When You Write About Rape

Mr. What About The Men
“The real problem here is all these false rape accusations that are destroying our society! 90 million men are falsely accused of rape every second! A woman just has to sort of mumble a word starting with ‘r’ and a man instantly gets a life sentence! There are no instances on record of a woman actually being raped!”

Ms. Tough Girl
“If women would learn martial arts–70-year-olds and women with disabilities can do this if they put their minds to it, darnit–and carry weapons everywhere, no one would ever get raped! All you have to do is be ready to threaten your own friends and lovers with lethal force at any moment, any anyone who can’t do that must be weak or something.”

…

There’s a list of 14 examples with a bit of snark sprinkled in for good measure. Now if this blog was a lot more popular, I’d get a lot more comments and thus would have a lot more examples to show you, but I’ll try and condense my few years of having these conversations into a similar list. And so, for your amusement, here are…

The People You Meet When You Write About Race

Mr. History
“Black people were enslaved like a million years ago. They’ve had enough time to  get their act together, but they’re still whining about their problems. I don’t want to hear about transgenerational wealth gaps and discriminatory hiring practices! Their problem is that they’re lazy! Case closed!”

Ms. Kumbayah
“We need to recognize that everyone is just the exact same on the inside. Why do we bother using labels like “black” and “white” anyway? Even though the way society treats people falls along racial lines to the detriment of some and benefit of others, we should ignore that! Aren’t we all just members of the human race?”

Mr. Hear No Evil
“It’s people like you that are the real racists! Most people don’t think twice about someone else’s race! Talking about race is what makes racism happen, not entrenched ideas that won’t change unless they’re discussed!”

Ms. Myopia
“I’m a black person, and I haven’t ever felt mistreated because of it. Therefore, nobody else has any business complaining about racism – I’m living proof that it doesn’t exist!”

Mr. Funk & Wagnalls
“Here is the dictionary definition of racism. You can see right here that it describes only one small subset of behaviour. You have no business advocating that the definition of a word change to fit a changed environment of racist behaviour, even if it still describes the old racism. You must adhere to this one definition always!”

Ms. Minimizer
“Sure, racism used to be a big problem, but there’s lots of black people in prominent positions these days. Can’t we stop talking about racism like it’s still a big issue? The President is black, and clearly nobody has any problem with that! Don’t we have more important things to talk about?”

Mr. Liberal White Guilt
“White people are the worst! You’re absolutely right. I am a white person, and I just feel so awful every time I hear about what my people are doing to yours. We need to start fixing the problems in the black community. After all, that’s what we do – go into other communities and solve their problems!”

Ms. Mythology Kook*
“White people are the worst! You’re absolutely right. I am sick and tired of watching the white man destroy us. It’s time to rise up and take to the streets. Until we show them that the black man is the original man, and that white people are an ancient genetic experiment to create a human being without a soul, we’ll never achieve true freedom.”

Mr. Bootstraps
“I’m so sick and tired of people talking about ‘white privilege’. My father was an immigrant from Switzerland, and he had to struggle just like everyone else to make money. His life was tough – you call that privilege? I didn’t get a handout from anyone, and neither should anyone else!”

Ms. Interpretation
“Affirmative action? Isn’t that just where white people aren’t allowed to have jobs because they’re all saved for less-qualified minorities? That’s just slavery but in the other direction – reverse slavery! My cousin knows a guy whose brother didn’t get into his first-choice college, possibly because of affirmative action – racism against white people is the biggest problem nowadays!”

Mr. Conspiracy
“Of course you’d say that – the NAACP has been pushing that lie since they were formed! This whole ‘anti-racism’ thing is just a way of taking white people’s hard-earned money and putting it into welfare programs and health care. It’s how black people are planning on getting reparations!”

Ms. Extraterrestrial
“You monkeys are just mad that you’re genetically inferior to our master race! Once our society, which was created by white people, shakes off this liberal brainwashing, we’ll finally be able to send you animals back to where you came from. Get over it – white people are just superior!”

But I would be remiss and completely unfair if I didn’t mention…

Mr./Ms. Has Been Listening
“This topic made me really uncomfortable when I first started talking about it, but I’m glad I did. I’m not sure if I ‘get’ everything, but my thinking has definitely changed. Here are some reasonable objections and questions that I have, and I hope we can talk about them without offending each other.”

I am really happy to report that while I have personally met all of the above people, Has Been Listening is by far my most common interaction. All of the above are conversations I relish having, and it is my fervent hope that I am slowly equipping you to navigate those waters as well as I could. As I’ve said all along, the more talking we do, the more we learn.

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*A commenter over at Racialicious has taken me to task for originally calling this “Ms. Black Nationalist Kook”. She was right to do so, since the attitude is orthogonal to Black Nationalism. I have made this revision, with an apology to my Nationalist sisters/brothers who I have mischaracterized.

Movie Friday: Kung Fooled

So last week I got a bit heavy on you (although I really hope you watched those videos, and if you didn’t please go back and do so). This week I’m going to give you a bit of a reprieve with some lighthearted comedy:

This video made me laugh in ways that can only be described as indecent. Incidentally, if anyone is curious, I am totally the black guy at the end of the video. I’ve never been in a fight because everyone assumes that I can kick some ass.

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Movie Friday: Sodom and Gomorrah

Anti-gay agitators like to bring up a particularly monstrous story from the bible (and there are many to choose from) as an example of God’s perfect mercy. They use this story to demonstrate that God is not okay with buttsecks, or really anything that isn’t face-to-face vagina/penis intercourse with the lights off and while a woman is ovulating. Rather than trying to retell it in my own inimitable style, I’ll let The Professor Brothers do it for me (video and audio NSFW):

They kind of leave it as a tease at the end, the way that the tribe gets repopulated. Let’s just say that for the (by my count) third time so far in the book, Yahweh is super pissed off that people do things against his will, but has zero problems whatsoever with incest.

Yahweh also seems to be a bit of a plagiarist, unashamedly ripping off the tragic climax of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and adding an oddly (un?)savoury twist. Just another example of where the Bible seems to encourage completely blind faith over reasonable skepticism or even human decency: surely Lot’s wife (who apparently doesn’t deserve a name) had some friends in town whose fates she was upset about; apparently Yahweh’s not big on compassion either.

So this is the example we’re supposed to hold up – the rigorous moral standard that we poor wretched sinners can’t ever even hope to aspire to, save through the oddly-specific requirements of Jesus. We are to villify gay people (not rapists, incidentally – anti-gay crusaders will specify that the crime wasn’t rape, but secks in teh butt) because they are more evil than a mass murderer that permits drunken incest but whose wrath is so moved by a single moment of doubt that he will transform you into a kitchen condiment?

You are right to laugh.

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Stephen Harper has a magic wall of protection

I’ve written one of my patented, irreverent and (hopefully) funny posts over at Canadian Atheist. Here’s a little taste:

I wasn’t going to say anything, but I had a surefire way to lock up the election and prevent Stephen Harper from securing a majority government. It was, admittedly, a risky gambit, and somewhat… unorthodox. But it has a proven track record of efficacy going back hundreds of years, requires only a minimum of effort, and is nearly foolproof.

Of course, as you’ve probably guessed, I am talking about voodoo…

If you want to read the rest of it, just click on over to the site and check it out. I promise not to disappoint.