In case you’re baffled, here’s a guide to courteous conversation and GLAAD’s style guide. It’s not hard. Try not to break the conventions, now that you know what they are.
The only thing keeping me from assuming that Grantland, which published that awful outing of a transgender woman, is a haven of unethical wankerism, is that one of their writers, Christina Kahrl, seems to get it.
It was not Grantland’s job to out Essay Anne Vanderbilt, but it was done, carelessly. Not simply with the story’s posthumous publication; that kind of casual cruelty is weekly fare visited upon transgender murder victims in newspapers across the country. No, what Hannan apparently did was worse: Upon making the unavoidable discovery that Vanderbilt’s background didn’t stand up to scrutiny, he didn’t reassure her that her gender identity wasn’t germane to the broader problems he’d uncovered with her story. Rather, he provided this tidbit to one of the investors in her company in a gratuitous “gotcha” moment that reflects how little thought he’d given the matter. Maybe it was relevant for him to inform the investor that she wasn’t a physicist and probably didn’t work on the stealth bomber and probably also wasn’t a Vanderbilt cut from the same cloth as the original Commodore. But revealing her gender identity was ultimately as dangerous as it was thoughtless.
What should Grantland have done instead? It really should have simply stuck with debunking those claims to education and professional expertise relevant to the putter itself, dropped the element of her gender identity if she didn’t want that to be public information — as she very clearly did not — and left it at that. “That would have been responsible,” transgender activist Antonia Elle d’Orsay suggested when I asked for her thoughts on this road not taken. It’s certainly the path I would have chosen as a writer making this sort of accidental discovery, or would have insisted upon as an editor.
The editor of Grantland, Bill Simmons, on the other hand…ouch. He’s got a long, long mea culpa out that at least clearly admits that they screwed up, but also admits that the problem runs very deep.
Before we officially decided to post Caleb’s piece, we tried to stick as many trained eyeballs on it as possible. Somewhere between 13 and 15 people read the piece in all, including every senior editor but one, our two lead copy desk editors, our publisher and even ESPN.com’s editor-in-chief. All of them were blown away by the piece. Everyone thought we should run it. Ultimately, it was my call. So if you want to rip anyone involved in this process, please, direct your anger and your invective at me. Don’t blame Caleb or anyone that works for me. It’s my site and anything this significant is my call. Blame me. I didn’t ask the biggest and most important question before we ran it — that’s my fault and only my fault.
So it was run past more than a dozen editors at Grantland, and none of them had a problem with the fact that it was all about othering a trans woman, a woman who killed herself over the story? Wow. Grantland really sucks.
He’s also still making excuses for Caleb Hannan.
As for Caleb, I continue to be disappointed that we failed him. It’s our responsibility to motivate our writers, put them in a position to succeed, improve their pieces as much as we possibly can, and most of all protect them from coming off badly. We didn’t do that here. Seeing so many people direct their outrage at one of our writers, and not our website as a whole, was profoundly upsetting for us. Our writers don’t post their stories themselves. It’s a team effort. We all failed. And ultimately, I failed the most because it’s my site and it was my call.
That’s nice. Right. As he explains, Hannan was writing this long independent piece on a putter that didn’t gel for them until he added this twist that the designer was exposed as one of those weird trans people, making it supposedly compelling and interesting…to a large team of editors that didn’t include one member of the trans community. Yeah, Grantland has a big problem, but that doesn’t excuse Hannan at all.
I’ll also point out the assessment of the article by Boing Boing. The story wasn’t that good; it relied on bringing out a string of gotchas culminating in the big weird reveal of a dead trans woman.
Another thing: critics keep saying that Hannan’s article was great storytelling, hiding terrible ethics. No. It’s a lurid mess. It’s written and paced like a 90’s-era daytime TV thriller, copying the structural and sensational qualities of other works without caring for how and why they work.
As for me, I continue to be disappointed that Grantland failed Dr V.
You can’t get much more tone deaf than this: Bill Keller uses Martin Luther King Day to…
Somewhere in all this worthy commemoration we should pause to pay homage to a conservative white Republican named William Moore McCulloch.
McCulloch sounds like a guy who did some good things for civil rights, so no criticism of him…but is this really an appropriate time to say we should take a break from praising that black dude and spend a little more time talking about a conservative white Republican? They get all the attention the other 364 days of the year, a black civil rights hero can’t even get one day to be recognized?
So last night I watch Twelve Years a Slave, and this morning I get up to see a tweet from @chebutykin linking to this letter:
The KU KLUX KLAN notes that one Howard G. Costigan, as quoted by the P.-I. of last Sunday, November 14th, 1937, asks an Investigation of the KU KLUX KLAN in Seattle.
We note also that 2 of your Members, as quoted, as asking investigation of the Silver Shirts — the Nazi movement, along with the Klan.
May we ask why the Italian Fascists also in Seattle, are not included?
Is there anything more deadly — more sinister — to American Democracy, than Fascism, Naziism and Communism. The KU KLUX KLAN classes all these as un-American, with Communism as the most dangerous of the three.
The KU KLUX KLAN are ALL AMERICANS, no ism – no symbol – no salute – no flag except to salute the Stars and Stripes, and the Stars and Stripes is OUR ONLY FLAG.
We invite investigation by your Body, to the fullest extent.
Whoa. You mean racism didn’t end after the civil war? I guess there’s a reason we still need a Martin Luther King Day to remind us of the struggle. I notice some things never change on the Right: the random Capitalization, the ALL CAPS (we await technology to enable random font changes), the draping of themselves in True Americanism, the poor grammar, the absence of the Oxford Comma, and, oh yeah, the implicit hate
It reminds me of how virulent anti-communism was (and still is) in this country, that just howling how much you hate the commies was sufficient cover to excuse racism, oppression, tyranny, and violence — and I’ll note that even now, the racist haters justify their contempt for MLK by accusing him incessantly of communist ties.
I can think of quite a few things more deadly — more sinister — to American Democracy
than those three fundamentally defunct ideologies: how about patriotism, piety, and inequity? In fact, all the things the Ku Klux Klan stood for were inherent corruptions of the Enlightenment ideals (fitfully and poorly implemented) that were driving forces behind the founding of this country, and those same corruptions continue to be major factors in the ideology of the Republican party.
I’m also sad to see that that letter came from Seattle, where I grew up, which I remember as a liberal part of the country, a blue-collar town that was a hotbed of labor unions and Wobblies. But there was also always a dark undercurrent of racism there: farmers of Japanese descent could tell you stories, that’s for sure, and the labor movement focused and inspired some of the nastier elements of the far right, as Jeff Sharlet explains:
…Sharlet relates how Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant, founded the Fellowship (the organization now known as the Family) in Seattle in 1935, in direct response to a wave of militant strikes along the West Coast. First regionally and then nationally, business leaders rallied to Vereide’s prayer circles as a way to inject a new spirit of purpose and unity into their fight against organized labor and the New Deal. With the Cold War, Vereide’s “International Christian Leadership” spread to western Europe, notably West Germany, where it helped to rehabilitate a number of former Nazis into anticommunist respectability. (Sharlet describes Vereide’s relationship with fascism as “weirdly ambivalent”. He cultivated Nazi sympathizers Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh and recruited at least one genuine fascist, Merwin K. Hart, to the Fellowship board, but was ultimately more at home with conservative Republicans than far right rabble rousers such as Father Coughlin.) In the 1960s, Coe succeeded Vereide as organizational leader and made two important changes: Following the trajectory of U.S. Cold War policy, he shifted the Fellowship’s international focus away from Europe toward Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and he took the organization “underground,” moving it out of the public eye as much as possible, as a protective measure against sixties radicalism and upheaval.
Of course, David Neiwert is also an invaluable investigator of the darkness gnawing at the Pacific Northwest.
This country has allowed the voices and attitudes represented by that KKK letter — attitudes that were spawned by a vicious reaction to a rising tide of liberal, egalitarian thought — to drown out the ideals of America. Those ideals were better represented by the radical revolutionary Martin Luther King than by rich Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley moguls. Those ideals are too often forgotten. This day is a day when we should all remind ourselves of that which we oppose and what we should be fostering, a world where all human beings have equal opportunity and dignity. Read King’s “Where Do We Go From Here?” speech to remind yourselves of what we ought to aspire to.
In other words, "Your whole structure (Yes) must be changed." [applause] A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. (Speak) And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. (Yes) And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. (Yes) [applause]
What I’m saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!" [applause] (Oh yes)
And so, I conclude by saying today that we have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction. (Yes)
Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. (All right)
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. (Yes sir)
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history (Yes), and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home.
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated education.
Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.
Let us be dissatisfied (All right) until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. (Yeah) Let us be dissatisfied. [applause]
Let us be dissatisfied (Well) until every state capitol (Yes) will be housed by a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy, and who will walk humbly with his God.
Let us be dissatisfied [applause] until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. (Yes)
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together (Yes), and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.
Let us be dissatisfied (Yes), and men will recognize that out of one blood (Yes) God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. (Speak sir)
Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, "White Power!" when nobody will shout, "Black Power!" but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power. [applause]
The bits about God I can do without, but make no mistake, I agree entirely with the larger theme of that speech. Now if only a person of prominence could express those values unreservedly without being gunned down by the powers of ignorance and oppression…if only those values were represented in Congress…if only…
Hannan is a sports writer who was writing a story about the design of a golf putter. Not my cup of tea, but OK, there are interesting physics and ergonomic issues there. Unfortunately, his story got side-tracked from the relevant and interesting and into the destructively personal by his bigotry.
The designer of the golf club was a Dr V. It was clear from their communications that Dr V was rather pretentious and committed to maintaining her privacy, insisting that any story be about the product not the developer, but she was also extremely helpful, making a custom club for Hannan and giving him help in using it. The club is apparently very good*, so it’s quality wasn’t misrepresented…but Hannan does some background work and discovers that Dr V had lied about her qualifications.
That’s legitimate for a journalist to do. A story about a mysterious designer who isn’t everything she claims to be, but has designed some great sports equipment? Sure. That’s a reasonable story.
But, sad to say, the story he wrote is centered rather differently, and reveals a great deal about Hannan’s biases and preconceptions. In an interview with another source, he learns something he considers horrible.
He was clearly trying to tell me something, which is why he began emphasizing certain words. Every time he said “she” or “her” I could practically see him making air quotes. Finally it hit me. Cliché or not, a chill actually ran up my spine.
“Are you trying to tell me that Essay Anne Vanderbilt was once a man?”
It took a moment for him to respond.
A couple of guys making air quotes about personal pronouns, and a “chill” running down his spine at the discovery that Dr V was a trans woman? I wonder if Caleb Hannan has figured out yet why Dr V was so insistent on keeping her self out of the story. Could it be because that’s how so many people react to her identity?
But no, Hannan just discovered that he now had a great hook for his story.
What began as a story about a brilliant woman with a new invention had turned into the tale of a troubled man who had invented a new life for himself.
Hannan told Dr V what he was going to publish. She was rightfully furious. If the science behind this putter was bogus, that would be reason for her to be angry at being exposed, but I’d support Hannan’s decision to publish it — using false credentials is news. But instead what was going to be a key point in this story was the unwilling outing of a trans woman, and especially given Hannan’s attitude that this was something “weird”, that should have been off-limits. Yes, tell me if someone is faking a degree from MIT. But a trans woman is not faking being a woman; she’s also not doing that for personal profit, but is instead entering a life of peril and contempt, as Hannan’s reaction shows.
Before the story was published, Dr V, Essay Anne Vanderbilt, committed suicide.
Caleb Hannan went ahead and published the story, complete with personal information about the woman, using masculine pronouns, referring to her by her previous name, and with the appalling gall of closing the story by calling it a “eulogy”. You would think having your subject kill herself over what you were doing would make you rethink; maybe go back and remove the sensationalism out of respect for the dead, and maybe recognize the magnitude of your bigotry and realize that you were letting that all hang out in the story, too. But no; he just went ahead and outed a dead trans woman against her will, and his editors also didn’t see a problem with printing it.
Oh, I know what’s wrong with Caleb Hannan. He doesn’t have a speck of conscience or empathy.
Melissa McEwan has an excellent summary of the unconscionable Mr Hannan’s actions. It was just a “strange” story to him, but it was Dr V’s life.
Here’s another good piece on this story: Dr. V Is Dead, Caleb Hannan Is Celebrated: Why We Can’t Accept Lazy, Transmisogynistic Journalism. A bit at the beginning really captures the depth of Hannan’s thinking.
A few hours later, when Wire editor Bill Wasik suggested on Twitter that Hannan’s investigation of Dr. V’s work and life contributed to her death, he replied “ouch.”
“Ouch.” A woman driven to suicide by Hannan’s article, and he says, “ouch.”
*The quality of the club is complicated. He raves about it at first, but then later says that maybe it was psychological — he thought it was great when he thought the designer was a physicist, but now it’s just gathering dust in his garage. He doesn’t consider the other side of the psychology: that maybe he’s avoiding using it since discovering that the designer was trans, and he clearly finds that creepy.
Watch this woman take on a politician who wants to allow freedom to hate in their community — she calls his bluff.
Most astonishingly, he backed down and withdrew his proposal.
The country has gotten better — we have less overt racism, people are generally ashamed if they’re caught expressing bias. But it’s the subtle stuff, the premises that form the foundation for racism, that still poison our citizenry. Unbelievably (for me, at least), white Americans now think they are the victims of racism.
The study was conducted by Sommers and co-author Michael I. Norton of Harvard asking a roughly equal national sample of 209 Caucasians and 208 African Americans to indicate, on a scale of 1 to 10, the extent to which they felt blacks and whites were the targets of discrimination in decades spanning from the 1950s to the 2000s. The scale’s ranking of 1 indicated “not at all” while 10 indicates “very much.”
Both groups reported roughly the same things for the 1950s, with neither believing Caucasians experienced much racism at all during that turbulent decade. Both similarly agreed that at the same time, there was substantial racism against African Americans. Both groups also agreed that racism against African Americans has steadily decreased over time. But here’s where the study gets interesting. Caucasians surveyed believe that the discrimination faced by their African American neighbors has decreased much more rapidly than the African American respondents. Furthermore, they believe that while African Americans now have it better, they – the Caucasians surveyed – have taken their place as the primary targets of discrimination.
How? How can anyone think that? I can’t think of a single thing where being black would privilege someone over me — nothing I aspire to is hampered by the color of my skin.
An astounding 11% of Caucasian respondents assigned the maximum rating of 10 to the seriousness of anti-white discrimination. Compare that with only 2% who reported the same of anti-black racism. Caucasians, the study found, often believe that racial equality is “a zero sum game,” where one group gains at the expense of others.
When the goal is equality, that should tell you right there that it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game — when obstacles are removed from one person’s progress, that doesn’t mean they have to be placed in someone else’s way. Do they think Harrison Bergeron is non-fiction?
He serves the needs of the upper class so well — he’s such a perfect lickspittle. His latest column deplores all this leveler talk of economic inequities: don’t you peons realize that a widening gap has two parts, the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer, and the two have absolutely nothing to do with one another? Oh, sure, there are some perverse compensation schemes on Wall Street
, but mainly wealth is perpetuated because rich marry rich and pass on their money to their rich kids, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that, so let’s skip over that issue with one sentence and spend the whole column blaming the poor. Let’s focus on poor people! And that doesn’t mean raising the minimum wage, oh no. We have to resist the temptation to reduce everything to simple causes, therefore he proposes that the problem is simply a lack of social mobility. Just fix that. We can close the gap by closing our eyes to the sight of the 1% skittering off rapidly to the right and a world that laughs at obscene wealth and embraces pornographically hardcore wealth, and instead just tell all the poor people to start plodding off in that same direction. That’s how we’ll close the gap!
Shorter David Brooks: If the poor would just stop begging for bread and start eating cake, rather than blaming looters and exploiters and profiteers and that whole infrastructure of privilege, why, everything will be hunky dory in no time at all.
OK, let’s try it. How about giving Naquasia LeGrand a column in the NY Times, too?
A while back, everyone — Democrats included — were saying that Chris Christie seemed to be a moderate Republican. The Tea Party hated him, and liberals were saying he wasn’t so bad. He reminds me a lot of this current pope, getting a free ride because of superficialities while everyone overlooks the actual details of what he does.
But maybe the current scandals he’s facing are chumming the waters so that the media will actually take a look at his policies. Latest case in point: denying transgender people the right to amend their gender identification.
While New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) navigates scandals about blocked bridges and misused hurricane-relief funds, he’s continuing to conduct business as usual, and on Monday that included vetoing a bill that would make it easier for transgender people to obtain amended birth certificates. Assembly Bill 4097, passed by the legislature in recent months, would allow trans people to change their gender identification without undergoing gender reassignment surgery.
Just remember: “business as usual” for a Republican is oppression and discrimination, and Christie is no exception.
Consider also backwards, repressive Germany, where Baden-Wuerttemberg’s plan to make “acceptance of sexual diversity” a part of the official school curriculum, is being resisted. Who, you might ask, would possibly think that tolerance and acceptance of different sexual preferences would be undesirable? The German Catholic and Lutheran churches, that’s who.
Regional church branches issued a joint statement Friday cautioning against any
ideologization and indoctrination,not leastin the sensitive area of sexual identity and connected personal and family lifestyles.
By which, of course, they mean the opposite: the state cannot promote equality, because that would oppose the ideologization and indoctrination of the church.
(Don’t worry, Germans, I’m not picking on you: I know the US is even worse for its infestation of evangelical gay haters.)
