A vivid demonstration of white privilege

Most racism isn’t represented by a redneck screaming racist slurs from his pickup truck. It’s the casual demeaning of the importance of “other people’s” problems (Heck, even using the word “other” in that context is a problem.) It’s about letting stereotypes dictate your response to a person, not even necessarily negatively.

You really have to watch this video of a rough experiment in human behavior: white kid trying to break a bike lock, passers-by assume he’s got a legitimate reason; black kid doing the same, shouting and cell phones and calls to the police.

It’s fascinating. Although I’ve got to say that one flaw in the experiment is the time it took the kid to fail to get the lock off…with the amazing array of tools he has in his bag, I would have been off with that bike in 10 seconds flat, so I was wondering why their experimental accomplice was so incompetent.

Nothing accidental about it

Brad Paisley is just a plain ol’ straight up racist.

He’s trying to defend Southern pride with sentiments that are almost reasonable.

I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done

Which is fair enough — there’s nothing wrong with being from the South. But the beginning is about flaunting the traitor’s flag: the confederate banner which wave to defend slavery. Guy, if you’re looking for vestiges of the Southern past that you’re not proud of and that you’re willing to reject, start with that flag. It’s not hard.

Even more bewildering, though, is that LL Cool J joins in late in the song.

If you don’t judge my do-rag
I won’t judge your red flag
If you don’t judge my gold chains
I’ll forget the iron chains … Let bygones be bygones.

WTF? He’s equating wearing a scarf on your head with waving the Confederate battle flag, and worse, comparing a fashion choice with slavers shackling people in iron chains?

That is about the most screwed up song I’ve ever heard. Not to mention that it’s boring derivative C&W.

I can’t imagine living in an abusive relationship

But this video might help. This woman took one photo a day in the worst year of her life, as she was living through a relationship that got progressively uglier. It starts off easily enough, and when the first blush of a bruise appears one day, you think it doesn’t look so bad — she still smiles frequently. But holy crap, by the end she looks like she’s been in a war. This is not something to watch if you’re easily triggered.

I’m mainly wondering what has happened to the disgusting piece of shit who was doing this to her.

It has now been revealed that the injuries were done with stage makeup, as part of an advertising campaign to highlight the problem of domestic abuse.

Virginia is for lovers…of similar skin tone and opposite sex who don’t touch each other’s genitals with anything other than their own

The worst attorney general in the world has to be Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli, who has been on a crusade to promote a far right conservative social agenda.

The Washington Post wrote that Cuccinelli has been ”the most overtly partisan Attorney General in Virginia history” and ”has waged war on Obamacare, harassed climate-change scientists, sanctioned discrimination against homosexuals and embraced Arizona’s (now mostly gutted) immigration law.” Cuccinelli waged an all-out assault on academic freedom by using state resources to sue a University of Virginia Professor who was researching global warming, and bullied members on the State Board of Health into shutting down abortion clinics by threatening to sue them.

But I’m hoping now that he has finally crossed the line with an effort to control people’s sex lives.

Although most people think sodomy laws have been unconstitutional since the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli would like to explain why — in his view — that’s not so.

What’s more, he wants the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to agree with him and uphold the constitutionality of Virginia’s sodomy law — which makes anal and oral sex between people of any sex a crime — in the process.

Yes. Ken Cuccinelli has a platform of outlawing blow jobs. Anyone campaigning against him in the future needs to remind the Virginia electorate of that.

The Joe Rogan experience

I was sent this curious collection of recent tweets by Joe Rogan, a comedian I’ve never much cared for, but they’re so bizarre I had to put them up for your amusement/contempt. Click for a larger image.

joerogan

His central point is this one:

I view women that don’t like children the same way I view dogs that like to eat their own shit.

How odd. Personally, I like some children, especially my own, but I don’t automatically melt into affectionate reverence when I see one; I have no problem with someone electing to not have children of their own. I also know from personal experience that, while there are definitely great rewards to raising kids, they are also a giant electrified flaming cattle prod to the butt through most of their childhood. Don’t you remember being a teenager once? Imagine what it’s like living in a house full of scrambled hormones, pimples, tears and frustration.

It’s OK to not want kids, or even to detest the very idea of having kids, as long as you avoid having them and making them as miserable as they’d make you.

But the way it’s phrased by Rogan is so weird: if you don’t like children, it’s equivalent to indulging in process that is disgusting to others. You are socially and psychologically required to want children, or you a morally reprehensible person. That’s a mindset I can’t embrace. We get a lot of the equivalent attitude from right-wingers: if you’re a man who doesn’t like having sex with women, you’re a vile human being.

Which leads into the real repugnant attitude here: all of his comments are addressed to women. Women, you must love children, if you don’t, you’re odd, gross, weak, a “hateful twat”. I have to ask…what about the men?

That’s the more disturbing part of his rant. He’s trying to shame women into doing something he considers vitally important, apparently, but men…eh, they aren’t part of his concern. We men can go ahead and dislike children, and that doesn’t make us weak and gross. That gives the lie to a claim he made in another tweet, that he’s not a feminist, he’s a humanist.

Don’t worry, though. He’s a comedian. He’ll say he’s just joking around.

Jewish women master retroactive invisibility!

It’s too bad it came too late to help them. Here’s a famous photo of Jewish civilians being herded out of the Warsaw ghetto by Nazis. Awful, horrifying stuff, right?

original

Yet when a conservative Haredi newspaper in Israel published this photo, they edited it in interesting ways.

edited

Isn’t it ironic that the Jewish women who were victims get their faces erased, but the Nazi men with guns are left untouched? Of all people, you’d think Jews would be most sensitive to the importance of preserving the horrors of recent history…but I guess it only matters if it happened to men.

Free Amina!

The place to go for information on Amina, the Tunisian activist who dared to say that her body was her own, is Maryam Namazie’s blog. She has a fantastic roundup of the European protests. I’m also happy to see that secular humanists are finding common cause with women’s rights: The IEHU has also issued a statement of support.

(Note: all the links above include bare breasts and strong language, and worse, women standing up for themselves. Might not find favor with your corporate masters if you browse them at work.)

I am wondering how all the people recently sneering at atheists as islamophobes are going to cope with all these godless ex-Muslims coming out against Islamic justice.

The oppressive nature of chivalry

It’s not bad to say a woman is pretty, or to help her open a door, is it? It can be, when it is benevolent sexism.

A recent paper by Julia Becker and Stephen Wright details even more of the insidious ways that benevolent sexism might be harmful for both women and social activism. In a series of experiments, women were exposed to statements that either illustrated hostile sexism (e.g. “Women are too easily offended”) or benevolent sexism (e.g. “Women have a way of caring that men are not capable of in the same way.”) The results are quite discouraging; when the women read statements illustrating benevolent sexism, they were less willing to engage in anti-sexist collective action, such as signing a petition, participating in a rally, or generally “acting against sexism.” Not only that, but this effect was partially mediated by the fact that women who were exposed to benevolent sexism were more likely to think that there are many advantages to being a woman and were also more likely to engage in system justification, a process by which people justify the status quo and believe that there are no longer problems facing disadvantaged groups (such as women) in modern day society. Furthermore, women who were exposed to hostile sexism actually displayed the opposite effect – they were more likely to intend to engage in collective action, and more willing to fight against sexism in their everyday lives.

Ah. So if we really wanted to twist those words around, the assholes are actually doing women a favor, by motivating them to fight harder for their self-interest. Good for you, guys!

Clenched fist salute for the progressive cause of equality! No compromise!

I’ve long been a fan of Richard Dawkins’ Out Campaign, and think that kind of thing is the single greatest contribution to making public atheism atheism acceptable. It’s not the books, it’s not the leaders, it’s thousands of people standing up boldly and fearlessly asserting that they don’t believe in that nonsense and that we need to keep the magical thinking out of our lives.

The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.

…

It is time to let our voices be heard regarding the intrusion of religion in our schools and politics. Atheists along with millions of others are tired of being bullied by those who would force their own religious agenda down the throats of our children and our respective governments. We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies.

But what if the campaign changed? What if the RDF decided that we were maybe being a little too aggressive (they aren’t, don’t worry) and suggested an alternative strategy: keep quiet, call up your local priest, and have a private heart-to-heart with him. Tell him first that you’re thinking of coming out about your disbelief with friends and family; give him a chance to address your concerns. Let him keep his privileged authority in matters spiritual.

Not so impressive anymore, is it? In fact, the deference to the very people we oppose sounds downright pathetic and wimpy.

So you can imagine my response to the open letter to the secular community, deploring the aggressive rhetoric on blogs, and basically minimizing the hatred radiating from the anti-feminists to equate it with calling said anti-feminists mean names. It’s signed by many people I like and respect, leaders of various secular organizations, but it’s a gooey marshmallow of spineless diplomacy. Not interested. I know they mean well, and they’re just trying to find a formula to make us all one big happy family together, but I’m not about to throw causes I care about under the bus of a blithe starry-eyed atheism.

I’ll join The American Secular Census, Ophelia, Secular Woman, Dana, and Rebecca in rejecting the overtures of the Neville Chamberlain ‘appeasement’ school of secularists.

I will continue to cheerfully abuse the advocates of silence and sexism. And I won’t even pick up the phone to let them know first!