Can America get any more racist?

My flight home yesterday wasn’t great. I was generally feeling exhausted, and then in the airport, I made the mistake of watching the giant televisions they mount all over the waiting areas. You know, the giant televisions that apparently represent American political thought to every person on the planet who happens to travel through one of our airports. And the news was all about Trayvon Martin. Not about the injustice of a young black man being killed in the prime of his life; not about ghastly gun laws that justify murder; not about the bigotry of the police, who saw a dead black man and a vigilante standing over him, and shrugged their shoulders and let the vigilante walk away; no, different concerns engaged our brilliant news media.

Trayvon Martin had been discovered with an empty baggie that once contained marijuana. Uh, what? Does that matter? Are we now going to declare that past trivial legal offenses justify the death penalty now? If I gunned down that odious racist Dan Riehl, I think I could trust that a little digging would discover that perhaps he had a parking ticket somewhere in his sordid past, or perhaps he shaved the truth on his tax returns. I don’t know of any such crimes, but I’m confident that we could find something ex post facto to slime his reputation and rationalize anything I might do to him. That is, if I thought I was commissioned to act as an executioner for crimes that have not been tried, with the right to deliver the Maximum Penalty for even the pettiest of crimes.

It’s all very Judge Dredd.

And that’s not all! Maybe you’ve seen the usual photo of Trayvon Martin as a smiling young kid in a t-shirt; that’s a sneaky effort used by “hysterical race baiters” to portray him as a normal human being, which he isn’t, because he’s black. So they’ve ginned up photos of random black teenagers (they all look the same, you know) in sagging pants and posturing rudely, all to show how the real Martin conforms to their stereotypes. Or they show other photos of Martin when he’s wearing a hoodie and not smiling…because the sullen black man is dangerous. He better be smiling, and even prancing and singing, or apparently he deserves to be shot.

This seems to be the new strategy of the racist right: if they can show that Trayvon Martin wasn’t like Beaver Cleaver, then they can justify the murder. Trayvon Martin’s crime was not being white enough. They’re going to use this incident to put the whole of black culture — every bit of that diverse group that doesn’t conform to the mandatory Dick and Jane universe — on trial. Black Americans, you better practice smiling real big; you better put away that Wu-Tang Clan stuff and learn to love 1001 Strings and Pat Boone.

That was my ten minutes of outrage in the airport. It made me wonder whether black people might feel a little bit estranged when they step into a giant building like that with huge screens everywhere blaring racist apologetics.

I tuned it out before I ripped the armrest off my chair and started smashing expensive electronics everywhere, and turned to my iPad and the soothing rationality of the internet.

Then I read Jezebel.

Oh, fuck.

OK, people, did you really think pointing me to Crommunist’s post would make me feel better?

We surely do have a screwed-up country

Jesse Taylor tells a story about growing up black in America.

There’s a reason that Trayvon Martin’s story hits me so hard. When you’re thirteen and threatened with a bullet through the chest for getting your braces tightened, it teaches you how the world works, and does it in a hurry.

Or you could just read everything you were afraid to find out about the Trayvon Martin murder.

Doctor with a conscience

It’s good to see someone standing up against Republican idiocy. What we’ve been seeing lately is right-wing theocrats using doctors as a cudgel to batter women (oh, excuse me: sluts and whores) without stopping to think that maybe doctors could refuse to be their tools.

Come to think of it, doctors get far more training in ethics than politicians do, and it shows.

Abby Johnson doesn’t know what she’s talking about

Abby Johnson is one of those anti-abortion advocates. She has a different story, though: she was employed by Planned Parenthood for several years, and claims to have had an epiphany while participating in an abortion (a claim that doesn’t actually hold up), and become a forced-birth activist instead. She’s gone so far over to the Dark Side that she endorses Santorum for President, which means she’s a credulous dingleberry for god now.

But there’s one virtue to her: she’s such an awful liar for her cause that she inspires outrage in reasonable people who hear her, and they scurry out and do the research that shows she is making stuff up whenever she talks about abortion. In case you ever have to deal with Ms Johnson, she recently spoke at Colorado State University and motivated a couple of bloggers to do a very thorough takedown. Read why Abby Johnson is a liar about Planned Parenthood, and why Abby Johnson is a liar about biology. These are useful, concise resources in any argument about abortion.

What they call “salt of the earth” in Georgia is something we wipe off our shoes in Minnesota

State Representative Terry England of Georgia was defending a bill that would completely outlaw all abortions after 20 weeks — even those in which the fetus was already dead, or was so congenitally deformed that it had no hope of living after birth. I can’t quite imagine the logic behind forcing someone you love to go through labor to deliver a corpse, but England tries — and mainly convinces me that dumbass uneducated farmers ought to be barred from positions of responsibility in government.

His argument is this: he’s worked on a farm, and cows and pigs don’t get the benefit of a medical procedure to remove dead calves and piglets — the mares and sows just have to buck up and deliver it. It’s a life experience, don’t you know. And what is a human woman but a breeder sow, hey?

Rep. Terry England compares women to cows, pigs and chickens. from Bryan Long on Vimeo.

To top it off, he tells a charming little story about a man who indulges in cock-fighting — “salt of the earth”, he says — who offers to give up his flock of fighting birds if only those women could be compelled to have babies.

Think of the sacrifice that man is making, ladies! Think of the chickens! Surely you’ll let such a noble gentleman fill up your bellies with babies, living and dead, and you’ll gladly bear them for him, won’t you?

The Southern Poverty Law Center notices the Men’s Rights Movement

And it isn’t pretty. Finally, someone notices the similarities between violent, angry misogynists and violent, angry racists, and calls the MRA’s out on their lies about women.

The men’s movement also includes mail-order-bride shoppers, unregenerate batterers, and wannabe pickup artists who are eager to learn the secrets of “game”—the psychological tricks that supposedly make it easy to seduce women. George Sodini, who confided his seething rage at women to his blog before shooting 12 women, three of them fatally, was one of the latter. Before his 2009 murder spree at a Pittsburgh-area gym, he was a student — though clearly not a very apt one — of R. Don Steele, the author of How to Date Young Women: For Men Over 35. “I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me over an 18 or 25-year period,” Sodini wrote with the kind of pathos presumably typical of Steele’s readers.

They also conveniently label the pariah sites of the men’s movement — if you want to know what sites to avoid, or what urls to preemptively put in your blog filters, that’s very handy.

(via Man Boobz)

#NudePhotoRevolutionary calendar now available

Scream with Maryam Namazie and Aliaa Magda Elmahdy to protest sexism and hypocrisy: the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar is here! It’s a powerful piece of work. No pandering, no attempt to titillate, just women honestly baring themselves to make a point and show their power. And also to make a statement against patriarchal religions.

One warning, though: on the site, when you click on the link, it did not bring up a site to purchase the calendar — it downloaded it instantly and it popped up in my pdf viewer, right here at work. If you think that kind of thing would get you in trouble, wait until you get home. Also, there’s a separate paypal button so you can donate even without downloading: it’s under $20 American, and proceeds go to benefit women’s rights.

Rush Limbaugh isn’t the only moron out there, unfortunately

I’ll say one thing for Rush Limbaugh: he just cracked the sewer valve wide open, but he’s not the only one contributing to the gusher of sewage. Take Bryan Fischer: he’s even worse than that slick pig Limbaugh. He thinks there’s nothing wrong with what Limbaugh said, and acknowledges, like Limbaugh, that the only thing he did wrong was use the “slut” word, which is naughty…but that his sentiment was entirely correct.

Here’s his interpretation of Sandra Fluke’s testimony. He is shocked that:

…this woman could, without any trace of shame, any trace of embarrassment, give open testimony before the entire United States of America, about how much promiscuous sex she and her classmates are having.

Of course, that’s not what she testified. She testified that women’s reproductive health could be expensive, citing the use of contraceptives for prevention of ovarian cysts. But she could have talked about the importance of contraception for a healthy, happy sex life even within a monogamous relationship: it does not make a woman a slut for enjoying sex with her partner. But even if she did have multiple partners, so what? There’s no shame in enjoying sex: every human does, unless they’re wracked with religious guilt.

It really exposes these people for what they are: anti-sex, anti-human prudes. Fuck the Puritans. Please.

And here’s another idiotic perspective on Fluke from Scott Adams, Dilbonian dimbulb. He sees two possible interpretations.

Which of these two events do you find more distasteful?

1. Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut for her position on contraceptives.

Or

2. Activists are treating Fluke as a helpless victim who needs society’s protection against the harsh words of an entertainer.

My interpretation of events is that Limbaugh saw Fluke as a capable adult, and a public figure, tough enough to handle some harsh language. The boycotters apparently see Fluke as more of an endangered child, or a helpless damsel in distress, threatened by a monster. Light the torches and launch the boycott!

Adams has always been this clueless. I don’t know of a single person who has responded to this by thinking that Fluke needs our protective embrace: she seems confident and mature. The reaction has been anti-Limbaugh. He has been exposed as a blue-nosed asshole who despises women in general — not specifically Sandra Fluke — who have a healthy attitude towards sex, who treat it as a reasonable and expected and even joyful aspect of normal behavior, rather than something to hide in shame.

That’s the battle. Not some peculiar chauvinistic idea that one poor woman needs our chivalrous shelter. I suspect Adams is just projecting.

Another person who is projecting is Bill Maher.

Hate to defend #RushLimbaugh but he apologized, liberals looking bad not accepting. Also hate intimidation by sponsor pullout

He did not apologize for despising women who enjoy sex or need medical assistance in maintaining their reproductive health; clearly, he still feels that’s a valid stance. He only apologized for using words like “slut” instead of being more formal and calling her a harlot or something similarly antiquated. Jon Stewart got this right: what’s wrong with Maher that he can’t see this?

As someone who also says things on behalf of a minority that a majority finds offensive, I sympathize with the detestation of “intimidation by sponsor pullout” — but the problem lies in the reliance on money to fund free speech, and coupling that to selling soap. What Limbaugh said is still wrong and stupid.

Good news from Anoka-Hennepin

The Anoka-Hennepin school district has been notorious for its bullying, anti-gay discrimination, and suicide rate. A group of six students sued them for the district’s outrageous lack of common decency; tonight, the school board folded and settled the suit out of court. There was a cash settlement of $270,000 to the kids, and the district has also agreed to work with the US Justice Department to end their history of tolerance for abuse.

One Republican board member, Kathy Tingelstad, resigned over the settlement, claiming that it was going to cost too much. Where was her concern for the cost to the district when kids were killing themselves and the district was becoming infamous for its war on gay teens? She was just a tool of the anti-gay Parents Action League. Good riddance, and may PAL wither and die.

Free amateur porn for Rush Limbaugh

Recently, Rush Limbaugh confirmed his vile nature by calling a woman who testified for contraceptive insurance coverage a slut, and later amplified his idiocy with this comment:

“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.”

I hope still photos will do, because one woman has agreed to those terms and has posted her contraceptive-dependent sex pictures online.