Really. Not racist at all.
“They won’t go for a black man, that’s just it,” R.K. Horton, a retired heating and air conditioning business owner, said of his neighbors. “I don’t think it’s being racist necessarily, they just don’t like black people that well.”
One wonders what exactly he thinks racism is. (From Salon.)
What can I say about the unrepentant murderer of an Iraqi girl whose crime was to be seen talking to a British soldier? Honor killings are not new under the sun, but the details of this beating and choking are heartbreaking, and the fate of the mother of the dead girl remains unresolved. As PZ Myers points out, her father was congratulated for killing his daughter by police, because “they are men and they know what honor is.”
Thanks to LB for reminding me of this.
There are a number of films on youtube about this group, with some different opinions about where they are. They most reliable ones have them in Santa Barbara or Venice Beach. They have a homeless man as their human partner. You can see him in the link to a video following this one.
I’d avoid the web link at the end of this video, unless you think that the three show a kind of higher consciousness is coming. The human is in a number of videos, such as this one. The bit about Arizona may be just wrong.
A Deeper Black By Ta-Nehisi Coates appears in the May 1 edition of The Nation. It’s an unfavorable review of Shelby Steele’s book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win. In it Coates presents a picture of Obama’s supposedly ‘post-racial’ candidacy as not that at all; it shows instead ‘a deeper black,’ which is due to Obama’s acceptance of his ethnic identity and his construal of that as on a par with other ethnic identities.
I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple of days and have wondered whether there’s a comparable shift that women can make or that some women have already made. And then this morning I received noticer of a new APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, which has a number of valuable, thoughtful articles on race and gender. I suddenly realized that in effect the Coates review poses a question for feminist philosophy that we might do well to be aware of. The question isn’t easy to formulate, and indeed there might be different versions of it, but its basis can be found in this comment:
This is the blackness of Barack Obama. It is an identity that asserts itself without conscious thought. It has no need of marches and placards. It rejects an opportunistic ignorance of racism but understands that esoteric ramblings about white-skin privilege do not move the discussion further. It does not need to bluster, to scream, to hyperbolize. Obama’s blackness is like any other secure marker of identity, subtle and irreducible to a list of demands.
And now I’m wondering whether my attitude toward the ubiquitous sexism of the academy is a good model or analogue for the experience of racism, as I realize I had assumed it was. If the place of racism is much more complicated in the lives of black students than we others might have thought, what implications does that have for our teaching? Is Coates’ comment about irrelevant esoteric rambling something we should be taking to our methodology? Or on a par with other students’ complaints about our wordy and out of date texts? These questions are just that: questions. What do you think?
Two more quotes may give you a fuller picture of what Coates is saying:
This is why all the fuss over how much or how little Obama addresses racism misses the point. Obama mentions white racism about as often as black people actually think about white racism–which is to say rarely.
… Survey the average voter in Harlem, Detroit or West Baltimore, ask her to rank her presidential concerns and see where “reparations” or “abolishing the Confederate flag” compares with, say, “healthcare” or “ending the war.” In the wake of Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, the pundits swooned, marveling specifically at Obama’s willingness to say that those who fled inner-city America, who opposed affirmative action, were not racist.
… To see Obama’s point as a mark of courage or even a concession, you’d have to imagine a black America that woke up, every morning, thinking only about welfare and affirmative action. …
… there is nothing “postracial,” “postblack” or “transcendental” about it. … Indeed, it is a deeper black, the mark of a less defensive, more self-assured African-American leadership. Our forebears, God bless them, held blackness like an albatross, which they sought to affix around the neck of white America. But this generation, Obama’s generation, holds blackness like a garland, sure in the knowledge that the only neck it belongs around is our own.
Via Feministe, What About Our Daughters, and The Village Voice, I’ve learned about the horrific story of Ramona Moore– which contains much for feminist philosophers to think about. She was a black woman, who was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. Her mother’s calls to the police were tossed aside, unlike those made by the relatives of a white woman who had recently gone missing. (Issues of what Fricker calls ‘epistemic injustice’ here, concerning who is assigned credibility. As well as issues of which sorts of people are considered worth searching for.) Various bystanders were introduced to the bloodied and tortured woman while she was still alive and could have been saved, and they were even told her story. But they failed to contact the police. (Locutionary silencing here, though the question is why. The bystanders say ‘fear’. The inaction of bystanders is a complicated and incredibly important issue. So is how to overcome it.) Anyway, horrific and very depressing story. The only good news is that Moore’s mother is suing NYC.
I confess, I tend to avoid signing petitions, which has become a huge form of slacktivism in the internet age. But when Katha Pollitt gives my nation the heads up that Washington University is awarding an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly – yep, you read that right — even I am moved to send my name in the form of an electronic signature. (For those of you too young to remember her, feel free to check out Schlafly’s gems on facebook.) Thanks to Mona Lena Krook for sending the following instructions to members of FEAST:
For anyone who is not on the Wash U campus, but would like to sign a petition protesting Schlafly’s honorary degree, send an “electronic signature” with your name, email address, and a sentence saying you’d like to sign the petition, to: noschlaflydegree@gmail.com
And there’s a world-wide famine. Go read Diary of an Anxious Black Woman. And Feminocracy. And Feministe. This is desperately important stuff. (*Title from DABW.)
You have one multiple choice question:
The text below is from your library. Either (a) describe what is wrong with the text inserted below or (b) say why jj is wrong to be outraged by it:
Analytic of the beautiful, from the Critique of judgment. With excerpts from Anthropology from a pragmatic viewpoint, second book. Translated, with an introd., comments, and notes, by Walter Cerf
Analytic of the beautiful, from the Critique of judgment. With excerpts from Anthropology from a pragmatic viewpoint, second book.
Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804
Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill [c1963]
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Sex among members of species other than ours is one of the topics that primatologist Franz de Waal addresses on Freakonomics. The informative article has comments on a number of subjects, including animal rhythm, animals who won’t cooperate when rewards are unequal and, most of all, bonobo sex, which is plentiful, clearly “bi” and serves a lot of different purposes.
In addition, thanks to the Neuroethics and Law blog, we have the link to de Waal’s site about elephant self-recognition. Not many species recognize themselves in mirrors. Cats, for example, don’t. That elephants do may reveal something about the evolution of social animals.
All this is worth reading, and is full of the sorts of useful details for philosophy classes. It’s also handy for throwing cold water on convictions about what is natural.
A recent article articulates the experience of being the recipient of masculine condescension to explain that which one already knows. Although two weeks old, its link is still flying around cyberspace, and I have certainly contributed to the collective gasps of recognition. It’s a familiar variety of painful to discover how many women of authoritative knowledge still find ourselves reluctant to correct or contradict “Men Who Explain Things.” Like the article’s author, I feel obligated to observe, at this juncture, that women can be condescending, that genders condescend to their own members, etc. However, the minicareer of, as one lovely coworker put it, “a lifetime of getting patted on the head by men who assume I know nothing,” certainly seems widely shared. Why is knowledge not enough? What further informs our failures to assert that which we know we know? Granted that my explaining-condescender is an ass, why on earth am I struck with self-doubt in the face of confident assery?
Note that early in the article, a friend speaks up on behalf of the all-too-polite author. This experience, I also share, and the fact that we often more easily assert our confidence in other women makes it all the odder that we so often fail ourselves. An excellent method of pursuing epistemic justice is to use what privilege and power we have to call attention to less privileged women with firsthand knowledge, but at some point, we must also improve our skills of self-defense! Further proof, if I needed it, that one can have duties to oneself - - a position which I’ve held for decades, but doubted when a talented man challenged it at a recent conference. (Sheesh!)
Thanks to Angela Johnson for the link!
Ask the feminist philosophers. At least, that’s one of the things Google apparently suggests (and 5 people came here looking for that! Though they did all mis-spell ‘pageant’). Gosh, now I feel we really ought to do a post offering some advice on the topic!
As folks around here know, I work hard to be kind and civil to everyone even vaguely feminist or possibly sympathetic to feminism. But I’m going to make an exception for Germaine Greer. Stoat’s criticisms are spot-on, but, well, too polite for my taste.
The Feminist Blogosphere has been filled with discussions of whether Amanda Marcotte’s and SEAL Press’s apologies and promises to change are an adequate response to criticisms. Greer, as Stoat notes, belittled the injustices faced by Muslims and racial minorities while at the same time demonstrating her view that the only women (who count) are white and secular. AND SHE IS COMPLETELY UNREPENTANT. As far as I know, she has never in her life apologised for anything, or conceded that she has anything to learn from those who are not her. As Laura Miller from Salon said 9 years ago, Greer’s method is “inflating her own personal trials into theories about the condition of women”. Sounds almost precisely like what Elizabeth Spelman calls the method of White Solipsism. She is totally uninterested in women’s health, as shown by her opposition to PAP smears and the HPV vaccine, and her support for FGM; and she has a long history of transphobia.* Why the hell are we are all being so tolerant of her? Because she wrote an important book a long time ago? Well, a lot has happened since then and she should have made an effort to keep up.
For a much funnier, better-written take on Greer from roughly the same perspective, check out Natalia Antonova. And for another excellent post by someone just as annoyed as me by the FEM 08 talk, go here.
*In general, I think that feminism is enriched by a diversity of views, when these views are backed up by well-reasoned arguments. But Greer’s are not. Instead, they’re based on ignoring the perspectives of those who are unlike her. This does not enrich feminism.
Finally, the day was closed with a talk from Germaine Greer. It was wide-ranging, covering topics from the immunisation of young girls against sexually transmitted diseases and the message she believed this gave (that it’s ok to be having sex with 12 yr olds); the devaluing of motherhood and childcare; she highlighted the inadequacy of rape laws and argued for a single category of sexual assault; she talked of the double shift (work, housework) that many women do; and she wondered about the prospects (emancipating? Alienating?) of the medicalisation of childbirth. Laura at the fword has already written that the high point was her call for female solidarity.
As a philosopher, critical as ever, I’ll focus on the concerns instead (sorry again!):
Again, - and despite the call for solidarity - I was concerned about the exclusionary tendencies of much of what she said. I’ve already mentioned some points related to this, and I’ll replicate (sorry - timesaver!)the first from comments:
1. She at one point claimed that women, as a group, need to stand up and complain, protest, and (her words) ‘make them scared of us’; she worried that women, as a group, got - and allowed themselves to be - trampled on in (again her words) a way that no one dares to with the black and muslim communities, for instance.
There’s lots to worry about in her claim here (e.g. that making ‘them’ scared is a good way to proceed), but here’s a main concern: only last week I’d been reading bell hooks’ concern that setting up ‘women’ as a group in opposition to ‘black people’ as a group makes invisible the fact that *some black people are women*. That was over 20 years ago, yet Greer’s speech seemed to be doing just that.
2. She criticised the family structure; it’s not clear exactly what she was proposing, but she suggested at one point ‘blowing it out of the water’, which sounds pretty revisionary to me. Of course, the family *has* been the locus of abuse and oppression and exclusion for many women, and its important to address that. But as Amos and Parmar write (in Challenging Imperial Feminism, Feminist Review No. 17 Autumn 1984), many non-white women have in the past been denied a family - though forced sterilisation, forced abortion. We heard in the session on women refugees that some women are forced apart from their families (including young children) in detention centres, or in the process of fleeing. The prospect of ‘doing away’ with the family, then, does not sound like an agenda that would appeal to women who have had such experiences.
3. Greer also criticised women for asking for more work - suggesting that the art of work was to avoid doign it, that there was no value in work. Once again, this seems to be a claim that could only be made from a fairly privileged perspective. Such a claim ignores the fact that many women are forced to ask for more work in order to avoid poverty. It ignores the fact that for many women, education and employment is a route to empowerment. It ignores the fact that women who give up work to look after children may well feel they have *given something valuable up*.
In the afternoon we had a panel session with a representive from Object, and a young woman, Lucy Brown, speaking about her experience of working in a lapdance club. I was surprised to learn that the club she worked in (and apparently many others) works on a ‘pay back’ basis - whereby you start out having to purchase a dress, and pay to perform - so for a while, you’re working to pay back your employres for these per-requisites. Lucy also noted that the ‘no contact’ with customer rule that the clubs operate is frequently violated simply because the competition amongst the strippers (they need the money to pay back for the table and the dress, remember) is so high that they’ll go that bit further to make sure they get the work.
There is a lot that is deeply troubling about all this, and Lucy made a powerful case for concern. The representative from Object then told us about their campaign to get lap-dancing clubs licensed as sex establishments rather than on the same sort of license as coffee shops. (It is clearly absurd to categorise them in with coffee shops!) The ultimate goal of this is to make it easier for citizens to object to lap-dancing clubs in their cities.
However (and again, I feel bad for being critical about what was in general a really really good day!) a couple of points of concern:
i. There was the presumption (not just in this session, but throughout the day) that *all* feminists are against objectification (and likewise with pornography and prostitution). Whilst many feminists *do* object to the coercive and abusive settings in which stripping, prostitution, and porn-making generally occur, some feminists nonetheless maintain that there is nothing intrinsically problematic with these practices. For example, Martha Nussbaum, in her paper ‘objectification’ (from her book Sex and Social Justice) explores the possibility that objectification - being treated as a sex object, a mere body - when chosen, and in certain contexts, can be quite benign and even welcome. And indeed, there are many pro-pornography feminists out there (see the recent post on the feminist porn awards). Also, there was only one brief dismissive comment made about sex worker unionisation efforts. (Roughly: unions protect you against harassment, but these women’s job IS harassment so there’s no point. A claim rather undermined by the observation that the regulations under which these clubs are supposed to operate– which would e.g. disallow contact– are not being enforced. Enforcing regulations is just the sort of thing unions can do.) There’s been a lot of serious work done by sex worker activists, who strongly disagree with the strategies being pursued by organisations like Object, and it would have been good to hear from them.
ii. I’ve already suggested that insufficient attention was at times paid to fundamental problems of women’s economic vulnerability. Again, this session continued without addressing the wider context in which lapdancing seems like a viable option to many women (I don’t know, but i’m supposing its better paid than cleaning). (An aside: I gather that the session on prostitution did look in more detail at the connection between women’s poverty and options, and the context in which women choose (sometimes ‘choose’) prostitution).
iii. I was also concerned that the focus on objectification and pornography at the plenary sessions, rather than education and economic vulnerability, has somewhat exclusionary tendencies. The conference attendees were a fairly homogenous bunch (white females, many students), and I wondered whether a particular perspective was dictating the agenda. Of course, I’m not suggesting that, if objectification is a problem for women, then it is not a problem for all women. Rather I’m (tentatively) suggesting that:
a) How objectification is experienced as a problem won’t be the same for all women
b) For some women, objectification may not be their top priority priority concern - rather financial survival, access to education, avoidance of violence (and not just sexual violence) dictate the agenda. (There was, of course, an excellent panel on rape conviction rates, but much of the discussion there was also about objectification.)
Of course, objectification is an important issue. But it would have been good to see a schedule that reflected some of the other fundamental issues that set the agenda for many women. Being in the plenary session is an indication of importance, and the timetable carried the very clear implication that objectification should be our primary concern.
This event, described by David Pogue in the NY Times, is an extraordinary project made possible by recent technology. I strongly recommend visiting the project’s website, which is full of information.
”Pangea Day endeavors to bring the world together and promote understanding and tolerance through film.” Over 2,500 movies were submitted from 102 countries; the Pangea committee winnowed them down to 24 short movies, which will all be shown on May 10 in a four-hour marathon.
So where is this film festival taking place? All over the world, simultaneously — at 1,500 sites, and counting.
Live broadcasts will take place simultaneously in Cairo (at the Pyramids), Kigali, London, Los Angeles (at Sony Pictures Studios), Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro. At these big-ticket venues, big names like Christiane Amanpour of CNN will serve as presenters. Selected movie theaters all over the world will participate.
You may also be able to watch the broadcast on TV; in this country, Current TV will air it on cable.
But the majority of the festival sites will be less formal. The whole thing will be streamed live over the Internet, available in seven languages. So anyone can invite a few friends over and become an impromptu festival site. Or you can just sit there by yourself and watch it on your computer.
What makes the whole thing so cool is that it’s so global and so wired. In fact, its the wiredness that makes it possible; it never could have happened 10 years ago.
…
To watch the broadcast, find out which TV channels are showing it, watch some celebrity endorsements, see amazing music videos of different countries singing *each other’s* national anthems, or to organize your own viewing party, visit www.pangeaday.org.
The first parallel session, I attended a session on problems facing women refugees, Jender a session on ethnic minority women in politics. (That’s where she heard about Fawcett’s new Femocracy campaign to get more ethnic minority women involved in politics.) The session, from folks at the NRC, raised the following important issues that face women refugees in the UK:
Shatali is campaining on this latter issue, and Helen, Catherine and Fatima from the NRC continue to do great work, with REACT around the city of Sheffield promoting awareness of the problems that face women refugees. For those interested in getting involved, see here for opportunities!
Last weekend Jender and I went to FEM08, an activism conference for women and men. It was generally excellent - interesting and inspiring, and great to be in the same place as so many other people interested in feminst issues!
We’ve had time to reflect on all we saw and heard and discussed, so now its time to join the blogging about it (plenty already going on see here for fword blogging and links to more, including here)! As Laura over at the fword writes, one thing the conference could have involved more of is *discussion time* - the hectic schedule meant there was little time for dwelling on the issues and sorting through problems and potential solution.
So perhaps some of that can happen in the comments here! It would be great to hear from those in attendance what they thought, or from those who couldn’t make it, what they make of the issues raised in the de-brief!
There was much to offer - more sessions that we could attend - so this is necessarily a partial review of the parts that we experienced - we’ve enjoyed reading about others’ experience of the day and hearing about the other sessions! There are parts where we no doubt fail to do justice to the complexity of what was said - but we hope to add to some of the parts as well. This will be a series of posts, because there’s so much to say!
Panel on rape
The conference was opened by Kat Banyard, from Fawcett. She introduced the first session of the day, Julie Bindel and Kira Cochrane, who spoke on the appalling statistics for rape conviction.
One of the key points from Kira Cochrane was the way that rape was treated as anomalous, an uncommon atrocity; she called for an attitudinal shift to acknowledge that rape was an EVERYDAY atrocity for women. Julie Bindel likewise criticised the media focus on the very small number of false rape allegations, contributing to the deficit in women’s perceived credibility when reporting rape. She called on men to play a key role in challenging sexist attitudes.
Such criticism is, of course, absolutely justified, and the low conviction rate was rightly criticised by panelists as ‘an absolute fucking disgrace’. However, the failure to locate the discussion in a broader context was somewhat disappointing. For example, insufficient attention (in my view) was paid to the connection between women’s material inequality and rape rates. That women cannot leave abusive relationships because in doing so they would face poverty; that women are predominantly primary caregivers and are hence excluded from the workforce, financially dependent upon their partners; that extreme poverty often drives women into vulnerable roles such as prositution; addressing such issues seems of fundamental importance to addressing the high rape rate.
Panel on men’s activism
Following Julie Bindel’s call for men to do their bit in challenging sexism, the next session was from two men involved in feminist activism. Chris White introduced us to the white ribbon campaign, which works with men to end ‘destructive masculinities’, and Damian Carnel (from NFDV) who talked about his work with men, and in particular, the strategy of ensuring that when men were referred to men’s groups, his work to ensure that those groups were *constructive* and concerned for gender equality (rather than those which encourage resentment against women, making ‘feminism’ a scapegoat.)
This leads me to another critical point about the day; there was a lot of focus on individual men, and what they should be doing. Now I absolutely agree that men should be feminist. But to be honest, if I were a man, I would have felt a bit sheepish (at one point, Julie Bindel directly addressed the men there: ‘what are you doing to help feminism?’). [Jender adds: It was clear they did feel sheepish. In fact, they were very apologetic about how little they were doing. And these were men who were running organisations doing incredibly important outreach work trying to change men's attitudes. I'm really not sure why they should be feeling sheepish. Many of the women present, myself included, do far less and nobody was trying to make us feel sheepish. Our sex/gender should neither get us a free pass nor make us instantly blameworthy!] Three concerns:
i. the men there are already on board! We need to keep them on board, and encourage more men to do so - i’m not saying there shoudl be any pandering to men, but I don’t think the most constructive atmosphere is created by personal challenges. This is not least because…
ii. there’s some really interesting work, by Paul Benson amongst others (see his paper ‘Blame, Oppression and Diminished Moral Competence’ in Moral Psychology: Feminist ethics and social theory, Peggy DesAutels and Margaret Urban Walker, eds), about the degree to which agents can be held fully blameworthy in contexts in which oppressive social norms and structures pervade. Roughyl speaking, the claim is that insofar as men, like women, may have their ‘moral competence’ distorted by gender oppression, full blame may not be fully justified. [Jender adds: This is an important point, and a very tricky one to implement. But I think my main concern was that blame/suspicion seemed to be getting apportioned based not on what we do, but on our sex or gender. And that just seems wrong.]
iii. whilst we need individuals on board, we also need *structural* change; with all the well intentioned men and women in the world, unless issues such as the pay gap, the structure of the workplace, the expectations with respect to domestic roles etc are addressed, inequality will persist. [Jender adds: Of course, individuals can work toward those structural changes. But there was very little discussion of the need for such changes in these sessions.]
More to come…
 | Bret B on Not racist. |
 | Introvertica on Sunday cat break |
 | Lisa L on Sunday cat break |
 | Not Anonymous on Feminists destroy the ear… |
| Please read about Ra… on Violence, silence, racism, rap… |
