The Power Of The Dollar

Watching CBS Evening News tonight with Katie Couric, I saw a feature about Gay Rights activists and their fight against Prop. 8. Those supporters of same sex marriage are posting "the names and businesses who gave money to help Proposition 8 pass" on the internet, and are arranging boycotts of those businesses. I think this is a brilliant move, though I am of two minds about California allowing all donations to be public knowledge. On the one hand, I firmly believe that one should be proud of what one donates to and willing to accept the consequences of that affiliation. If anyone wants to know, I would gladly rattle off the (many) organizations and charities I give to and why. At the same time, there is something akin to the "sure the government can tap my phones, because I have nothing to hide" to the whole thing. That, however, is an entirely separate issue from what Gay Rights activists are doing with that information. My parents have long believed - and practiced the belief - that in a capitalist society, one of the greater powers one has is the power of the dollar. If a person does not agree with a company, if a person has a problem with a company or business's practices or policies, the best way to create change is to not buy.

My parents have their own blacklist of sorts, ranging from people like Nestle (for the marketing of their baby formula in developing nations) to Exxon (for their response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill) to countless others. Obviously, Nestle is still around and Exxon is making more money than ever, but the principle remains. Do not contribute to the wealth of people who actively work against your ethics or interests. Those people on the so-called "blacklists" created by supporters of gay marriage rights actively worked against the rights and interests of gay rights activists; and those activists have the right - since the information is public knowledge (and especially since the Yes on Prop 8 tried to use the same list to garner donations from companies who had contributed to No on 8 campaigns by threatening to reveal them as proponents of gay marriage) - to both not contribute to those companies and people. And they should have the right to alert the rest of the community as well, so that those supportive of gay rights but not active in the movement can decide what to do with their dollars as well. And those who were anti-gay rights may find a new place to grant patronage.

And then there is the opposition, both those who appeared on the list and those supporters who are uncomfortable with the tactics:

I have several issues with the video. One, for Chris Li (or Lee; CBS isn't sure about the spelling either): you're wrong. When you say, "This sort of blacklist should only appear in communist countries, should not be found in the United States", you demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding about both what this blacklist is and what the United States stands for. If the government were perpetuating this blacklist effort, or pressuring others to blacklist those supporters of Yes on 8 (as it did during McCarthyism), you would be wholly correct; that would be behavior wholly unbecoming of a democratic republic. But this blacklist is being perpetuated by individual organizations not affiliated with the government of the United States; those groups are very much within their own Constitutional rights to call your ass out on what they see as homophobic and bigoted donations. That's how a free society operates. Those on the side that gay marriage should be legal can decide to not redistribute their wealth to those who feel otherwise.

Another point of interest is this idea of 'Free Speech'. It is really the crux of Chris Li (or Lee)'s argument, and it was the prominent idea on the signs being waved by the demonstrators in Sacramento in support of Scott Eckern. There seems to be this strange and adolescent idea that free speech should really be free, and without consequence. That one should be able to say and do anything without feeling the burdens of their actions. And that is wholly incorrect. A person can say whatever they like, within reason. But that same person must also take responsibility for what they have said; they must own it. Free speech is never truly free; what I write here could negatively impact my life, just as what I write here could (and I feel has) positively impacted my life. If someone I would want to be friends with reads something here that is controversial or that they disagree with, they are fully within their rights to limit their contact with me. So too do those people organizing this boycott have the right to not shop in those stores or hire that engineer or go to that theater. That is how the whole thing works. We have to have courage of our convictions when we begin making public statements, whether through money or through dialogue. I donate money to the ACLU. I donate money to Emily's List and Planned Parenthood and Heifer International, and countless others. That is my freedom of speech at work, every time I donate a dollar to an organization. And if I lived in California (and worked in a service industry) and a pro-lifer didn't want to buy the merchandise I was selling, that is their right and their expression of free speech. It goes both ways, and we can't expect to be only positively impacted by our actions. It is cowardly to think so, and it is remarkably self-involved to believe it - or believe that one should be immune from the consequences of one's decisions.

Katie Couric on Racism and Sexism

"I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable."

So says Katie Couric. I like Katie; I blame some of this on years of watching NBC's coverage of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is still enjoyable now that she's gone -especially since Matt Lauer is still there- but isn't the same. And my father loves Katie Couric, so I've seen a lot of her and I generally find her to be an amiable and capable newscaster/anchor/whatever. And I find myself implicitly agreeing with the quote above; but I'm more than willing to bet that is because both Katie and I are women, and white. If I were a man and not white, I would probably feel differently about the first part of that quote; if I were a woman and not white, I could also feel differently about the quote. Racism is still common; it is still prevalent. And I can't in good conscience say it exists to a lesser degree than sexism.

I do, however, fully agree with the second half of the quote, that sexism is far more acceptable and forgivable than racism. Words like "bitch" and "slut" and "cunt" reverberate through every day conversation -among women and men. There are shirts, Facebook flair, bumper stickers, and so on actively advertising women as being lesser than men; that minimize and trivialize and normalize things like sexual assult. "Stop Rape: Say Yes". I won't say I don't laugh at them; I do. And it may be something other people will demand my feminist business card be rescinded for. But even as I see the humor in items like that, I'm also struck by the thought that there are people who genuinely believe it. Racist words aren't thrown around so cavalierly -and almost never when someone of another race is actually around, barring the John Kerry instance. Not that it doesn't happen (as a Facebook friend of mine described in a note); not that racist conclusions aren't drawn and commented upon when someone of a minority group is within earshot. But -and this is only one white girl's take on it- it seems more on the down-low, and less like "you should totally agree with this even though you're part of the group I'm totally disparaging".

Meanwhile, women are in full earshot when men tell sexist jokes, call other women "bitch", and generally opine that women like Penny of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible got what she deserved because she slept with a tool instead of recognizing the "great" guy right next to her. And we're expected to laugh and agree. Which, thanks guys. That's real sweet, and not at all about hating on women or expecting us to be omniscent. I'm sure worse things are said behind my back, just like racist tripe is spread around and laughed at when "those people" aren't in earshot. But they feel pretty safe being misogynistic and sexist and assholic right there in front of me too. And that needs to change, stat.

Sexism is normalized; women are expected to laugh along while they are belittled and injured, especially because many don't see it as "sexist". Articles in The Washington Post talk about how much stupider women are than men (though to be fair, they quickly printed a rebuttal by Katha Pollitt). I can't even begin to describe how many times I've heard "that's just the way it is", like society doesn't have some part to play in why women are drawn more to the social sciences instead of to the hard sciences, like women haven't always been pushed to whatever medium society sees as being of lesser importance. For much of Western Civilization, women couldn't study literature or history, because it was too complicated for their little minds to handle. Virginia Woolf opined that she couldn't write poetry -a man's medium- and was stuck writing novels because she didn't have the education in classic languages. Now, women aren't equally represented in biology and chemistry and advanced physics and math, and the reasoning -while clinical and cleaned up and wrong- is essentially the same. And that sucks; it sucks even more that it is so accepted as truth that a majority of men -and a lot of women- don't recognize it as being a complete sham.