A Few Thoughts On Trayvon Martin

When I first saw Trayvon Martin's picture, all I saw was my cousin. I have a cousin who, at 14, at 15, at 16, until he grew his hair out into dreadlocks, looks so much like Trayvon in my memory it is a physical pain. My cousin, who is no longer a teenager. My cousin, who is handsome, and kind, and smart. My cousin, who is a father. My cousin, who is fighting in a war I don't believe in, for reasons both altruistically patriotic and personally pragmatic. My cousin, who has yet to reach his 25th birthday.

Before he joined the army, I didnt think about his chances of survival. Why would I? I'm white. And he is my baby cousin. He was my summer companion for years. And I knew he was sweet and responsible. I knew he cared for our grandparents, knew that he mowed their lawn and did woodwork with my grandfather. I knew he took care of his little brother and sister. I knew that he was the type of kid any parent would be thrilled to have.
And I didn't have to think that his skin was something that someone who didn't know him would find suspicious. Because I'm white.

The thing that hurts about Trayvon Martin in a true and visceral level is that when I first saw his smiling face, he was my cousin. He was someone I love dearly.

That's not to say I wouldn't have been outraged about the very nature of the injustice perpetrated against Trayvon if I didn't have a cousin of mixed race, if I didn't have three of them. But it does mean that the equation changed from a general feeling of anger at how institutional racism makes a kid walking home in the rain suspicious to one man and inconsequential to an entire police force to a specific understanding that this could have been someone I love.
When I think of Trayvon Martin, when I think of the fact that he was a John Doe for a day before he was given a name, when I think of the fact that he was so close to home, when I think of his family, I think how easily it could have been my cousin not coming home and not knowing where he is. I can imagine myself being mad at him, believing he was fine until it was proved that he wasn't. I have the luxury of not immediately leaping to the worst of conclusions because I'm not black. I am only related to blackness and all that entails. Trayvon Martin hurts because he looks like my handsome cousin did - and still does. Trayvon Martin hurts because I see the man my cousin is, I see the man he has the potential to become - and I see a boy who was denied that opportunity. But I can't truly understand how incredibly limiting being that black boy is because I'm a white girl. It was never really in doubt whether or not I'd live to see my 25th birthday. And it was never in doubt that people would look at me and not see someone who is by her very nature suspicious. But it is a reality for millions of young men who could be my cousin. It is the world my cousin lives in.

I don't know how to fix that. I don't know how to make the George Zimmermans of the world recognize the humanity, and more importantly the individuality, of my cousin and all the men and boys who could be him - all the men and boys who could be Trayvon Martin. All the men and boys who could be Oscar Grant. All the men who could be Barack Obama.

President Obama said that if he had a son, his son would look like Trayvon. It's strange to think of a president who had to worry about having a son, who had to consider what having a black son would have meant. It's strange to think of any parent having to do that. To have the joy of having a child mitigated by the fact that the world would be an actively hostile place for that child. To have people both hold the worst expectations of your child and simultaneously question why your child wasn't succeeding - to have people attribute his successes to affirmative action and his failures to bad character while protesting they and the systems were not racist. To have a child in a world where he could be shot on the street for walking while black and then have the police accept the perpetrator's assertion that he was the threatened one.

And these are all things I knew, intellectually, before Trayvon Martin was shot. These were things my parents took care to tell me. These were things I understood when I read an interview with J. August Richards, who played Gunn on Angel the Series, when he talked about how he was followed around a store after getting the role and assumed it was because the guy thought he was shoplifting but was instead because he wanted an autograph. Think about that. It's horrific. Your normal life is being suspected of shoplifting, and not because you're doing anything - just because you are. Just because of the skin you exist in.

Because of the skin he was in, Trayvon Martin was seen as someone who didn't belong in George Zimmerman's neighborhood. Because of the skin he is in, Barack Obama's legitimacy is questioned. Because of the skin he is in, my cousin is at risk.

That is beyond horrifying. It is sickening. It is a sickness that has infected us all. And I don't know what the anecdote is. But those of us who aren't inherently seen as suspicious have to work tirelessly to remove that presumption from those of us who are. Because Trayvon Martin isn't the first Trayvon Martin. But we need to do everything in our power to make him the last.

Necessary Reading: "What Kind of Card Is Race?"

Excerpts from Tim Wise's "What Kind of Card Is Race?", via Mandolin at Alas, a Blog:

Asked about the tendency for people of color to play the "race card," I responded as I always do: First, by noting that the regularity with which whites respond to charges of racism by calling said charges a ploy, suggests that the race card is, at best, equivalent to the two of diamonds. In other words, it's not much of a card to play, calling into question why anyone would play it (as if it were really going to get them somewhere). Secondly, I pointed out that white reluctance to acknowledge racism isn't new, and it isn't something that manifests only in situations where the racial aspect of an incident is arguable. Fact is, whites have always doubted claims of racism at the time they were being made, no matter how strong the evidence, as will be seen below. Finally, I concluded by suggesting that whatever "card" claims of racism may prove to be for the black and brown, the denial card is far and away the trump, and whites play it regularly: a subject to which we will return.

...

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has to do with race nowadays, in the eyes of white America writ large. But the obvious question is this: if we have never seen racism as a real problem, contemporary to the time in which the charges are being made, and if in all generations past we were obviously wrong to the point of mass delusion in thinking this way, what should lead us to conclude that now, at long last, we've become any more astute at discerning social reality than we were before? Why should we trust our own perceptions or instincts on the matter, when we have run up such an amazingly bad track record as observers of the world in which we live? In every era, black folks said they were the victims of racism and they were right. In every era, whites have said the problem was exaggerated, and we have been wrong.

Read the whole thing.

Monday Reading List

I Don't Care If You're Offended:

Now, I think many people who write about and try to fight structural bias are just accustomed to using “offensive” as something of a shorthand for this notion of harmful-because-it-reinforces-pernicious-memes; I know I generally have. But offense is only defined in terms of how the offended person feels, which means it’s an insufficient concept. It actually obscures the real problem.

The Looting Lie

For example, I was watching CNN, and there was a CNN reporter that was talking about a Haitian hotel that brought a hose out for people to take water from if they came by. Were those people looting water? I’d say no. The norms changed. What if people are together in a group and they decide that they need to go get some rice. Is it looting to get rice and feed your family in desperate situations? No. It’s a new norm developing in the midst of a very extreme situation.

Remembering National Tragedies: The U.S. vs Germany:

Plantations were many other things, but they were also the engine of slavery. It is this that should stand out as the most important thing about them. Concentration camps were many other things as well (e.g., a military training site, a daily job site for German soldiers, a factory producing goods, and a strategic part of the war effort), but we have absorbed the important lessons from them so thoroughly that it is difficult to even imagine what an alternative tour might look like. In contrast, one can visit the Lara Plantation and come away not really thinking about slavery at all, in favor of how pretty the china was and oooh did you smell that candle as we walked by? Delicious. I need a coke, you?

At War With Our Bodies:

We live in a society that makes money off of making us feel bad about ourselves, after all people who are 100% content with their body don’t go on expensive fad diets or purchase tons of expensive beauty supplies.

Female Sexuality As A Weapon:

With the recent release of Bayonetta, I was reminded of female sexuality being used as a weapon or a power in games. This is not an original idea. Having not played Bayonetta I will only mention some other games that use this mechanic.

Rape Analogy Redux: The "Stroll In The Jungle" Theory:

What is the fate of the man-eating bear? Many of the past decade’s person-eaters were either shot, killed in some other way, pepper-sprayed, lured out of the wilderness with elaborate traps, or quarantined in animal training. Sixty percent of rapes are not even reported to police, which seriously impedes the government’s ability to trap rapists. Why aren’t these women reporting their rapes? Oh, perhaps it has s0mething to do with jungle rape theorists who suggest that everyone who gets raped is a big ‘ol dumbass.

Also, Felicia Day, otherwise known in these parts as that girl who lives through Epitaph One and the girl who doesn't live through Dr. Horrible's Sing Along-Blog has her own blog! In it, she is as witty as one could hope. I highly recommend reading her, and I defy you from coming away fantasizing she'll be you're new BFF. And Stuff You Should Know's Kiva team, of which I am a part, has raised $64,225 so far. Go Team!

And comic:

toothpastefordinner.com

Double Standards, And Their Absence

I'm not going to go into Senator Harry Reid's comments regarding the electability of then-Senator Barack Obama. But what I am going to talk about is the "double standard" talk emanating from some members of the GOP.

There is no damned double standard. Why? Well, for one, in order for it to truly be a double standard, the parties would have to be on equal footing. Guess what? They're not.

There is a long-standing tradition within the GOP to use dog-whistles, in their ads and in their robocalls. Like the Willie Horton ad, used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. Like the poll calls in 2000 asking South Carolina voters if they would be less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate African-American child, based partially on the fact McCain and his wife had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. Ronald Reagan used the specter of the "welfare queen" in order to win the support of white America.

Then there is this: the person Harry Reid is being most compared to on an individual level within the GOP camp is Trent Lott. Lott, who said that had Strom Thurman been elected president, the country would be in a better place, that we wouldn't have all the problems we have now. Some nice remarks for an elder statesman's birthday? Perhaps. But the question becomes, better for whom? For the African-Americans who were left out of Thurman's America? No. It would not be better for them at all.

And that's what it comes down to - policy decisions and reaching out to a minority community. I'm not going to say that the Dems don't house racists. I'm not going to say that the GOP is totally bad on issues of race and the Dems are totally wonderful. What I am going to say is that the GOP has continually made a home for itself in the high places, and have perpetually attacked policies that are designed to help minorities in our nation. Sometimes, out of a sense of political theory, but just as often it seems that it happens out of bad faith.

So, they don't get the benefit of the doubt when one of their members runs his mouth. So, they don't get the cushion that comes with having an amiable history with the community in question. So, they get hammered harder because there is no trust there. There is no sense that these guys are trying to do right, that they've stumbled and fallen because they're idiots and not because they just don't care.

That's why there is no double standard. Because, in general, the GOP and the Democratic Party start from two entirely different ledges. And to wipe that clean in an effort to win some scant political support is from the preschool pool of political wisdom.

Monday Reading List

"We Are Not Animals in the Hood":

Lisa Gray-Garcia says the tours “zoo-ify” poor people and people of color, who will clearly not be paying $65 to drive around looking at projects, tags and bullet holes.

Single-Minded:

Does that go back to the idea that being single is seen as a threat to those in relationships? The idea seems laughable, but somehow it always come roaring back. There are also still so many (namely lumped into the category of “relatives”) that find it strange when you don’t bring a love interest to the Christmas party every year.

Why I Hate Label-Hating:

What is a label? It’s a description. It’s a name. Words are the primary tool our species uses to communicate and “labels” are just that: words we use to explain ourselves and others. The wrong word, especially when it is instituted upon a person by the entire culture, can do tremendous damage, and I understand that most queer people are walking around with considerable baggage because of this, myself included. But that isn’t an argument against labels per se. Once again, it’s an argument against coercion.

When Men Were Men, And Burned To Death:

When men were men and film was in black and white, race car drivers died and were injured in crashes with what now seems like shocking regularity. European motorsports resumed after a nearly decade-long hiatus caused by the Second World War, with sports car and Grand Prix racing adopting advances in engines, materials and aerodynamics spurred by military technology, and the cars went faster and faster from the early fifties on. The speeds quickly outstripped the cars’ rudimentary abilities to protect drivers in a crash, leaving ever thinner margins of for lightweight machines with hundreds of horsepower on tracks made of winding public roads.

From Cute Overload:

Monday Reading List

Hugo's “Penetrate” v. “Engulf” and the multiple meanings of the “f” word: a note on feminist language:

In every women’s studies class I’ve taught here at PCC, and in many guest lectures about feminism I’ve given elsewhere, I use the “penetrate” versus “engulf” image to illustrate a basic point about the way in which our language constructs and maintains male aggression and female passivity. Even those who haven’t had heterosexual intercourse can, with only a small degree of imagination required, see how “envelop” might be just as accurate as “enter”.

Sady Doyle's The Edward Cullen Underpants Conundrum:

I mean, consider: Edward Cullen has no characteristics, as a person, other than wanting to “protect” Bella and being beautiful and gorgeous and perfect all the time. (And also an insufferable asshole, but that seems more like a mistake than a purposeful effort to give him a personality.) He has no goals in life other than being with Bella. He is over a hundred years old, and he’s never had sex with another person. He’s never wanted to have sex with another person. There is not and will never be a person or a thing or an event that is more important to him than (eventually) having sex with Bella. He is an object designed for the gratification of female desire. He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything, and he’s so beautiful you creamed yourself. And that’s it. And we’re used to dudes writing ladies this way, we’re even used to dudes writing ladies this way and passing it off as “literature,” but the idea of a female author writing a male character in this way, for the pleasure of other ladies, is profoundly disconcerting. Even to me! Because it’s backwards.

Filthy Grandeur's Presentations of violence and gender in the Twilight Novels:

Though all of the Cullens are stunningly attractive, there's a clear gendered difference in their appearances. The men are large, and strong, while the women are small and graceful. Though the women are also impeccably strong, they do not look it.

EAMD is an Angry White Girl:

First of all, I actually have no idea what, if any, of my university's admissions criteria involve race in any way. True, then I should not be arguing about them, but on the other hand, that is precisely the point--not a single goddamn one of those columns actually states how exactly race plays a role in admissions. My guess is because the writers and speculators on this campus don't actually have the slightest idea if or how race impacts admissions. They just use the assumption that it gives minority students a concrete advantage to spew unfounded bullshit about how "qualified white students" are being denied admission to make room for all the darkies who definitely wouldn't get in otherwise.

Meloukhia's Transgender Day of Remembrance:

Some people think that days of remembrance are a waste of time. Or they say that people should be thinking about this “all the time.”

Well, I do.

Every. Single. Day.

I think about it. I think about the people I haven’t known and never will know, now, because they are dead.

And I’d like you to do the same.

Because the thing about a day of remembrance is that it allows us to take a moment, together, as a collective, to acknowledge something.

From See Emily Blog, there's Books Critiquing America Series: Rethinking Thin:

Not too long ago, I thought that anyone who was overweight chose to be overweight, and that if they really wanted to be thin, they could. Many people still think this about the overweight and obese- why can’t they just eat less and exercise more? What’s keeping them from getting control of their lives? Well, according to Kolata’s book, this is a question that has been puzzling scientists for decades. And, spoiler alert, it’s rarely the obese person who is to blame for their weight.

And, because my first car handled exactly this way on ice (and snow, and sometimes rain...) a Zits comic:

Monday Reading List

Not The Man I Know by Cara:

This is the danger of making statements about what “the man I know” would and wouldn’t do. It places our own experiences with a person above those of a person with whom they have been violent. And it erases the fact that violence against women exists, that it is being committed right now as I write this, and that it’s being committed by men who we’ve gone to school with, been to dinner parties with, played on the playground with, by men who have been non-violent towards us, who have helped us, who have been nice to us.

Belonging Review: Dollhouse 2.04 from Maia:

Belonging wasn’t the fantasy of killing a rapist, there was a body and it traumatised Priya even more. The fight was messy, Priya had a normal person’s strength and was lucky. Although I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who shouted at the screen “Topher couldn’t you have helped by providing her with Kung Fu skills. But it wouldn’t have worked if he had. And after there was blood, a body, and very few options. There were still fantasy elements – Boyd arrived on cue with body disposal skills, but it was the reality, not the fantasy that we were left with. The scene, or story, didn’t end with her stabbing him.

How I Found Out I Was Politically Correct, a post only slightly marred by the misnaming Joss Whedon as Josh Whedon:

The next time someone complains about “political correctness”, listen close. Chances are they’re either talking about someone not knowing their place, or someone having the gall to tell the listener to act like a decent human being. “What‘s this chick robot doing in my show about walking dude robots? TOKENISM! Chew with my mouth closed? POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE WILD!” These folks are under the impression that they’re “edgy”. After all, what is more rare and groundbreaking than straight white dudes ragging on things? Sometimes I can go an entire day without hearing that! Assuming I don’t watch television or listen to radio or go on the internet, and also spend the entire day in the woods.

Only Those With Power Can Participate In Racism:

...if you're black, say, and engage in prejudiced opinions and behavior against white people, you are not participating in a power structure that systematically oppresses white people, because no such power structure exists. You are engaging in a singular act of prejudice that does not, in the end, change, effect, or even play into the balance of power.

Amanda's Looking at Releasing Dirty Pictures As A Form Of Sexual Assault:

Understanding that this kind of thing is a form of sexual assault also helps us understand how it’s victim-blaming to suggest that the girls deserve all this because they were foolish enough to take these pictures. Whether or not it’s wise to do this doesn’t diminish one bit the fact that it’s wrong to use these kinds of pictures to hurt and control young women. Indeed, the only reason that taking these kinds of pictures is reckless is because there’s so many wannabe sexual assailants out there, and they know that they won’t be held responsible if they perform their assaults by leaking these pictures. Just as rape creates a general loss of freedom for women, who have to control their associations and movements out of fear that it will happen, this form of sexual assault also creates a loss of freedom. In all cases, men should consider how this loss of freedom is wrong not just because it hurts women, but also because it hurts them. When women know that some assholes are out there, waiting to punish and humiliate you if you express yourself a little bit, you don’t express yourself. And the men who might be the beneficiaries of your enthusiastic, consensual self-expression don’t get that. In this case, every use of dirty pictures to punish and humiliate women results in more women deciding that they will never, ever take and send such pictures.

From Garfield Minus Garfield:

Monday Reading List

Girls Can Be Wild Things Too! by Lauren O. My favorite line is:

I was reading this month's issue of Spin, a magazine I will continue to receive long after I get even more bored with it than I already am because one of those door-to-door magazine-subscription salesman guilted me into it, and I am more susceptible to guilt-based pitches than anything else in the world because I was raised Christian.

But the more salient point is probably this one:

The fact is that when you live in a society that constantly portrays women as curious passive accessories to real humans, you're going to absorb that message to some extent, no matter how smart you are, and no matter how much time you spend studying and defending women's rights (not that that is something Steve Kandell probably does very often). I'm not going to pretend like I haven't been guilty of this, and I'm sure I'll catch myself doing it again in the future, thinking of white men as default humans and of the rest of us as deviations from the norm.

You Can Take Your "Just Joking" and Shove It by Andrea. Because I really, really hate it when someone says something wickedly offensive or insensitive, and when called out on it goes with the "just joking" defense instead of being an adult and actually apologizing for hir own myopic meanness.

Being Transgender Is Dishonest from silver unicorn at the Community at Feministing:

Transgender people don't fit into these ideas of gender, so we are dishonest always. I can't say I am female without being accused of lying about what my assigned biological sex. And I can't say I'm male, because that isn't my gender identity nor is how I'm usually perceived, so that of cause would make me dishonest as well. And I certainly couldn't say my gender identity is anything other than female or male, because those options don't even exist in a lot of people's eyes.

It's Been A Year Since Obama Ended Racism in America, and isn't that just great? My favorite part in it all is this:

Whenever a homeless white person asks me for change, I always sneer at him and say: “You can’t be serious. You’re white. Look at Bill Gates. Why don’t you go invent an operating system instead of trying to freeload off of society you lazy white man.”

Oh wait, I never say that. Because that would make me a giant prick.

But, again, well worth the read. Especially the part about how Obama is a giant dork. Cuz, yeah.

Why It's Awesome To Be a Joss Whedon Fan by pointy. Filled with fairy tale references:

So, were we talking about someone? Oh, yes. That writer. Too many TV writers intoxicate us with the literalized Little Red Riding Hood. Act I: Innocence is victimized. Act II: The hero identifies Evil Incarnate and does battle, as reasons to Kill It Kill It pile up. Act III: The Death Bringer is slain by the hero, and the community is restored to pure wholesome goodness. The good guys live, cuz they’re good! It’s amazing how many people think they’re watching realism when they’re told the latest rehash of this fairy tale, minus all the elements that clue a child in that it’s not real.

Thomas' Reductio:

I don’t think we have a society that is comfortable with women being large or containing multitudes. The survey Lauren links treats “mom” as if it encompasses the whole of the woman, defining her entirely. Women are expected to be one-dimensional, so that if a woman is a professional, and if she is also a mother, any sort of acknowledgement that she’s also a mom is seen as slightly or not-so-slightly inconsistent with her role as a professional.

The Kiva team Stuff You Should Know started has reached $17,700 worth of loans made in just over a month.

And, because I love mustard on my elbow noodles (which really grosses out my mother):

nataliedee.com

Saturday Sesame Street

This morning's Saturday Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter "S", as in Sociological Images, because that's where I found it:


I'll admit, it made me tear up a little bit.

A Post In Which I Review Dollhouse's "Vows"

TOPHER: But this is the Dollhouse, frenemy. And nothing happens without my... What the hell?

Hello, second season of Dollhouse! Hello, Topher! Hello, Dr. Claire Saunders! Hello, Adelle! Hello, uncomfortably dark greys and philosophical issues! I think Topher's above line pretty much sums it all up. This is the Dollhouse, where the carefully created controlled environs begins to butt heads with chaos. Events are beginning to take shape without Topher's knowledge or consent. As Dr. Ian Malcolm so artfully described in Jurassic Park, "If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously." And this is what makes the Dollhouse (and, in part, Dollhouse) so exciting.

Let's take care of the bad first, shall we? The Engagement of the Week? Still the weakest part of the episode. I'm not entirely willing to blame Eliza for this, although this brings me straight to the next bad. Echo is still the weakest link in terms of characters. She's just kind of blah. Her story - so far - has been kind of blah. It is all wrapped up in things happening to her, rather than things she is doing. Adelle tells Ballard Echo is special, but there is no sign (outside of the unaired pilot) that assertion is correct. Echo is intriguing everyone, but there is nothing there pulling me in. It would be better if she wasn't on everyone's "sparkly" list, because then I could empathize with Boyd's devotion or wonder over Ballard's obsession. But with everyone on board, I'm less so. It is hard to find a character utterly special when all that is there is tell. And while Adelle may be correct in Echo's evolution before Alpha dumped all of her personas into her, she isn't correct in asserting that Echo is special because of that evolution. Victor started to evolve beyond the parameters of the Doll State. Sierra remembered past trauma while in Doll State. Hell, even Alpha evolved, if not admirably. If the unaired pilot was cannon and the story had been continued from there, I'd be on board. But what I've got to work with is that even the psycho Doll latches on to some brilliance that has yet to be properly introduced to us in the viewership. That's going to be a problem.

Another bad, or baddish, is Ballard. I'm not feeling his storyline. Part of it may be the fact that his obsession with Echo is just full of grossness. Part of it may be that he seems to not recognize how his "extreme devotion" to Echo is unhealthy at best and destructive (potentially to both her and him) at worst. But it could also be because I don't want him being rewarded for this weird fixation, and I'm completely not clued into whether or not I'm alone on this, if we're actually supposed to recognize Ballard as being the White Knight who gets a bit of grey on him in his determination to do right or if Ballard is supposed to not be a knight at all, and all the White Knight stuff is just a part of his own hang up and not something we should be rooting for or taking a hold of. In other words, of these two thoughts:

ADELLE: I expect he's looking for something else. A darker purpose, perhaps, or a weakness. And there's his extreme devotion to Echo.

BOYD: So he uses her to fulfill some sad fantasy about righting old wrongs by doing something worse.

which are we supposed to identify with? I'm hoping for Boyd's to come out on top in the end.

I was also taken back (but in a good way) when the client of the "sick" assignment turned out to be Ballard himself. From an unwitting player in the victimization of a Doll in Man on the Street, to an active one in Haunted, Ballard now fully completes the circle by becoming an actual client and a full and equal participant in the game. No wonder Boyd seemed so disgusted with him.

Another baddish moment (perhaps more "bad" than "ish") was Sierra's assignment:

SIERRA: I'm not comfortable with, uh, Orientals.

IVY: It'll only take a second.

SIERRA: It's not a racialist issue. It's just that... Well, your culture's not really the thing, is it?

Ivy: Have a seat.

SIERRA: I suppose I'm at your mercy. In fact, if you were to tie me down and spank me, I could hardly be expected to resist, could I?

IVY: I'll keep that in mind.

It could have been potentially good, potentially mocking the reference to Asia as one monolithic culture, potentially pointing out the insidiousness of internalized racism, recognizing how Asian fetishists are still racist, and demonstrating how difficult it can be to respond to gross stereotypes and blatant sexualization that can often occur in racial interactions. And maybe it was meant to do all of those things; perhaps it even succeeded. Unfortunately, Asians have not faired well in Whedony productions in the past. Whedon has, to put it bluntly, a bit of a race problem in regard to his work. The most blatant example of this is, in fact, Firefly. As Leigh Adams Wright's essay Asian Objects in Space notes - like Sierra merging all Asian cultures into one, undesirable, thing - Whedon's set pieces take all Asian cultures and merge them as well, and without any Asians with speaking parts to make the whole East-West merge seem realistic - or to counteract the "Asians as exotic objects" thing. Which is something Thea Lim from Racialicious also has a certain set amount of problems with (and she mentions Dollhouse, albeit pre-Sierra) in her article Joss Whedon and the Blurry Line Between Homage and Appropriation. Maybe Whedon wants to work to redress those issues present in his past works (and, if DMike from Television Without Pity is to be believed, may already be doing so by giving Sierra a Napalese name in in Epitaph One), but this scene only uncomfortably seems to harken back to his own failures without doing much to acknowledge them as such. "Racialists", it seems, are other people.

Now that we've touched on the bad, let's go back to the straight up, undeniable good. And that is Amy Acker. I'm going to be honest. I didn't like Amy Acker on Angel. I'm coming to the conclusion that it wasn't Amy Acker so much as it was Fred I didn't like, and that is a sweet, sweet revelation because Amy Acker can act the heck out of a script, let me tell you. This is the beginning of Acker's 3 episode swan song before she departs for Happy Town, and Whedon is giving her a lot to work with as Dr. Claire Saunders deals with the fact that she isn't exactly what those in Epitaph One call Actuals. Her method of dealing with actually being a Doll seems to be becoming slightly unhinged and creeping the crap out of Topher. Which is always fun:

TOPHER: Is this your idea of a joke?

SAUNDERS: You designed me, Mr. Brink. I guess it must be your idea of a joke.

TOPHER: I designed you to be a not crazy woman! You've gotta stop messing with me.

SAUNDERS: I don't seem to be able to. Maybe your work's not up to par.

TOPHER: My work is pristine. If you're losing it, that's your fault.

But the most heartbreaking scene for the both of them is this one:

TOPHER: What the...? What the hell?! Are you drunk?

SAUNDERS: I'm just trying to be my best.

TOPHER: Oh, whoa, I-I-I don't want your best.

SAUNDERS (looks down): Well, I think you do.

TOPHER: Okay, that is the minority vote. And you tricked it. Okay? A guy's asleep. Could have been Fozzie Bear and it would have (hand motions upward)... Not that I think about Fozzie Bear.

SAUNDERS: Let's stop playing games.

TOPHER: Okay, huh - how does this qualify as not playing games?

SAUNDERS: Because this is the endgame. This is where it all leads. You design someone to hate you so you can convince them to love you.

TOPHER: Hey, I could whip up a love slave any day I wanted to.

SAUNDERS: But that wouldn't be a challenge, would it? Slaves are just slaves. But winning over your enemy - the one person guaranteed to reject everything you are - that's real love. More real than anything up in the world. And I understand it now. I love you.

TOPHER: You need a frickin' treatment!

SAUNDERS: Why shouldn't I love you? Aren't you lovable? Aren't you Big Brother? Aren't you the Lord my God? Why should I fight your divine plan?

TOPHER: Because you're better than that! Because you're better than me! Dr. Saunders was dead. And Whiskey was out of service, at least temporarily. So DeWitt gave me the call. "We need a new doctor. One who's committed to our cause, who's kind and efficient and will look after our Actives."

SAUNDERS: So why didn't you stop there?

TOPHER: Because I was designing a person, not a Roomba. I needed you to be whole. If you agreed with everything I said, then we would miss something and someone would get hurt.

SAUNDERS: You don't care if people get hurt.

TOPHER: You don't know me! That's the contract. You don't know me, and I don't know you. Not fully, not ever. I made you question. I made you fight for your beliefs. I didn't make you hate me... You chose to.

SAUNDERS: How do I live? How do I go through my day knowing everything I think comes from something I can't abide?

TOPHER: So you weren't really going to sleep with me.

SAUNDERS: I can't stand the smell of you.

TOPHER: I did that - so we never... Why didn't you find out, who you really used to be? You had your chance. Maybe DeWitt would even reimprint your old identity. You've earned it.

SAUNDERS: Because I don't want to die. I'm not even real. I'm in someone else's body, and I'm afraid to give it up. I'm not better than you. I'm just a series of excuses.

TOPHER: You're human.

SAUNDERS: Don't flatter yourself.

One of the key things about that scene is the amount of depth both actors gave it, and what we learn about each character. As Boyd told Claire earlier, "Every person I know is pretty poorly constructed." Topher doesn't seem to like himself very much. He is a genius, and he's good enough and smart enough and skilled enough to know that making a Roomba isn't going to get the job done. But he is also explicitly clear that he made Claire to be a better person than he sees himself as. He created a person who could and would challenge him, who could and would win against him, because he wanted a safeguard. And because he doesn't seem to trust himself - or even like himself - that much. And yet, he seems kind of broken by the idea that she would choose to hate him. And by the end, he's closer to the Topher in Epitaph One's future than he is to the Topher we were first introduced to. That is what I call tragic goodness.

What is also interesting is the extent to which he goes to make certain there will be no sexual relationship between himself and Saunders. He explicitly makes sure his very scent repels her. Which leads to the question, if he could make a sexbot at any time he wanted, has he ever? Would he ever? Is the scent provision just for Saunders? Is it there because he knew Whiskey before, or is it there because he feels distinctly squicky about sleeping with someone he had created? Is it a way for the creator to never abuse his creations, to never cross an invisible and intractable line? I want to know.

I also find it so very cool that the premise Saunders presents, the challenge of getting someone who hates you to love you, is practically the basis for a whole huge swath of romantic comedies, ranging from When Harry Met Sally to 27 Dresses to The Ugly Truth to 2 Weeks Notice. And it is presented here as a sad notion. Which, even though I liked the two non-Heigl films above, was kind of refreshing. The idea that we'll eventually end up with that guy or girl we first hate is a weird one to push. Because, well, it means spending a lot of time (I mean, a lot a lot) with people we don't like at all. And that? Not a fun way to spend your days.

But let's forget about the incredibly talented Fran Kranz and the hidden layerness of Topher in order to discuss Claire Saunders' philosophical and ethical dilemma. Because she does so well and hits it right out of the park almost immediately. She embodies one of the main issues with the Dollhouse - leaving aside the whole "the technology gets out and makes rampaging zombie-like creatures" part out of it for now. Saunders is a real person, no matter how often she verbally contradicts that statement. But whoever Whiskey was before she was Whiskey is a real person as well. She had real thoughts and real feelings, and this body is hers just as much - if not more - than it is Saunders'. To do the right thing and trying to give the body back means submitting to death. Which isn't fair to the good doctor, who never asked to be made. The person Whiskey once was may want to be reimprinted, but Dr. Saunders can't let herself go off into that good night. And I can't blame her. And there is no easy or righteous answer to this dilemma, because no matter what the process results in the 'death' of a persona.

Grade: A-

Who *Wouldn't* Bring An Assault Weapon To A Political Rally?

So.

At the town hall meetings President Obama held, protesters arrived armed with weaponry like assault weapons. Which is totally cool, right? So not threatening. After all, carrying weapons to a political event in full view of other citizenry is totes fine. It's not like African-American men - or presidents - have historically been victims of gun violence. It's not like we live in a country where this specific man, this specific president, has had "kill him" shouted out during political rallies.

Oh, wait.

That is exactly the country we live in.

We live in a nation where "one out of every eleven presidents has been shot and killed, and more than twenty percent of presidents have had shots fired at them". We live in a nation where prominent African-Americans have been murdered because they dared become prominent, because they dared to rise above what White America had delineated as their station, because they dared fight for the right to be treated as a full and equal citizen under the law. Because of that, I have to agree with Jeff Fecke when he says, "it’s impossible to view this as anything other than a direct threat on the president’s life".

If we were a nation where the implicit violence of the gun was mostly theoretical, where people have not been cut down because of their viewpoints or their skin color, then perhaps carrying guns to political rallies would not be as bone-chilling and as stifling as it is. It would still be stifling. It would still be silencing. It would still hold that threat of death and destruction (what else is a gun truly for when shown to others, other than to scare those around you into *not* taking a specific action?), because it is still a mechanism used first and foremost to destroy - whether it be bullseyes, deer, human beings, a gun alone is a neutral destructive force, but a destructive force all the same - but it wouldn't be as bad.

However.

We don't live in that kind of nation. We live in a nation where gun violence isn't a small thing, where "in 2006, there were 30,896 gun deaths in the U.S: 12,791 homicides (41% of total deaths), 16,883 suicides (55% of total deaths), 642 unintentional shootings (2% of total deaths), 360 from legal intervention (1.2% of total deaths) and 220 from undetermined intent (.8% of total deaths)."

We live in a nation where threats of violence have been used to stifle political debate. We live in a nation where we have the freedom of speech, but the words "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" carries a particularly harrowing message, with a relatively recent and violent allusion I can't imagine we're supposed to miss.

Even if we were to give these particular gun-toting protesters the benefit of the doubt, even if the argument can be made that these particular protesters are obtuse and bereft of historical knowledge (and that argument, at least for one of these men, cannot be made, because as Bill Moyers pointed out on last Friday's Journal, his Myspace page makes it clear "he admires white supremacists"), it doesn't change one fact.

The freedom to bear arms is a right, but it also carries with it a responsibility. Even if none of these men would ever point a gun at President Obama, even if none of them would pull the trigger, they are still playing a deadly game. Because there are those out there who would, who wish to. And to add more guns - even legally displayed - to a crowd when the President is present, is at the least highly irresponsible and at the most incredibly dangerous. In their willful arrogance, they may not recognize that fact. They may actually believe that they are merely expressing, as the man carrying the assault weapon stated, that they "still have some freedoms". But they are responsible for being yet more people who could qualify as legitimate threats. They are responsible for the effect they have on the debate as a whole, a debate not even about guns or their control. They are responsible for racheting up the intensity and the fear and the uneasiness surrounding this particular issue. And they are responsible for their gross negligence of historical precedent.

Police & Perception

When I was younger, possibly 14, possibly 12, possible as young as 11 or as old as 17 (time and I have a tendency to not get along very well), my father instructed me to always drive to the nearest police station if I were pulled over later in the evening or not on a main road. There had been a rash of sexual assaults reported, many committed by men who were dressing up as police officers in order to more easily gain power over their victims. But some were actual police officers, who already had more power over their victims. So, my father told me to not forget these instances, to always drive to the nearest police station in the event I was pulled over late at night or not on a main road, and to do so if I felt unsafe in any way even if I was on a highway at noon.

They also had me watch movies like The Thin Blue Line when I was young, in order to start conversations about how the police weren't the ultimate authority, that the badge and the uniform doesn't mean perfection, doesn't mean absolute fidelity to the law, doesn't mean that when there is fidelity to the law that it isn't applied differently to different people. This is also the reason my first episode of Homicide when I was about 8 or 9 was "Black and Blue", an episode that wholly revolves around the police department covering when one of its own kills someone and one officer, Pembleton, fighting against the cover up while also delivering a confession to the murder by the murdered boy's friend.

Over the years, through the stories they told about their (black) friends and their (white) friends, that application differential became increasingly clear.

Because of all of this, I don't truly understand the hoopla that accompanied President Obama's remarks regarding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. during his press conference, especially since he made it clear that he didn't "know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that". Especially since he quickly shifted the conversation to a larger one about why those who have been directly affected by situations in which race did play a negative role - and those, like me, who only have tangential evidence for how race does play a negative role - have made the assumption that race did play a negative role here, in this situation.

The best break down I can give, myself, is that I don't think the arrest was one of racial profiling. I don't think the officers - any of them - went into the situation thinking, "Let's arrest a black guy today". I don't even think the woman who called the cops thought that because there were two black men trying to enter a house in the afternoon, it was suspicious. I can give the benefit of the doubt and say that if two white guys she didn't recognize were trying to enter the house to the other side of her, she'd have called the cops as well. I've had the cops called on me when I was trying to break into my house in the afternoon, because I have good neighbors. Over the years, my neighbors have become accustomed to my breaking into my own house and now call to confirm that it was me.

But I do think the race of Professor Gates influenced the dynamic of the ensuing conversation - or, at the very least, I can see where his race would. And I can see where it would because of the excellent write up Latoya Peterson gives in the thread during the conversation ensuing from her post on Gates' arrest. When she says (in comment 102, for anyone interested),

I’m a black woman. I’ve never even been *close* to being in trouble with the law. It just doesn’t happen for me. Plus I grew up in MoCo, I have a great “white” voice and learned to mimic the type of assumptions and entitlement that my white peers (and a few upper class blacks) just knew.

However.

Every last one of my black and latino male friends has been arrested. They may not have been incarcerated. But they have all been arrested. I’ve seen maybe seven or so of these altercations begin. And in each occasion, the tone of the interaction is set by the officer. It’s normally the officer that initiates contact.

And for the life of me, I can’t reconcile these experiences.

I don’t understand why I’m at an out of control party with my white friends, who had a pile of cocaine in the bathroom, and the police come and barely look around, but when I’m sitting on a park bench with my black friend, the *park* police want to come by and harass him for littering since they spotted a cup underneath the bench. (One that was there before we arrived.)

I don’t understand why if the Salvadorean children I baby sat for were threatened with a knife by a white boy in the neighborhood, that the Officer who arrived berates us and their mother, then takes his hat off respectfully when approaching the grandparents of the white boy with the knife.

I don’t understand why I can watch the police get called to my building and watch the man making a ruckus get immediately escorted out, but when I call the police because there are two white guys down the hall screaming curses at a woman who isn’t answering the door, the police want to have a conversation and help solve his problem.

I say this as a person who was mentored by a Montgomery County Police Lieutenant.

I also understand that the very way we talk about race and racial dynamics - how on first pass, instead of writing,

But I do think the race of Professor Gates influenced the dynamic of the ensuing conversation - or, at the very least, I can see where his race would.

I wrote,

But I do think the race of Professor Gates changed the dynamic of the ensuing conversation - or, at the very least, I can see where his race would.

influences how we categorize events at hand. The difference may not seem all that grand, but for me, the difference is huge. In the original sentence, my original thought was that it was the fact that Gates was black that changed a neutral conversation.

But that isn't wholly correct. Race changes the conversation, period. If it were a white professor being questioned about whether or not he lived in this particular house on this particular street, the conversation would still be influenced by race. Depending on the individuals in question, maybe not much. And it might be that Crowley really did act stupidly for reasons wholly separate from race.

There is a part of this that didn't occur to me until I was reading what adelheide said on Ginmar's write-up of her impression of this particular incident:

The part that startles me is that the arresting officer is supposedly an expert on racial profilling and trains other officers how to not to do it. And yet he was completely baffled as to why Prof. Gates was upset about being confronted in his home. I would assume (dangerous word there) that someone trained to not racially profile people would understand that black people have a different experience with the police.

The fact that Sgt. Crowley "had been selected to be a police academy instructor on how to avoid racial profiling" seems to be used as shorthand, along with the fact that he gave mouth-to-mouth to Reggie Lewis, that he isn't a racist. And while that is probably true, I hadn't truly thought about what his being an instructor on how to avoid racial profiling meant in the opposite direction, what it meant for what Crowley himself should have potentially seen brewing in the context of the police's visitation.

These situations are incredibly complex, but there is a reason why many minorities think that Gates' race negatively influenced the arresting officer's actions - and there is a reason why many whites don't think race influenced the decision. It is easier to believe individual actions matter when your individual actions are spun positively, when you are met not with suspicion but with respect. When you aren't pulled over for driving while black, when you aren't questioned on park benches for litter that isn't yours, when these same situations keep happening to everyone you know. It is death by a thousand minute injustices; and those of us who don't have those continuing and continual experiences, for those of us who only occasionally deal with an asshole cop, it is easy to fathom that the way to handle these situations is to be polite, to be unfailingly gracious, to be thankful that a cop has come to your home to make sure you are supposed to be in it. And it could be easier to overrespond to an incident, to one incident after the dozens or hundreds or thousands that came before, incidents that involved you directly or friends or family or acquaintances, and believe that this particular incident has everything to do with your race - when it might only have something to do with your race, and unconsciously at that.

Affirmative Action in America

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. How many people do the first two?

Americans seem to be notoriously bad at follow through. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We can get one of the three major parts of how to green our world down (incidentally, it is the one that affects our routine the least), but the other two? Nah. We're already recycling.

That's kind of how I feel about the Affirmative Action fight, and the Race in 2028 editorial by Ross Douthat in Sunday's New York Times a friend of mine highlighted on his blog.

Affirmative Action is the slightly more arduous version of "recycle" in the whole "making America more equitable racially"...

The other steps, the ones we know about and the ones we haven't quite worked out yet, well, we can ignore those because we're already working on this Affirmative Action thing.

Because we've accepted that Affirmative Action has to happen, at least for a little while, we can ignore the fact that the world, our world, the world we live in and play in and work in and are entertained by, still remains pretty damn white - and male. We can talk about how "the senators are yesterday’s men. The America of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is swiftly giving way to the America of Sonia Maria Sotomayor and Barack Hussein Obama" without truly delving into the fact that there is one African American in the whole of the Senate, that he wasn't elected, and that he isn't going to run for an actual election (admittedly, for reasons not stemming from his race). We can ignore these facts:

Women – Women of voting age represent 51.6 percent of the voting age population yet are 16.3% of the Congress, putting America below the global average of 17% female representation at parliamentary level. As of 2007, the US ranks 68th in terms of women holding office in the legislature — this puts the US just above Turkmenistan, and just below El Salvador and Panama.

Latinos – Hispanics represent over 14% of the U.S. population, while their Congress representation is 3% in the Senate and about 5% in the House.

African-Americans – The Senate is 1% African American and the House is roughly 9.2% African American compared to the 12.3 percent of American population that are of Black or African-American descent

This is the world in which, as Douthat notes, "The nation’s largest states, Texas and California, already have 'minority' majorities. By 2023, if current demographic trends continue, nonwhites — black, Hispanic and Asian — will constitute a majority of Americans under 18. By 2042, they’ll constitute a national majority." And it is a world in which racism, real and actual and deadly and debilitating and degrading, is still present. In this society, "where the quest for diversity is already as likely to benefit the children of high-achieving recent immigrants as the descendants of slaves", and where those children of the high-achieving recent immigrants are still considered less than, and are still likely to be discriminated against.

I'm not against class-based affirmative action, but I also don't think that we - those of us who have been privileged and still remain privileged - should necessarily be the ones to decide if and when Affirmative Action has done enough. I don't think one African-American elected president and one Hispanic on the Supreme Court is the ushering in of a world in which Affirmative Action is ultimately unnecessary. At some point, I hope that it will be. At some point, I hope that we as a nation learn the follow through. I hope that we as a nation learn to suck it up. I hope that when white America is truly a minority, we recognize that we should probably then be a less of a majority in a majority of the institutions we now, as a race, have a hold over.

But I can understand focusing on the selfish crap. I'm a selfish person. I like knowing how something will help ME. And in truth, Affirmative Action does help me - and not just because I'm a girl and girls are helped. It helps me, because it makes my country better. It gets more viewpoints out in the open. It helps tear down the false belief that there is such a thing as an objective viewpoint. It culls from a wider source. It forces new thoughts and new ways of thinking into spaces that would otherwise be bereft of them. It creates opportunities to interact with and learn from people who have had profoundly different life experiences. It creates different ways of thinking about the very people who have, through the history of our country, been oppressed and discriminated against. And, if we go into Affirmative Action mindful that we as white people were very often not the subjects of a meritocracy and instead had a leg up due to that whole being white thing, it helps reinforce different avenues of viewing fellow citizens.

In a world where a preeminent African-American scholar is arrested after breaking in to his own house and providing identification proving who he was and that the house he was found in was indeed the one he lived in, we as a nation haven't learned all the necessary lessons from Affirmative Action, and we certainly haven't done the necessary follow-through. In a world where latently racist assumptions are made about our president's birth place, in a world where Rosario Dawson - who was born in New York City - was disregarded as the main character in But I'm a Cheerleader because she was Puerto Rican, and thus not "All-American" enough, we haven't fully acknowledged that the only Americans worthy of that title are white Americans. We haven't fully accepted that we aren't the center of our nation's universe.

I agree with my friend's quoting of Andrew Sullivan's "The goal of the gay rights movement should be to cease to exist", and his assertion that should also be the goal of Affirmative Action programs. But I'm not the person who gets to tell the gay rights movement when it has done enough, and when it should declare the ultimate victory by ceasing to exist. And I'm not willing to declare that by 2028, Affirmative Action will have done enough and should cease to exist. White America may not get to be the most central voices in that conversation, and we probably shouldn't be.

The Ending of a Career

Yesterday, after I posted a quote from Eugene Robinson's Washington Post op-ed, I began to revisit it. There was another line in Robinson's piece that bothered me when I first read it, and continued to niggle at me through the night. It was this one:

But when he brought up the "wise Latina" remark, as the GOP playbook apparently required, Graham said that "if I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over."

That's true.

The reason the line, and Robinson's acquiescence regarding its truthiness, bothers me is because I don't really think it is true. Senator Graham's career may have been over had he uttered a similar line. I'd be willing to bet his senatorial career would have suffered. But I'm not entirely sure if Senator Lindsey Graham would actually lose his Senate seat, or if his career would be over. And the reason why is because of Senator Jeff Sessions. Sessions has said some pretty boneheaded things. I would be willing to step away from the rule I generally follow, the rule outlined by the incredible Jay Smooth, of pointing out racist behavior without calling the person in question an out and out racist. I'm willing to lay it down that Jeff Sessions is, in point of fact, a racist. I'm willing to lay it down because due to his comments about the NAACP and the ACLU, and the comments he allegedly made regarding a white civil rights attorney being a "race traitor". And while Jeff Sessions didn't get the federal judgeship he was nominated for because of his comments, he has hardly become a pariah in society. His career has not been destroyed.

That is the problem with the outrage over Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment. It is that it is all too easy for those who are already privileged to move beyond a kerfuffle like being outed as a racist in the Senate. That is the problem with Graham making such an assertion when his colleague is very much someone who has made statements "remotely like" Sotomayor's, except his statements were couched in a history and carried a power Sotomayor's words aren't and don't have - because, as Eugene Robinson alludes, Latinas haven't been running the world for the last millennium. And to ignore how many white men get away with racist and biased and prejudiced statements, to ignore how many minorities have been beaten or killed or harassed for daring to even assert equality, is to ignore the world as it is and as it was. 

Edited for accuracy, via mikhailbakunin's corrections.

Quote of the Day

Pretending that the historical context doesn't exist -- pretending that white men haven't enjoyed a privileged position in this society -- doesn't make that context go away.

Yes, justice is supposed to be blind. But for most of our nation's history, it hasn't been -- and women and minorities are acutely aware of how our view of justice has evolved, or been forced to evolve.

- Eugene Robinson

I do love Eugene Robinson so, and I highly recommend reading his column from today.

"Idiosyncratic Sexism" Isn't Idiosyncratic

Look at the picture:

Which is coded "male" and which is coded "female"? It sounds like a stupid question. It really isn't. The one we see as inherently masculine, and thus male, has no markers as such. "He" has no testicles. "He" has no hairstyle specific to men - the hairstyle on the figure we see as feminine is exactly the same. "He" is masculine for two reasons: the other figure is "clearly" feminine, and because male is the default gender. "He" needs no signifiers. Absent any, we assume the figure is male. 

Simone de Beauvoir has written, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." In that one line, there are a myriad of different readings. I've pondered many of them. But the figures above illustrate the interpretation I like best, that I see as best representing what my own take on the thing is. And that is this: 

Gender is both real, and made.

Women learn how to be women from a young age. Men learn how to be men from a young age. But in the case of stick figures, books written in the singular before the implementation of "s/he", and medical studies, men (and boys) are the default.

There is nothing idiosyncratic about sexism, aside from the fact that it happens and is accepted. There are people who display their sexism idiosyncratically, like Keith Olbermann, who has engaged in sexist remarks when it comes to women he doesn't like or doesn't agree with. But sexism, from representation in films to representation in medical research to representation in government, is profoundly linked to certain historic - and systemic - elements. To deny the role sexism - unintended, unexamined, unrecognized sexism - plays in these areas is to deny the very truth of the matter. The truth of the matter is that men, mostly white and able-bodied and middle-class, are still generally in charge. 

Look at Pixar's roster. Look at the people running Pixar: Steve Jobs, John Lassetter, Jim Morris. 

Look at the writers: Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, Bob Peterson, Pete Doctor, John Lassetter.

There's nothing idiosyncratic about a bunch of men writing movies about men. It is seen as much more idiosyncratic for men to write about women, and strong women. Those men get asked questions like, "Why do you always write these strong female characters?"

Which is why describing sexism as idiosyncratic kind of misses the point about the big deal regarding sexism. It isn't that only Pixar's films don't do a good enough job representing women. It is that films don't do a good enough job representing women. I pick on Pixar for a couple of reasons:

1) I love Pixar films.

2) Pixar is a studio that consistently makes thoughtful, complex, daring films that are commercially viable.

3) Pixar is a children's film studio, and it is important to show children media with both girls and boys as the main protagonists.

It's important in other films as well. There is a line in America's Sweethearts,

I really want to play a character like the Terminator, you know, because I think the Hispanic people are crying out to see a deadly, destructive, killing machine that they can embrace as their own, you know, that they can relate to...

Now I don't know if women necessarily need a female deadly killing machine. But there is a problem when, as Joss Whedon says, "all it takes is one Catwoman to set the cause back a decade."

That isn't an example of Pixar's "idiosyncratic" sexism. This is an industry-wide issue.

Look at the statistics compiled by Women & Hollywood:

2008

Only 6 of the top 50 grossing films (12 of the top 100 films) starred or were focused on women.
Women comprised 9% of all directors.
Women accounted for 12% of writers.
Women comprised 16% of all executive producers.
...
...
Women comprise only 23% of film critics at daily newspapers. (San Diego State)
2007

In 2007, women only comprised 15% of all directors, executive producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 grossing films. (San Diego State)
In 2007, only 6% of the top 250 grossing films were directed by women. (San Diego State)
In 2007, only 5 of the top 50 films starred or were focused on women.
Of the 6,833 single speaking characters in the film nominated for best picture from 1977-2006 only 27.3% were females. (USC)
Women make up 27% of TV writers and 19% of film writers (WGAW)
2006

In 2006, less than a dozen of the 307 films eligible for an Oscar were women driven (EW).
In 2006, only 3 movies in the top 50 starred or were focused on women. (EW)

And one of the reasons for this is direct discrimination, both historic and current. But part of it is the discouragement one receives when one doesn't see oneself reflected in a particular industry/job. I'm not saying this happens with every person; obviously, it doesn't. If it did, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would have never run for president, because no one who looked like them had won that job before. But I wonder about how many kids never even entertained the thought of becoming president. I know I didn't, and I can't say whether that is because I saw no one who looked like me on my presidential flashcards or because I honestly didn't think I, as an individual, had the ability to do so. I do know that my cousin - a tall, muscular, multiracial guy - wanted to be a kindergarden teacher. I do know the constant discouragement, both direct and oblique, eventually pushed him away from that path.

I know that as much as everyone is an individual, we are also shaped by our experiences - by how those around us react. I know that there is a reason why women are better at chess when they are unaware their opponent is a guy. I know there is a reason why "white males got higher customer satisfaction ratings than women or people of color, whether they were doctors, university bookstore employees, or staffers at a golf course."

And I know that the reason Pixar is only a year younger than me and has yet to release a film with a female protagonist isn't idiosyncratic in the least. Instead, it is merely par for the course. Which is why it is sexism, and why sexism is dangerous.

What Was The National Review Thinking?!

There is so much "no" in this one cover, it's kind of hard to even begin to formulate a coherent thought. Let's start with this one: The National Review, though  a beacon for actual, intellectual conservative thought for much of its tenure, has in recent years given itself seemingly entirely to a branch of Republicanism and conservative thought not worth the paper on which it is printed. This cover is an example of that particular trend, and it is a shortcut example of why the Republican Party and conservatism in general is becoming more and more the party of white, southern men and not all that appealing to almost anyone else. After all, this image conflates one distinct minority group with another distinct minority group. Talk about a "all you people look the same" racist moment in action.

The very use of Buddhism as the natural implementation of wisdom is also highly problematic, for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it propagates the notion of Asians as inherently wise, as inherently spiritual, as inherently Buddhist. It makes wisdom for minorities dependent on an external function, whereas if it were a white man in the picture, the link to spirituality would not be necessary to highlight his wisdom; and if his wisdom was linked to a religion, it would most likely be his own instead of the religion we stereotype as exemplifying wisdom.

Buddhism used in relation to Sotomayor's wisdom is yet another clusterfuck of racism. The 'wise [Catholic] Latina' can't be represented as wise through an image that relates to any aspect of her person or heritage; no, it can only be understood by appropriating the popular image of Buddhism, and by extension Asians. Buddhists can be seen as wise, Asians can be seen as wise, but Latinas on their own cannot be automatically seen as wise. And in making Sotomayor in the image of a South Asian Buddhist monk in a decidedly un Puerto Rican or Bronx-like environment, the cover erases Sotomayor's own life, the life that led to the "wise Latina" remark in the first place.

Sotomayor & Blind Justice

Try as I might, I can't understand what is so controversial about the Sotomayor quote that has gained the amount of traction it has; the one where she said in 2001, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." 

I don't see it as a racist remark, I don't really see how it could be a racist remark, and perhaps more importantly I can see no basis for the position Richard Viguerie took on the May 26th airing of Talk of the Nation:

"My gosh, what happened to the idea that justice is supposed to be blind? Almost in every court in America, we have the statue of Justice there with the scales, and there's a blindfold over her eyes because justice is supposed to be blind. And there's a saying written over the Supreme Court, 'We are a nation of laws, not of men'. And the idea that you take into consideration the status of the defendant instead of what the law is, is a radical, frightening position."

Nothing in the quote, a quote when taken in the larger context of her speech as a whole is clearly about racial and gender discrimination in particular and not judicial philosophy in general, mentions the defendant. It is entirely about the "wise Latina woman" in question; in the context of the speech, Sotomayor was simply postulating that someone with firsthand experience in gender or racial discrimination would be more informed, and more intimately informed, than someone who had not had the misfortune of experiencing the world in such a way. A wise white man may intellectually understand racial discrimination and gender discrimination, but he is missing a the lived day to day moments of that life in this time and place.

Besides which, Justice, in the Plutonian Form, may be always equal and blind, may be objective and always rational and always right. But here on this earth, with all of our flaws and our lives and our biases and prejudices, justice can be blind in a wholly different way than the ideal. Blind in the way an all male, all white Court may - nay, will - have problems fully understanding the difficulties of the Other. In a world where white is raceless and male is genderless, in a world where white equals objective and male equals rational, the "wise Latina woman" may actually be better prepared to handle the prospective minefields of race and gender, because she has had to live intimately with both while navigating a dominant culture predicated on the normalcy of whiteness and maleness. I'm not saying white men cannot work to educate themselves; there are progressives who are truly versed in gender and race dynamics, who own their privilege. But - speaking as a white girl who is at times desperately trying to, and failing to, navigate the different dynamics of race in America and the world - the disparity women face, the disparity Latin@s face, African-Americans face, Asians face, is something that white men are privileged to ignore, even if they genuinely do not wish to. Parts of the world that would be ingrained in a Sotomayor, like not lashing out after being called an "Affirmative Action pick" when she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton, was editor of the Yale Law Review, and has more judicial experience than any of the current Supreme Court justices had when they were nominated, are not ingrained in me as a white woman - and not ingrained in any white man.  

There is a reason this image:

was produced. It is because some white men were finally feeling like they were in the position minorities and women and minority women have been in for almost the entire history of our country. Except, the white men who are freaking out right now only feel like they are in the position minority women and women and minorities have occupied for so long, only feel like they are being reversely discriminated against. Before 1981, no woman had served on the Supreme Court. Before 1967, no African-American had. Before Sotomayor (assuming she's confirmed), no minority woman has. There are a hella lot of us who have been left out of the American dream. Hell, it was only in 1960 that we elected a Catholic president, and Catholics have been here since the damn place was colonized. So, this is really the first time a white man didn't have an almost automatic bid, the first time a white guy was probably not seriously considered. Because there is the acknowledgement that this isn't a white guy's job to have; there is the acknowledgement that different people have different experiences, and 'white' and 'male' doesn't mean 'objective' and 'rational' or 'better' and 'more qualified'. There is the acknowledgement that in a nation as diverse as ours, a white man isn't always going to be considered for the main spot, that the white guy (and let's be honest, the white girl) isn't going to be in the limelight, isn't always going to be recognized. It stings a little. As a conceited and selfish human being myself, I know how it feels to not constantly be acknowledged as the absolute Best Person in the World, to get a head nod but otherwise brushed off.

But seriously, if we are to move forward as a country, we have to recognize that this:

Much is being made of the fact that Sonia Sotomayor had to struggle to rise in the world. But stop and think.

If you were going to have open-heart surgery, would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who was chosen because he had to struggle to get where he is, or by the best surgeon you could find — even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had every advantage that money and social position could offer?

doesn't really get it. Because whatever you think of Sotomayor's judicial philosophy (and stop by this post to read more about that - and if you're extra nice, comment because it is my friend's birthday today), she is by all accounts an exceptional person - not woman, not Latina, not Hispanic, not New Yorker, though she is certainly an exceptional each one of those as well. She is an exceptional, bright, qualified person. She may not have been born into privilege, but her struggle hasn't made her into a second-rate justice. There is some question about whether she is the liberal answer to Antonin Scalia; but even if she is not (and no one on the Court is), she is enormously qualified to be a Justice. At this point in the process, unless you're Harriet Miers, you don't make it into consideration without being the best of the best. The only thing that separates those nominated and those not are those intangibles that make up any nominating process. Every so often, there comes a time when there is one obvious choice, but generally, everyone on the list is the best surgeon in the country. Everyone on the list 'deserves' to be there. And Sonia Sotomayor deserves to be there.

PETA: Turning Over A New Leaf?

PETA as an organization has a repeated and varied history of being sexist, racist, and classist (and oftentimes combining two or more of those), along with being generally unsympathetic to humans in their epic quest to save the animals. They are an example of a "Greater Good" organization, seeming to believe that turning women into sex objects (again and again - and again), dressing up like the Klu Klux Klan, linking murder and cannibalism to slaughterhouses, and equating factory farming with the Holocaust is justifiable in seeking to codify the ethical treatment of animals. A huge problem with this type of campaign is that it equates people who already occupy a lower position in society, people who have historically been considered or compared to animals, people who in many cases still are, with animals - and expects this to be revolutionary and educational.

And yet, there is a recent PETA ad that isn't controversial, that doesn't seem to be sexist, and that is almost... cool. Cloris Leachman is featured in a new PETA ad, clad in a fabulous cabbage dress:

While I don't know that this ad will make anyone suddenly become a vegetarian, I do think it is beautiful, and beautifully done. Leachman looks strong, and powerful. The dress itself looks like a work of art. As an individual ad, I think this is a win. It is a good use of a celebrity; it isn't outwardly sexist, or racist, or classist. It is noncombative, and still visually interesting. It has the added benefit of being reminiscent of Austin Scarlett's Corn Husk dress from the first seaon of Project Runway (only less dried out):

And yet, Ophelia over at Feminocracy wonders whether or not this ad is an example of ageism:

Placing Cloris in a lettuce dress reaffirms the sentiment behind their previous ads–that the female body is meant for consumption, and when that body begins to show age, it must be covered to protect our sensibilities (however, it is worth note that the dress conforms to her figure–so they’ve got to have their sexy factor in there).

In terms of PETA's history, I think the hypothesis is worthy of examination. As much as I love this ad for its individual merits, its place within the pantheon of PETA ads warrants extra attention. After all, PETA has called women 'hags' before, and with every other sexist and racist action, questioning why Cloris Leachman in particular - out of all of the women featured in PETA ads - gets the full body cover is valid. It isn't that I want Cloris Leachman to be objectified or nude in the ad; I suspect Ophelia does not want that either. However, while this may seem to be a way a marginalized body wins out when it comes to objectification, it instead reinforces the idea that after a certain age women become undesirable or asexual. It plays into the way we view how women age; how women become undervalued as their skin wrinkles and their hair grays. Men become 'distinguished' and women become 'old'. It is a familiar trope in everything from business to film; Nicholas Cage can be a viable romantic partner for Jessica Biel, but a friend of mine had a problem with Cher being considered a viable romantic partner for Cage when a mutual friend attempted to show her Moonstruck. The difference between Nicholas Cage and Jessica Biel? 18 years. The difference between Nicholas Cage and Cher? 17 years. This isn't to pick on that friend, because the older man being a logical love interest is fairly common. After all, Sean Connery was a leading man through 1999, when he played opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment; she is 40 years his junior. Meanwhile, women in films become mothers. Sally Field played Tom Hanks' mother in Forest Gump; she is only 10 years his senior.

However, ageism doesn't seem to be the case in this instance with Cloris Leachman. A couple of other ads similar to Leachman's were also made by PETA, one featuring Alyssa Milano:

and Pippa Black:

Both dresses show a bit more skin than Leachman's. They're both more flirtatious (and I kind of covet that pepper necklace Black is wearing), but all of the cabbage dresses are reminiscent of formal wear. 

The problem comes with the promotion featuring Alicia Mayer:

While the others are stylized ads, this one does just seems to be a candid photo much in the vein of PETA's usual publicity protests. The others are of white women. This ad is of a Filipino woman. I don't think we can ignore that aspect of the overt and specific sexualization contained in this image versus the sexy but not exploitive pictures of the other three. This could just be a product of the different environments. But this isn't the only picture treating women of color differently than their white counterparts. The same kind of ad as the Cloris Leachman, Alyssa Milano and Pippa Black ads features the model Kadra:

Her outfit is once again in a different league than the white women who are also focused upon. This demonstrates a similar kind of distinction between the ads Ophelia was concerned with in regard to the Cloris Leachman ad. Different categories of women are being treated differently by PETA. And that difference is incredibly problematic. It is again a reminder of the different ways women are sexualized, and how minority women are oftentimes over sexualized. The ads are a serious issue, no matter how much I like the Leachman, Milano, and Black ads. In the light of other PETA ads, these seem to recognize that their treatment of white women was an issue; but they continue to pull the same old sexist crap in relation to women of color. And it leads to this question: if the way white women are portrayed is changed, why continue framing other women in the previous fashion? Why create a series of ads with different visual stimuli? Why not place all of the women featured in vegetable formal wear, or all of the women in vegetable bathing suits? I doubt PETA could offer a cognizant explanation for the differences.