Thousands of cuts

(possible trigger warning for discussions of forced genital modification and descriptions of people defending it)

Half of my family is Jewish, so one of the things my mother asked me when I revealed my pregnancy was if we were going to plan for a bris in the advent of having a child with a penis. I told her no, despite my desire to raise my child with an awareness of their Jewish heritage, I have no desire to subject them to unnecessary surgery. Its hir body, not mine and I will no more get a child with a penis circumcised than have surgery done to "correct" ambiguous genitalia.

I got into a big argument on New Year's with a bunch of people in my family about this. To be clear, I was asked if we were planning to circumcise (it was not presented as though it was assumed we would) and I just said "no" citing that I believed that the kid's body belongs to hir, especially once zie is no longer dependent on my body for survival so I don't feel I have the right to decide that for hir. This has been my stance on everything from forced sexual assignment surgery as referenced in the above paragraph to ear piercings in infancy. Suddenly I'm being forced to defend my stance on this to a roomful of people, some of whom I don't know very well if at all. (As a note, my mother was supportive of me, though not vehemently, and did apologize for bringing it up in a place where I would have to defend it to almost complete strangers.)

My two favorite arguments? "But, you'll have to teach them how to clean it!" Yes, I'm going to have to teach hir how to wipe hir ass too, provided zie is able to. This is different how? And "Well, I just think that cut penises are more attractive/cleaner-looking" Well, that's a wonderful argument. You think I should remove a part of my child's genitalia because you won't want to look at it if I don't? How about this? Don't like uncut penises? Don't look at my child's penis!

And all of this before anyone even knows if the kid HAS ONE YET. Hell, I don't even know!

And this is just part of it. I did realize that most of what was driving the arguments was that my stance made people feel like I was accusing them of being willing to abuse a child for no reason (to be fair, by virtue of explaining my stance, I was) and a feeling of insecurity in the men that were defending the practice. I actually had to tell one guy, who is the same age as my father and whom I had just met that evening, that he was allowed to feel comfortable about the state of his penis regardless of whether he had a choice in that state, but could he please stop trying to use religious law that I don't believe in to argue for me cutting my child.

What sent me reeling the most about the entire thing was that no one batted an eye at being presented with evidence that cutting off the foreskin is not in any way scientifically beneficial to a person that has no medical complications surrounding said foreskin. I mean, I present people with facts in the face of popular oppressive myths all the time. I have a file cabinet in my brain and a list of authors and research papers in my phone that I use as back-up because I believe/d that when presented with enough evidence of a specific "legitimate" type, people would be forced to listen and at the very least, I could plant a seed in their awareness and show them the direction that seed was growing in.

And with most of those discussions, I'm forced to use evidence that is often waved away as "opinion" because its not quantitative "hard" numbers. People regularly respond to my evidence with "well, I think that..." as though their opinion somehow cancels out decades, if not centuries of evolving scholarship, not to mention the detailed and documented experiences of the people actually living through the conditions being discussed. I was actually surprised how even the quantitative evidence was met with "well, I think that..." when confronting a structure like circumcision (good for you! you have an opinion! that flies in the face of both medical evidence and my child's right to bodily autonomy, but hey! We can pretend that those things are equal if it will get you to shut the fuck up and leave me alone.)

I realize I'm relying on a specific social construction of "logical science" as defined by an oppressive power structure to try and make people see the flaws in said power structure and the ways in which that structure is perpetuated based on "we said so" as opposed to anything that actually fits its own definition of "scientific evidence." Maybe that's why it doesn't work.

Its situations like this that make me wonder if there is any tool that will help people see the contradictions in the world around them that lead them to support oppressive power structures. Is just living in an awareness of those structures and living a life attempting to subvert as many as I can enough? Beyond enough, is it all that I can reasonably expect to do? Because it doesn't feel like enough. And it does feel like if I just stretch a little farther, try a little harder, mix just the right amount of information in just the right way, I'll find the cure. Like its hovering on the edge of my consciousness and I can see it in the corner of my minds eye but it disappears as soon as I turn towards it. Like trying to see yourself in a mirror with your eyes closed.

I'm not dead, I'm enraged

You know what? This “Wikileaks founder arrested for rape” shit has me pissed the fuck off.

Wanna know why?

Because we live in a world where rape is not taken seriously by any justice system in any country I can think of. When the fucking New York Times dismisses suggestions that the aggressive pursuit of these charges against Assange is connected with Wikileaks by saying there is “no public evidence” of this fact, I just want to hand them the long list of cases in just the last two years of famous men being either acquitted of rape charges in which there is more than enough evidence for conviction or not even seeing the inside of a fucking courtroom despite mountains of evidence against them. That’s your fucking public evidence. The simple fact that NO JUSTICE SYSTEM I KNOW OF GIVES TWO SHITS ABOUT PROSECUTING RAPE CASES.

This is not to say that he is innocent or that these accusations are baseless. Frankly, find me one famous man that hasn’t done something that can be classified as some type of sexual assault and I’ll find you a rich white American hetero cis-dude that got where he is through proper use of his bootstraps. Lets just say, we are talking extremely rare cases here, since men in US and other “Western” cultures (indicating them only because they are the cultures I live with and I don’t feel qualified to pass judgment on any others) are taught that their sexuality is supposed to be predatory. I totally believe that he is capable of doing what he is accused of.

HOWEVER. This does not change the fact that the only reason I can see any court in the US or in Europe going after him is because they can’t shut him up any other way. They aren’t aggressively going after him because they care about rape victims and survivors. They are going after him because they have no other legal means of shutting him up. Its a fucking insult to every single rape survivor that has been told by police that they are a liar, or was forced to recant when their rapist was a person of some social import, or was facing being questioned in court on the witness stand by their fucking rapist, or committed suicide because of the way their peers treated them for reporting their rapes.

This is a fucking insult to every rape survivor out there that knows, deep in hir gut, that zie can never expect justice. Because no one cares about what happened to hir until it is politically expedient to care.

This is a fucking insult because instead of being valued as human beings, survivors are just used again by the state to help cover their own asses.

GOD I fucking hate the world right now.

ETA: If you are here to argue with me about rape statistics and claim that women "constantly" lie about rape, either back it up or get deleted. No, citing the Duke rape case doesn't count. If I can disprove your comment with a cursory glance at actual crime stats, from an actual law enforcement group, then expect your comment to go bye-bye. Because I do have a life that doesn't include catering to your ignorant bullshit.

Why not?

(Image descrpition: A baby primate of the gold/orange and very furry variety [anyone that knows the exact name feel free to let me know!] clinging to an adult. Looks like the Firey's in The Labyrinth, hence the caption reads "Shake Mah pritty lil head, Tap mah pritty lil feet")

As inspired by Ouyang Dan, I present my first Monday Random Ten.


Who knows? maybe it will get me posting regularly again. :D
This list might end up being a bit Ani heavy, as I am a squealing fangirl. I'm not the biggest fan of how she tends to go all gender essentialist regarding her definition of women as "menstruating and fertile" but that being said, anyone who can write a song using the word "patriarchy" gets a good mark from me. Kind of like how I admire Type-O Negative ::sniff:: for being able to work the word "Nosferatu" into a song without being utterly ridiculous

1-Little Plastic Castle~Ani Difranco
2-L'Innocent~"Kooza" from Cirque du Soleil
3-Simple and Clean(techno remix)~theme from Kingdom Hearts
4-Touched~Vast
5-Captain Ward~Tempest
6-20th Century Boy~Placebo (covering T.Rex)
7-Walk on the Moon~Great Big Sea
8-Its Oh So Quiet~Bjork
9-Before I'm Dead~Kidney Thieves
10-Stars and Stripes~K.M.F.D.M

I wanted to find video of Tempest performing "Captain Ward" but all I could find was a recording with a picture of the album cover:



Lyrics: (Note- this song is based on a Scottish folk song. The lyrics as recorded for the original are not the lryics used in this version, but I can't find an exact transcript and I can't hear the words well enough to produce one that isn't line after line of "indecipherable." So, my apologies for a lack of accurate lyrics on this.

Come all ye jolly mariners

That love to tak' a dram

Which go an' seek for Captain Ward

That o'er the seas did come.


He wrote a letter to his king

On the eleventh o' July,

To see if he wad accept o' him

For his jovial company.


"Oh na, oh na," says the king,

"Such things they canna be,

They tell me ye are a robber,

A robber on the sea."


He has built a bonnie ship,

An' sent her to the sea,

Wi' fower an' twenty mariners

To guard his bonnie ship wi'.


They sailed up an' they sailed doon,

Sae stately, blythe, an' free,

Till they spied the king's high Reindeer

Like a leviathan on the sea.


"Why lie ye here, ye tinker,

Ye silly coordly thief?

Why lie ye here, ye tinker,

An' hold oor king in grief?"


They fought from one in the morning

Till it was six at night,

Until the king's high Reindeer

Was forced to tak' her flight.


"Gang hame, gang hame, ye tinkers.

Tell ye your king fae me

Though he reign king upon good dry land,

I will reign king upon the sea."

I stink. Fucking get over it.

(Note: If you arrived here from Spearhead, welcome. Please be polite to others, and if all you get out of my story here and the stories of physical assault in the comment thread is "heh heh heh stupid feminazis," then I encourage you to check your moral compass and try to find something resembling empathy. If you can't or won't treat others humanely, then I encourage you, kindly, to shove off back to whatever rock you crawled out from under because you sure as shit are not welcome here. -The Management)

I have a HUGE chip on my shoulder about societal expectations for body odor.

I don’t wear antiperspirant or most artificial perfumed deodorants. I stopped wearing them five years ago when I stopped shaving my pits. Originally, my decision came from the recent loss of a dear family member who had died from her second round with breast cancer at the age of 32. She was 27 when she received her initial diagnosis. By the time she died, her doctors had performed two mastectomies and removed the lymph nodes from her left arm. I decided that I was reducing as many of my risks for cancer as I had control over considering the world we live in, including no longer purposely shoving chemicals into my lymph nodes to stop them from doing what they are designed to do.

When I made that decision, I lost a few friends because they found my choice “judgmental” of them, and I lost a lover of two years because he found my scent “disgusting.” A year, two years before this, those losses would have devastated me. But that year, my cousin being gone gave me a clarity that until then, I had not known was possible. In my clarity, I had one, exceedingly calm reaction.

Fuck them. If this is a deal breaker, consider the deal fucking smashed to itty bitty fucking pieces.

It was then that I began to truly see how USians and others to whom we have exported the damaging parts of our culture are expected to remove ourselves so completely from the basic biological processes of the human body. Especially if its a process that is highly gendered, like how we freak the fuck out over menstrual blood, or how men smelling like sweat is mostly okay, but MAUDE FUCKING FORBID that a woman smell like anything other than “Orchid Pussy Breeze,” or how “real” men are hairy and “real” women are bald from the eyebrows down (but they have to be that way BY “CHOICE” and conscious action, cause if they have a medical condition that causes them to lose their hair, well, thats just icky.) The processes exist for a reason, they have a purpose in the grand scheme of species function. But we are expected to do everything we can to escape those processes in very specific ways. We are expected to smell like chemicals instead of like our own bodies. We are expected to silence those cues from our bodies because they are coded as “offensive” to others even when we don’t find them offensive at all.

Lip service is given to the idea that we can “opt out” of these things, but the prevailing message when we do so is that we are lazy, unhygienic (this one really gets me. I’m unhygienic for not stripping all the fucking hair from my genitalia except what is the purpose of that hair? TO KEEP FUCKING DIRT OUT OF MY GODDAMN MUCOUS MEMBRANES! SO WHICH IS MORE HYGIENIC FUCKERS!?), dirty, and don’t deserve to be treated like people. I, and others that I know, have actually experienced direct action from employers because we refused to wear deodorant or shave either legs or armpits. I have been told “thats just how the world works” (which is a phrase that I loathe with every fiber of my being) with zero ZERO ZERO acknowledgment or awareness that this is just one fucked up corner of the world and that this shit doesn’t occur in a vacuum.

And how does this mindset translate into even worse judgments on those people who are left to the fringes or completely outside this concept of “humanity” due to not having time or access to luxuries like clean running water for drinking and bathing, or deodorants, or razors? People who have to focus on basic fucking survival, which shaving and perfuming are not? What about people who are fucking allergic to perfumes and artificial scents? Are they supposed to just grin and bear it because the idea that humans are just another animal offends your delicate fucking sensibilities?

I may “stink,” but at least I smell like myself, and not some mega corporation’s marketing team’s idea of what I should smell like.

(cross posted to my tumblr and a few other places, so if you see this twice, I apologize in advance.)

Where I Stand

I am an American Jew. Part of why I ignored that part of me for a very long time is because I hated the occupation of Palestine and I didn’t want to be associated with it at all.

It took me years to realize that running from it was not possible and that I had a responsibility to stand up and say “you don’t do this for me.”

I cannot remember a single military action taken by the Israeli government during my lifetime that i agreed with. All the ones I can remember just make me angry and sick, because the widespread disrespect of basic human rights is something that I cannot reconcile within myself and when there is a claim that it was done to protect me, well…thats even worse.

I understand the passion that so many Jews have for having a “place for us.” I understand the feeling of being attacked and outnumbered. I do. I am only here because my great grandmother saw the writing on the wall and worked her ass off to get as many of her family members out of Poland as she could before getting out became no longer possible. Without her tenacity, I would not exist. When people talk about the Holocaust, show pictures, records…the weight of “I came that close to never happening” is tremendous. I look at pictures on records written in German of people that look just like me and my sisters who were killed before they even hit their 20’s. I still deal with ignorant shit from privileged assholes who think that the word “kike” can be used in my presence without repercussions simply because I am not religious.

That grandmother was also the one who taught her children that no one should suffer as her family that did not escape suffered. She did what she could to reign in and focus the anger of her children at how they were treated by Christians in the US, and what they saw happen to their people in Europe. She taught them (and they taught us) that we have a responsibility, in the name of the dead, to demand justice for all people.

Attacking supply ships is not justice. Creating permanent refugee camps is not justice. Choking off basic supplies necessary for survival is not justice. Taking someone’s home is not justice. Advocating genocide is not justice. Any system of ethics that finds a way to justify these actions and consider them righteous is sick and needs healing or amputation. I cannot support those actions or any government that partakes of them, especially not with the spirit of my grandmother behind me and the knowledge of the debt that I gladly owe her.

I don't hate Israel, and I don't hate my own Jewish identity. I also don't think that "shoot first and ask questions later" is viable public or foreign policy, and I do not appreciate it being done in my name or the name of my family.

If we are God’s chosen people…maybe its time Zie chose someone else.

Cirilia Baltazar Cruz reunited with her child!

Back in July of 2009


The original report from Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance:

Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English, as her native language is Chatino, an Indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico that is spoken by some 50,000 people.

The hospital provided her with an “interpreter” who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital’s interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.

The hospital’s social worker reported “evidence” of abuse and neglect based on the following:

* The “baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;”
* The “mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula.” (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
* “She does not speak English which puts baby in danger.”

Ms. Baltazar Cruz’s baby was snatched from her after birth at the hospital and given to an affluent attorney couple from the posh Ocean Springs who cannot have children.

The authorities made no effort to locate an interpreter in her native tongue. MIRA located an interpreter who is fluent in Chatino in Los Angeles CA and has interviewed the mother extensively with the interpreters help. The mother has been accused of being poor and not being able to provide for this child. No one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

I reprinted a piece by Zuky at the time as well.

Well, on February 22, 2010, the Native American Times reported:

A Mexican immigrant walked out of the Gartin Justice Building on Friday holding the daughter who had been taken from her by state officials in 2008, when advocates say she was accused of being an unfit mother because she doesn’t speak English.

Cirila Balthazar Cruz and her 1-year-old child, Ruby, were surrounded by Southern Poverty Law Center officials as they left. None of them would discuss details of the case, citing the confidentiality of Youth Court proceedings.

Because the records in the case are sealed, it is unclear what reason the state used to take custody of the child. However, immigrant advocates have said the child was taken because Cruz was an illegal immigrant and did not speak English.

“This is a very happy day for us,” SPLC legal director Mary Bauer told The Associated Press. “That is her baby.”

Friday’s proceeding before Special Judge Billy Bridges may not be the end of the case, which has led to a memorandum of understanding between Mississippi and the Mexican government and drawn the attention of immigration advocates nationwide.

Important Lesson, you assholes

Welcome to class! Sit down, shut up and listen.

Today's lesson, what the right to free speech in the US means and what it does not.

Some of what it means:

It is what prevents the US Government restricting speech that critisizes it. It also prevents the state from dictating that only specific points of view be presented publicly.

What it definitely does not mean:

That you have the right to say whatever you want with ZERO social consequences or critisism.

If your first reaction to "what you said was offensive, hurt me and/or replicates and supports systems of oppression that negatively impacts my existence" is "...but what about ME!? And my right to FREE SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!?" then I will likely be exercising my right to free speech to make sure that you know what a douche bucket you are.

Cause you are right. It is a free country. You are as free to be an asshole as I am to point out your assholery to both you and anyone else who cares to listen.

Dream a Little Dream For Me

I love my family (though it is a complicated love.)

Some of them are a little...I'm not sure I have a good word for it.

They have this dianetics-esque concept of positive thinking as a spiritual/physical and mental health practice, which on the surface I have no real problem with. When it comes to faith, spirituality, religion, what-have-you, I have one simple rule: If it doesn't oppress anyone, and you don't push me (or anyone preferably) to convert, then its cool.

On first blush, this positive energy, rebirther thing has a lot going for it: it it means being conscious of your breathing, of your feelings, of your actions, your reactions and their source. Most people involved in this are all about taking personal responsibility for the things that happen to you and your reactions to it. It can be a great motivator for changing your own life. The snag comes in when the benefits of this perspective are discussed. Apparently, good health is all about having the right attitude and that any other factor is irrelevant. If you can "positive attitude" your way into good health, then any health problems you have are because you chose them.

For the sake of clarity, this concept is not usually stated so harshly, or so clearly. The basic idea is that our thoughts create our reality, right? So if we accept as inevitable a family history of heart disease, then we create the possibility of it existing for us. Conversely, if we were to not accept it, then it won't happen to us. Everything exists because we manifest it.

I'm sure the issue with this is obvious to a good many people who may be reading this, but just in case it isn't...

I'll start with the softer issues present here.

First, I want to be absolutely clear: I agree that if we assume that something is going to go wrong, then that will cloud our perception of events and the going wrong will be all that we notice, no matter what else is happening. I agree that perception, in one sense, creates reality insomuch as it dictates what we see in our reality. Two people watching a sunrise on a beach will, given exactly the same materials, will paint two completely different pictures of that sunrise. This does not change the sunrise itself.

I do not agree that we create reality out of whole cloth merely by imagining it or allowing the possibility to enter our minds. There is an egotistical hubris to the idea that I find distasteful and incongruous with the image of "one-ness" that the people espousing it would like to present.

The big problem, though, the huge mother-whammy of a problem with this idea is the implication that if you have problems, any problems in any form, its because you didn't think positively enough or because you allowed it to become real. The denial of the fact that sometimes shit just happens and the insistence on there being a "why." And of course the assumptive standard of "good" v "bad" in this framework posits ideas of health that are formulated by a larger oppressive culture that excludes certain types of bodies as not good enough, or real enough.

Besides watching my uncle ignore his health because breathing will make heart problems that run in the family just go away, I find the implied blame for "poor" health to be ablist and privileged in the extreme, and like a great deal of privileged crap, it comes with the best intentions.

What I don't understand about this is the incessant desire to ignore the oppressive structures of society and instead turn everything into a personal choice. Who would choose oppression? Why on the world would someone decide to be oppressed? If ending these things were as simple as making an active choice, then why hasn't the entire kyriarchy come apart at the seams? I mean, there are tons of people who would do anything to not have to wake up and keep struggling to survive and be counted. Why is your positive thinking enough to save you, and theirs isn't? Oh yeah, sunrises.

Your privileged ability to ignore oppression doesn't make it cease to exist, just like not painting the sunrise won't stop it from happening. Its just one more way to pretend like you created everything you have instead of benefiting from someone else's oppression. One more way to absolve yourself of responsibility for participating in an unjust system.

I love the smell of privilege in the morning

In a work discussion about shaking hands with customers, a co-worker of mine (lets call him "Duke") complained about respecting cultures that frown on touching. There was also a bit of flailing about "sue-happy" people and "OMG, I might get accused of sexual harassment and that would be the worstest-worst thing that could ever happen to meeeeeee! Whatever would I doooooooooo!" "Why don't they respect MY culture!" blah blah blah...oppressions of white cis US males...blah blah blah..."oversensitive women"...blah blah.."respect mah authoritah"...blah..."and by authoritah I mean my white cis penis." blah.

My favorite definition of "oppression" is the one that ACTUALLY means "I'm not the center of the universe?! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NO FAIR!

Your culture is DOM-I-NANT, asshole. And that is a global dominance, for the record. Thanks to advertising, globalization, colonialism and imperialism, the entire world is aware of your culture. It is so pervasive that you don't even have to be aware that you have one in the first place. You can blithely assume that your culture is globally understood as "just how it is." You can even ignore the the ways in which your concept of "American" culture excludes anyone in America who isn't EXACTLY LIKE YOU, and it would be no skin of your nose.

Also, beyond cultural differences, some people just don't like being touched. In my experience, they are people who tend to have bodies that are constructed in your precious white, het, cis male-dominated culture as public property by virtue of not being white, and/or het and/or cis and/or male. Ever been groped in public, Duke? Ever had unwanted touching of your genitals? Ever been threatened with physical violence for resisting? Ever been attacked violently for not meeting expected standards of what your body "should" be? Ever been told that violations of your body, be they groping, rape, assault and/or attempted/completed murder were justified because of your precious...fucking...culture?

...
...
...

Yeah, didn't think so.

You know what is also no skin off your nose? Not being an asshole. Its amazing how much time you'll save! You could take a poetry class!
Or you could use that time to put yourself in the shoes of someone else and try to gain a little bit of awareness of how those of us not like you experience your culture.

Now Duke (and anyone like you who might read this,) you may be at this point, "Its just a handshake! Jeez! Its a sign of respect, and its not like I force it on anyone!" While it is likely true that you actually believe this, your argument that respecting someone else's boundaries is oppressive to you necessitates you forcing it on someone. Yes, it is just a handshake to you.

It isn't the handshake that is the problem.

Its your attitude, your entitlement and your arrogant blindness.

That is the point, and the problem.

Note

There is no such thing as an objective fairness in this universe. I am not required to adhere to your idea of fairness, especially when your idea of fairness does not include the perspectives of the more marginalized in our society.

You don't find me fair?

Tough.

Just cause you don't notice doesn't mean its not there

I don't have high expectations for the internet. I really don't. So don't think that I am demanding anything from Cracked.com beside making me giggle. I'm not. I'm merely pointing out the ubiquity of this type of thing.

What type of thing, you ask?

The "Everyone can relate to masculine characters, therefore no one else is necessary" type of thing.

At this point, I'm used to the occasional misogyny, the homophobia, transphobia and US centrism of this website, but this got under my skin. For those who can't or won't follow the link, its a list of the "Top 10 Most Disastrous Saturday Morning Cartoon Adaptations." Most of them, I agree, are fairly crappy cartoons in general, and are even worse adaptations. However, was including She-Ra as an adaptation of He-Man and calling it atrocious because girls (trans and cis) can relate perfectly well to the hyper-masculine, Freudian-emasculation-fear-driven He-Man and besides, Bo is clearly gay, truly necessary?

Fucking hell. How much of a clearer picture of "cis-man/hyper-masculinity as default" do you need?

Know Your Context Before You Assume You are Helping

I debated posting pictures of Haiti post-quake here, but I decided that it was too easy for something like that to verge into pain porn, and I'm uncomfortable with the context of something like that. All too often, disasters in places like Haiti are given an uneven treatment that buys into a "3rd world tragedy" narrative that I do not wish to participate in. It is too important that we acknowledge not just this event and the effect it has had, but how it was able to happen in the first place.

With everything circling regarding Haiti and the earthquake plus drawn out aftershocks that have further hamstrung an already impoverished nation, several things must be kept in mind.

The first is that severe poverty creates exponential vulnerability to natural disasters like this. From Meloukhia:

So, we had an earthquake here on Sunday, a 6.5. It was a little bigger than the little quakes we get now and then, so it attracted some attention. Notably, no lives were lost, and the most serious injury was a broken hip.

And then, yesterday, a 7.0 in Haiti.

And, already, the headlines, all along the lines of “what happened in Haiti could happen here!”

And, here’s the thing.

No. It can’t...

...Yes, a 7.0 earthquake here would cause damage. But nothing on the level of what happened in Haiti. Nothing. And, you know, I think that’s something we should be thinking about; what happened in Haiti didn’t happen because there was an earthquake. It happened because Haiti’s infrastructure is shot.

The second thing that we must remember is that Haiti is not poor by chance, accident, "act of God" (and for the record, the only reason why I wish there was a God is so that assholes like Pat Robertson got a chance to actually meet him and get a holy fucking smack-down. If the context seems to be missing, just Google. I am not bringing poison like that into this space), or by the actions of Haitian people. They are intentionally kept poor as a punishment for being the first successful black rebellion against colonial European powers. France made them pay reparations for property lost dues to the slaves saying "Fuck this, and fuck you!" They have been hit by a debt that that is designed to keep them in perpetual servitude to more powerful countries, and the US specifically has stepped in a fucked with their politics on more than one occasion. This is not difficult information to find, but you can start here and here.

Third, because of this information, be careful how you help to make sure that you are ACTUALLY helping. Pick your charities and what you ask for carefully, considering many out there don't have good histories regarding impoverished people of color, many out there will use this tragedy as a perfect opportunity for obnoxious moralizing, or are just straight up frauds. There is also guaranteed to be a great deal of "shopping cart" activism (ex: Livestrong braclets, "Save the Ta Tas" t-shirts, etc.) I recommend Doctors Without Borders and Yele. (Thanks to meloukhia, kai_zuky and others for the links via Twitter.)

Its part of being a grownup I guess

I lost a dear friend on Friday. He had Adult Onset Still's Disease which is a form of arthritis with autoimmune complications. He had been getting extreme treatments recently to try and keep his body from killing itself. He was 23.

I met him when I was 17 and he took to my group of geeky friends like he was born to it. He was smart, and an artist. His musical talent ranged across the board, and if you follow the link above, people are posting pictures and videos all over his Facebook wall of him doing what he does best. He offered to teach me how to knit, and I never took him up on it.

He brought DJ equipment to the reunion of our group (we called ourselves the Spiders From Mars) and rick-rolled all of us when playing Nirvana. He was sweet and loving, and has left many people behind who miss him terribly.

No commentary here, just my way of telling my friend that I miss him, and shouting out his memory into the void.

This isn't the first time I've lost a friend,a dn it won't be the last, but it doesn't hurt less.

I love you Moses.

Not Forgotten.

Its been a year, and we have come to it again.
Another year, and another list of people who but for the intolerance around us every day, would still be here, still be alive, still have a future.

This year, we remember: Yasmin and Noelia of Honduras, Taysia Elzy and Michael Hunt of Indianapolis, Kátia Otacílio Vilela and Marcela Cairo Souza of Jataí, Brazil, Alexa Rojas Castro of Monterrey, Mexico, Cynthia Nicole of Comayaguela, Honduras, Aline Da Silva Ribeira of Castelfranco Veneto, Italy, Caprice Curry of San Francisco, Rovilson Teixeira of Londrina, Brazil, Minja Kochis of Belgrade, Serbia, "Víctor Manuel" Albor Camacho and "Juan Carlos" Guillén Bautista of Acámbaro, Mexico, Nicole Castillo García of Tarapoto, Perú, Cita Solorzano of Asunción Ixtaltepec, Mexico, Camila Hernández Nieto of Sincelejo, Colombia, Noor Azlan Khamis of Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia, Will Teixeira da Silva of Recife, Brazil, "Ailton" Correa Maia, Juliana Martins, Fernanda Botelho, Jenifer, Dara, and Rafaele of Curitiba, Brazil, Cristy of Guatemala-City, Guatemala, Puttalakshmi of Bangalore, India, Camila Pereira of Uberlândia, Brazil, Cris Francisco das Neves of Cabo de Santo Agostinho, Brazil, Vicky Londoño Chavarría of Ibagué, Columbia, Pequeña P of Gualeguaychú, Argentina, Miriam Nunes Lucas of Ribeirão das Neves, Brazil, Guimarães de Lima and "Wanderson Wanderley" Teixeira da Rocha of João Pessoa, Brazil, Kirsi Ubrí, Jeva Padilla, and Ramon Martinez of Santiago, Dominican Republic, "Julio" Avila Albarracín of Mar del Plata, Argentina, Ebru Soykan (aka Dilan Pirinc) and Hadise of Istanbul, Turkey, Adriana Sánchez López of Juchitan, Mexico, Eda Yildirm of Bursa, Turkey, Sasha Estefania of Caracas, Venezuela, Smail L. of Valencia, Spain, Gisela "Roni" Galante of Gualeguaychú, Argentina, Melek K and Cagla of Ankara, Turkey, Jimmy McCollough (aka Image Devereux) of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Carneiro de Sousa of Fortaleza, Brazil, dos Santos of Varzea Grande, Brazil, Diksy Jones of Wellington, New Zealand, Tigresa de Souza Reis of Feira de Santana, Brazil, Xiomaran Duras of Caracas, Venezuela, Foxy Ivy of Detroit, Papucha of La Victoria, Peru, Kelly (Frederick) Watson and Terri Benally of Albuquerque, Tanya Ardón and Catherine of San Salvador, El Salvador, Carla Regina Bento of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Anita Fajardo Ríos of El Carmen, Mexico, Luana of Maceió, Brazil, Kamilla of Volgograd, Russia, Christopher Jermaine Scott of Philadelphia, Cesar Torres of El Paso, Beyonce (Eric) Lee of New Orleans, Kanan of Setapak, Malaysia, Tyli'a Mack (aka NaNa Boo) of Washington DC, Paulina Ibarra of East Hollywood, Kristina Muça of Tirana, Albania, Andrea Waddell of Brighton, UK, Destiny Lauren of London, UK, Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado of Cayey, Puerto Rico, an unidentified victim in Gebze, Turkey, an unidentified victim in Milan, Italty, an unidentified victim in Guayaquil, Ecuador, an unidentified victim in Baltimore, an unidentified victim in Penang, Malaysia, an unidentified victim in Algeria, an unidentified victim in Honduras, nine unidentified victims in Guatemala, fourteen unidentified victims in Brazil, and eighteen unidentified victims in Venezuela, and all the other trans women and men around the world who lost their lives to transphobia this year, whose faces we never saw and names we never heard, because they were living on the margins of societies who did not respect nor want them.

And Melissa at Shakesville makes the excellent point that today we should remember all of the trans people who died not just because of violence, but because of apathetic inaction and active discrimination.

I remember all of you today, and keep your memories close to my heart. No one deserves to be forgotten.

I distinctly remember explaining this before.

Maybe I will get less shit from people if I throw this at them.

Lack of exercise not to blame for teen obesity?
Study: Physical activity levels unchanged in 20 years while kids got heavier
Most American teenagers are not as active as they should be but a lack of exercise does not seem to be to blame for the rising rates of teen obesity, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers, using government survey data from 1991 and 2007, found the amount of physical activity among U.S. teens has not in fact changed significantly over the past two decades while the population, including children, has got heavier.

Maybe the next time I have a doctor tell me that I'm lying about my exercise rate because I'm still fat, I can point this out to them.

A girl can dream, right?

This is hardly a surprise

As the title here suggests, I am not in the least bit surprised that the Republican National Committee's health insurance plan covers abortions. I am not surprised for two reasons.

Number 1, most US insurance plans cover abortions because it is part of providing comprehensive health care to cis-women. It is a needed procedure, not to mention a legal one that is part of having a right to control ones own body, which applies to so much more than just abortion.

Number 2, because throughout my time of being aware of the heated anger over debating abortion, I have noticed that a good deal of those who opposed women having the right to choose suddenly support it when it is their daughter, or themselves that need the procedure. And its because underneath all of that moralizing, it comes down to thinking that some women don't deserve to have a choice. It isn't about "teh poor widdle baybeeez" cause if it was, these same fucknecks would support social programs that allow women who couldn't afford an abortion, or who swallowed their morality hook but don't have the resources to raise a child to be able to do so. (And before anyone starts whinging about "welfare queens," try being on welfare. It enables you to eat, and if you are lucky it helps you pay for a place to live. "Welfare queens" are a racist, Regan-era myth.)


Since this story broke, the RNC has stated that they are re-assessing their current insurance plan. I find it slightly ironic that if their little Stupak bomb does what they want and kills health care reform, they are going to be limited to about 15% of the insurance companies out there who actively do not cover abortions. Because even with all of the asshole things that insurance companies do, they still recognize that abortion is an important part of cis-women's health care. When there are insurance companies with a better handle on reality than you, well, I don't need to point out what that says about you.

It still doesn't make this expectation on the "liberal"/"progressive" side that cis-women will take yet another one for the team here any better, but it does make me chuckle evilly. Because I'm a bitch like that.

I hate that I'm associated with you.

So here I was on Tumblr, minding my own business, looking at crochet posts when I came across this little jem:

Palestinian women crochet kippot for Israeli Jews

Reuters has uncovered the fact, well-known in Israel, that many kippot (skullcaps) worn by religious Israelis are crocheted by Palestinian women.

Now, this surprises me in the way of not at all, despite the fact that I was not aware of it previously. How else is a group with no option of an open economy supposed to make money but by servicing those who keep their economy limited. At this point in the article, I'm just sorta waiting to see where it is going, since the opening is fairly inconspicuous.

Almost every house in the village of 3,000 west of Ramallah makes the little caps. It's a social event as well as a helpful cash-earner. Women bring their wool and needles to each other's home to crochet and chat.

"We make qors (the Arab name for kippah translates as 'disc') while having a gossip," said Umm Ali. "We meet each other and we make money at the same time," added the mother of three, whose husband is unemployed...

So here, I start getting a little leery. "Helpful-cash earner" sounds a bit cheerful considering the alternatives. I'm not sure if its the passive language that brings to mind discussions of women's activities from a Jane Austen novel, or the slightly patronizing "what fascinating things these quaint people do!" tone that bothers me more.

Six Palestinian skullcap dealers distribute the wool, needles and the models to women in this village and 10 neighbouring villages.

The finished articles are collected each week and shipped to Israeli retailers. The skullcaps are also exported to the United States.

The women of Deir Abu Meshal, known for its traditional dress embroidery, say that to them it's merely a business.

They say they have no qualms about furnishing skullcaps for the people of the occupying power or the Jewish settler, who may be living on Palestinian land.

They say the work is convenient: they don't have to travel.

"Without this knitting business, people here would be very poor," said Nema Khamis, 50, who passed on her skills to her five daughters and daughter-in-law.

Okay, still not doing too badly. We have the admission that conditions are hard enough that without this work these women and their families would be much worse off. There still is a great deal of context that is being glossed over, but it is a short article, so to one degree we can forgive that.

Then this:

A great example of economic cooperation which benefits all sides. Most impressive: these women claim to make five kippot a day, each. Now that is speed. The only kippot I've ever made, as a teenager, took me months. It's a wonder they have any time to bring up children.....

So much here...so little patience...or bile with which to puke. "Economic cooperation"? "Benefits all sides"!? Lets get one thing straight, just because it doesn't actively make a bad situation worse, this DOES NOT make it a benefit, okay? And "cooperation" would imply that these women get something beyond bare necessities from the work they do. And what the fuck is up with this "these women claim" shit? They have been doing this out of necessity for decades. Get that? DECADES. This is in no way equivalent to your little "crafty phase" at fifteen! It took you months because you had the privilege of not having to learn how to work for a living until you were almost an adult! When these women were fifteen they had already been learning how to do this for, most likely, at least five years. I would also shitcan that condescending "its a wonder they have time to raise children" crap. You gotta feed them if there is ever a hope of raising them.

I hate this. I hate this entitled attitude that thinks itself so worldy and I hate hearing it come from people who think they understand suffering because they participate in a seder every year, or their Grandmother remembers the Holocaust. Here's a tip, your Grandmother or Great Grandmother who remembers the Holocaust? They understand. You never will, and vicarious experiences do not mean that you have any concept of what it is like to live in perpetual imposed poverty.

At best, this author is simply woefully ignorant of the reality of what poverty in a place like the West Bank means. At worst she is dealing backhanded jabs at people who are fucking being EXPLOITED. And I used that word deliberately. When your choices are "do this or watch your family starve" then you don't have much of a choice. Its exploiting their poverty, and exploiting their position after being the ones who helped create it and maintain it.

Like a breath of fresh air

I cried. I did. I have gotten so used to hearing bullshit after bullshit after bullshit about this, and hearing someone call this bullshit out for what it is just hit me right in my heart.
Rep. Alan Grayson calling out both Democrats and Republicans on the health care debate(Transcript below the video):

"Madame Speaker, I have words for Democrats and Republicans tonight."

"Let's start with the Democrats"

"We as a party have spent the last six months, the greatest minds in our party, dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote on health care reform. I want to remind us all that Olympia Snowe was not elected President last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America's population."

"What America wants is health care reform. America doesn't care if it gets 51 votes in the Senate or 60 votes in the Senate or 83 votes in the Senate, in fact America doesn't even care about that, it doesn't care about that at all. What America cares about is this; there are over 1 million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bills. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are 44,780 Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care, that's 122 every day. America sure cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition, even if you have health insurance, it's not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don't need any. America cares about that a lot. But America does not care about procedures, processes, personalities, America doesn't care about that at all."

"So we have to remember that as Democrats, we have to remember that what's at stake here is life and death, enormous amounts of money, and people are counting upon us to move ahead. America understands what's good for America. America cares about health care, America cares about jobs, America cares about education, about energy independence, America does not care about processes politicians or personalities or anything like that."

"And I have a few words for my Republican friends tonight as well. I guess I do have some Republican friends."

"Let me say this; last week I held up this report here and I pointed out that in America there are 44,789 Americans that die every year according to this Harvard report published in this peer reviewed journal because they have no health insurance. That's an extra 44,789 Americans who die who's lives could be saved, and their response was to ask me for an apology."

"To ask me for an apology?"

"That's right. To ask ME for an apology!"

"Well, I'm telling you this; I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize for a simple reason; America doesn't care about your feelings. I violated no rules by pulling this report to America's attention, I think a lot of people didn't know about it beforehand. But America DOES care about health care in America."

"And if you're against it, then get out of the way. Just get out of the way. You can lead, you can follow or you can get out of the way. And I'm telling you now to get out of the way."
"American understands that there is one party in this country that is favor of health care reform and one party that is against it, and they know why."

"They understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation"

"They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry."

"In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon."

"But that's not what America wants, America wants solutions to it's problems and that begins with health care, and that's what I'm speaking for tonight."

"I yield back the balance of my time"

Important Thinky Thoughts

So, I have hit a bit of a wall. I have begun narrowing down my group of activists and perspectives that fit what I agree with. This has left me with a group of people who I respect and who have perspectives that I value. There is a recurring theme within this group. They are largely trans women, women of color, people with disabilities and various combinations of each.

One thing that is very common is a rejection of feminism, not for the same reasons that many antifeminists do either. This rejection comes from the fact that feminists have and continue to engage in oppressive behaviors towards these groups and ignore the intersections which affect these people the most. And when called on it, a great deal of feminists will get pissed at the person telling them "hey, you are standing on my neck!" instead of examining their praxis, or their groups ideas to see if they are truly exclusionary. Then the whole thing turns into accusations of personal attacks and nothing ever gets DONE.

I think the problem is in labeling ourselves as feminists. We end up making it a part of our identity instead of a tool to help us achieve our aims. I don't know about you, but my aim is to end oppression, and I focus on oppression based on gender. Hence why I use feminism as my major tool. That is the only way that an anti-oppression ideology can work, in my view. It must be a tool.

There is a danger in making an identity out of an ideology. It leads to fighting about identities instead of discussing actions. It prevents us from being able to critically examine our theories and praxis and revise them when necessary. It renders our ideology and our actions insufficient, impotent and infertile because we end up missing the needs of those who truly need to be helped.

I'm considering eventually dropping the identification of feminist and instead becoming someone who uses feminism as a tool. I'm not sure I want a word for that...

Fuck Godwin's, I'm Pissed

Just a note to the entire fucking world.

Lets talk about appropriation. Specifically the appropriation of suffering. More specifically the appropriation of specific events that don't affect you personally as a code word for some other considerably lesser things that has upset you.

A good example you be comparing anything that isn't rape to rape. Example: "The IRS really raped me this year." Paying your taxes=/=not rape.

The example that I would like to specifically address though, is comparing anything to Nazis, Hitler or the Holocaust that has no direct ties to any of these things. Someone saying something that you don't like or disagree with IS IN NO FUCKING WAY LIKE NAZI GERMANY. Using this a silencing tactic against those you have societal power over, that is an asshole thing to do.

How dare you take this incredible tragedy that my family and other have experienced and use it against oppressed people, or anyone for that matter, as a silencing weapon. Do you have any idea what it is like to live with the knowledge that you could not ever have existed simply because of who you are? I don't think you do. Until the day that you look at a picture of someone who looks almost exactly like you or your sibling, or your parent, and you look at the little piece of paper telling you which camp they were sent to and when they died and what number was tattooed on their fucking arm, you don't fucking know. Until you feel the weight of "that could have been me," then you don't fucking know. Until you realize that you live in a world that for the most part considers people who would rather see you dead than share oxygen with you and these same people are considered the "reasonable" side, YOU WILL NEVER FUCKING KNOW. Until you have to adjust to living your life each day knowing that this could be your last day because your very existence threatens someones fragile ego, and a jury of THEIR peers think that protection of that ego makes murdering you a reasonable reaction, YOU WILL NEVER FUCKING KNOW.

Comparing an anything to that event that is not also genocide and/or the systematic destruction of several groups of people, many of whom are still facing oppression world-wide and making this comparison as a person of privilege makes you some of the scummiest scum that ever did scum. It trivializes the suffering of millions of people for the sake of your pwecious fucking ego. And just know that this gender-queer, Jewish dyke does not approve and will verbally force you to eat your pwecious ego. Without sauce.

Caroline Ann? This is for you and your fake-ass "apology"