A special shout-out goes to my galpals who kidnapped me this weekend. I got to spend two glorious days without dudes around. It was wonderful.
I also didn't get shit done this weekend, besides hanging out with my friends.
Doesn't it say something sad about our culture when we have to deliberately sequester ourselves, as in not answering our telephones and generally hiding from public view, in order to be in a space that's free from male-centric bullshit? Arrgh.
Anyways, this is just a quick update and a note on why I didn't put anything new up over the weekend. I have to go to work now. :-(
4.30.2006
4.27.2006
Special Olympics
Today I got to work at a little past 8AM, got on a van full of my pals, and went to the area's Special Olympics. I didn't get off work until 10:30 this evening and I'm beat, 'cause I don't sleep much anyways and I didn't last night as usual.
But it was a really fun day. I was a "coach", and everyone at the place where I work came back with medals.
It would have been more fun, had they used their rain date. The folks didn't get to do the parade, which for them is usually the highlight of the day's festivities.
And like I said, it was a fun day, but sitting in the bleachers with "my athlete" and looking at the whole football-field fiesta I was struck by the pomp and circumstance, about how very, very important this event is in the culture of developmentally disabled persons in Gringolandia, and it was so wild. So dang wild.
"My athlete" got a silver medal and a bronze medal.
Then I had to go to the regular "work" of my work, and do all that shit.
So I'm tired.
I think I might put on my PJ's and go to bed.
But it was a really fun day. I was a "coach", and everyone at the place where I work came back with medals.
It would have been more fun, had they used their rain date. The folks didn't get to do the parade, which for them is usually the highlight of the day's festivities.
And like I said, it was a fun day, but sitting in the bleachers with "my athlete" and looking at the whole football-field fiesta I was struck by the pomp and circumstance, about how very, very important this event is in the culture of developmentally disabled persons in Gringolandia, and it was so wild. So dang wild.
"My athlete" got a silver medal and a bronze medal.
Then I had to go to the regular "work" of my work, and do all that shit.
So I'm tired.
I think I might put on my PJ's and go to bed.
4.26.2006
Traffic & Such
My thanks to Biting Beaver. She puts up something good nearly everyday, and if you haven't yet you should go to her blog. She mentioned me today. Her blog and the others I've linked to are pretty much the reason I made THIS thing, along with others that I've still yet to link to (but will very soon!) Gah! It's awesome to see how many folks are doing this. Not just the blog thing. This radical, pro-woman thing.
I'm about to go and dig into Biting Beaver's latest post on "Nice" guys. Then I gotta go to bed, 'cause I'm a coach at Special Olympics in the morning.
I'm about to go and dig into Biting Beaver's latest post on "Nice" guys. Then I gotta go to bed, 'cause I'm a coach at Special Olympics in the morning.
Fuck Trolls
Alrighty, troll-babies.
We're all reasonable human beings with a good deal of intellectual capacity. If you can read this, then you most likely know what "debate" is.
To be perfectly honest, I prefer the company of those with values and opinions similar to mine. I spend a good part of the day banging my head against the wall, already, and I'd rather not have to add ANOTHER argument in there. I will deal with debate, when it's respectful, as it comes.
I decide what's respectful 'round these parts. I'm a pretty good judge. So.
Man-hater comments...deleted. This shit sucks comments... deleted. Making fun of women in general or women who post here in any way that I DEEM as patriarchal...deleted.
In fact, I can and will delete what I want when I want without further explanation. This space is one that I'm carving, and it's a fucking safe space for women to talk about their shit. Punto.
See, to me the safety and well-being of women is far more important than the principles of those that some would call our "founding fathers." And besides, I don't believe that the first amendment says anywhere that I have to fucking put up with your stupid bullshit, anyways. Don't try and wave the constitution at me....'cause I just won't fucking care. How's THAT fer yer liberal law?
This is an anti-porn safe space.
And if I've seen you fucking with people on other sites, then it should be obvious. Forget it. I'll just delete your shit. If I don't just delete it, I'll probably just answer with "so what?" or "fuck you." But I'll probably just delete it. Depends on whether or not your display of idiocy or immaturity makes me giggle, on account of how stupid it is.
So that's my policy on trolls.
We're all reasonable human beings with a good deal of intellectual capacity. If you can read this, then you most likely know what "debate" is.
To be perfectly honest, I prefer the company of those with values and opinions similar to mine. I spend a good part of the day banging my head against the wall, already, and I'd rather not have to add ANOTHER argument in there. I will deal with debate, when it's respectful, as it comes.
I decide what's respectful 'round these parts. I'm a pretty good judge. So.
Man-hater comments...deleted. This shit sucks comments... deleted. Making fun of women in general or women who post here in any way that I DEEM as patriarchal...deleted.
In fact, I can and will delete what I want when I want without further explanation. This space is one that I'm carving, and it's a fucking safe space for women to talk about their shit. Punto.
See, to me the safety and well-being of women is far more important than the principles of those that some would call our "founding fathers." And besides, I don't believe that the first amendment says anywhere that I have to fucking put up with your stupid bullshit, anyways. Don't try and wave the constitution at me....'cause I just won't fucking care. How's THAT fer yer liberal law?
This is an anti-porn safe space.
And if I've seen you fucking with people on other sites, then it should be obvious. Forget it. I'll just delete your shit. If I don't just delete it, I'll probably just answer with "so what?" or "fuck you." But I'll probably just delete it. Depends on whether or not your display of idiocy or immaturity makes me giggle, on account of how stupid it is.
So that's my policy on trolls.
4.25.2006
'K. If you're my friend...
...You'll take this pledge.
More or less you put your name in a public place, and you say that you'll not embibe in porn and you'll not get intimately involved with anyone who does. So do it.
'Cause really. Stopping the degradation and exploitation of women and children across the globe IS more important than a handful of your ejaculate, or your next whopping orgasm.
And if you're a guy and you've stumbled on my blog, and you have your own blog, I'll fuckin' add you to my Men's Auxiliary if you take this pledge and lemme know. Pickin's are slim over there, I need recruits.
More or less you put your name in a public place, and you say that you'll not embibe in porn and you'll not get intimately involved with anyone who does. So do it.
'Cause really. Stopping the degradation and exploitation of women and children across the globe IS more important than a handful of your ejaculate, or your next whopping orgasm.
And if you're a guy and you've stumbled on my blog, and you have your own blog, I'll fuckin' add you to my Men's Auxiliary if you take this pledge and lemme know. Pickin's are slim over there, I need recruits.
4.24.2006
Duke Rape Post #3- Rape on Campus
Newsweek put out it's breakdown on the case in Durham. I read it.
There's a few questions I have.
We hear about the lacrosse players, and are windswept with visions of their lives, pictures of the privilege they live with at home and on campus. We hear about their good grades. We hear how community big-heads back home think they're upstanding young men, who are good, good, good, who don't have any capacity for this kind of hurt within them.
A picture of upper-class, white, sporty-types, who graduate to become Wall-Street types.
Why are we supposed to think that this "image" is divorced from that of a person who commits rape? Why is this supposed to add to the "surprise" factor? When I think of men who commit rape, mainly due to my own campus activism and SEEING THE FACES OF MEN outside fraternity houses as they jeered and leered and catcalled at a SILENT MARCH of women who were victims of sexual abuse and assault, if any sort of pre-fab, stereotypical image pops into my head it is that of the mythic "Frat-Daddy." The white guy with the SUV and the really nice clothes shod in flip-flops, the cocky guy in the class who doesn't want to let anybody else talk but who's not admonished by the professor when he hogs the show himself.
So, perusing the MSNBC site I found another article on rape on campus, this one detailing the stories of three women who survived sexual assault and who attempted to get the universities involved in removing their assailants. In one case, the male in question had committed another assault BEFORE the woman in the story reported him; they still gave her the runaround and barely, oh so barely and lightly, slapped this boy on his beefy wrist when it all came out in the wash.
*spits out ire and bile, rubs it into the carpet with her shoe*
The thing is this: I don't think it's OK to say that what happened with the Duke lacrosse dipshits is rare. It's not an isolated thing. Rape happens on college campuses A LOT. And rape happens to adult dancers A LOT. It's a total logical fuck-up, the way this thing is being spun. On the one hand they are treating this incident as if it happened in some sort of academic vacuum, on the other hand you have university officials saying that this kind of behavior tarnishes the "good name" of their school, puts it in a league with "other schools" that aren't as "exclusive." I doubt that this is the first rape to happen at the hands of men on that particular campus. I wonder why the news wants us to think that this kind of thing is rare, or odd.
One of the Duke Lac-rapists was involved in a violent crime not even a year ago, one that led to him signing up for community service, during which he helped two other dudes beat up a man based upon his percieved "gayness" by his attackers.
The defense, a team of more than 12 hot-shot lawyers, is trying to say that since the accuser didn't pick the accused out of a bewildering and muddling pile of hundreds and hundreds of pictures of men, and since she DID NOT do a live line-up (essentially putting herself once more in close proximity to those who attacked her,) that her case is flawed to the xxxxxxxth degree. The other dancer at this fucked-up white-guy soiree is held up for intense scrutiny, too, because she's being really blatantly honest, it seems, about her situation and her options.
To be perfectly honest, I don't see how, after the descriptions of the situation in question, these women are supposed to remember every little bit of minutiae. I don't see how they're supposed to fucking remember the exact times they were there, and I don't see how they wouldn't be confused - especially if one of them was drugged, and especially if it's the woman who's charging rape. Think about it.
Two black women, with barely any clothes on, amidst a swarm of 40, mostly-white, men, taunting them and groping them, most likely hurling obscenities at them, wanting them to do really fucked-up shit for the amusement of the crowd. Add in that one of the men throws a broom into the fray, tells one of the dancers that she should basically fuck herself with it.
I don't know if any of y'all have ever been in a situation where you're performing, and you're doing sexually-charged stuff in front of a more or less male audience. The only experience I have with this kind of situation comes from when I performed as a dominatrix/fire-breather with a rock band, something I did for shits and giggles in my early twenties, for a couple of years. I had a partner who acted as my onstage "slave-girl," and we'd do these little vignette-type deals when we worked together onstage, very provocative stuff without full-on nudity.
I was more or less rudimentarily armed with either a whip or a cat or a crop the whole time I was performing, and I had my clothes on. The female who sometimes performed with me wore less clothes while onstage, and while she wasn't onstage she'd wear a big coat to cover herself, and we stuck together. We were with the band, a group of 5 male musicians, and they DID keep an eye on us. My situation is different on many, many levels (the most obvious of which being that I was never raped by audience members.) But working the crowd in that up front, middle-of-the-swarm context; well, I can say a little bit about it. Men are Fuckin' Scary when they get together and drink to pounding music. They would fuck with us, a LOT. Skinheads and thugs, for the most part. It's a gig I wouldn't have done, a crowd I wouldn't have gotten that close to if I didn't have some sort of battering implement in my hands or wasn't carrying live torches and a mouthful of accelerant. I did come close to burning a guy's mohawk off his head one time, 'cause he KEPT getting in my face and fucking with the band.
When those things happen, you tend to get fuzzy-headed. I don't know if it's adrenaline or what. But it's a bit of a stretch, logistically, in my view, to expect somebody who's facing attack in that kind of context, or any sort of context which involves violent sexual assault, for that matter, to remember everything in stark and clear detail.
And as for the timing, I don't think it's odd or off or wacky to think that these things could have happened in a very short period of time anyways. It just doesn't take that long for the average guy to "finish his business," not if he's worked up enough. Ask any woman who's been there, and by that I don't mean ask any woman who's been raped. I'm saying, talk to women who've had crummy sex. It doesn't take long at all. And it doesn't take more than a few minutes to make a woman feel like she's going through an impossible stretch of time when she's being brutalized, especially when there's more than one attacker present, ESPECIALLY when her orifices are being all jammed up without her consent.
I can say pretty much certainly that if I were in her shoes, my thoughts would be muddled as hell.
I have to go to work now.
There's a few questions I have.
We hear about the lacrosse players, and are windswept with visions of their lives, pictures of the privilege they live with at home and on campus. We hear about their good grades. We hear how community big-heads back home think they're upstanding young men, who are good, good, good, who don't have any capacity for this kind of hurt within them.
A picture of upper-class, white, sporty-types, who graduate to become Wall-Street types.
Why are we supposed to think that this "image" is divorced from that of a person who commits rape? Why is this supposed to add to the "surprise" factor? When I think of men who commit rape, mainly due to my own campus activism and SEEING THE FACES OF MEN outside fraternity houses as they jeered and leered and catcalled at a SILENT MARCH of women who were victims of sexual abuse and assault, if any sort of pre-fab, stereotypical image pops into my head it is that of the mythic "Frat-Daddy." The white guy with the SUV and the really nice clothes shod in flip-flops, the cocky guy in the class who doesn't want to let anybody else talk but who's not admonished by the professor when he hogs the show himself.
So, perusing the MSNBC site I found another article on rape on campus, this one detailing the stories of three women who survived sexual assault and who attempted to get the universities involved in removing their assailants. In one case, the male in question had committed another assault BEFORE the woman in the story reported him; they still gave her the runaround and barely, oh so barely and lightly, slapped this boy on his beefy wrist when it all came out in the wash.
*spits out ire and bile, rubs it into the carpet with her shoe*
The thing is this: I don't think it's OK to say that what happened with the Duke lacrosse dipshits is rare. It's not an isolated thing. Rape happens on college campuses A LOT. And rape happens to adult dancers A LOT. It's a total logical fuck-up, the way this thing is being spun. On the one hand they are treating this incident as if it happened in some sort of academic vacuum, on the other hand you have university officials saying that this kind of behavior tarnishes the "good name" of their school, puts it in a league with "other schools" that aren't as "exclusive." I doubt that this is the first rape to happen at the hands of men on that particular campus. I wonder why the news wants us to think that this kind of thing is rare, or odd.
One of the Duke Lac-rapists was involved in a violent crime not even a year ago, one that led to him signing up for community service, during which he helped two other dudes beat up a man based upon his percieved "gayness" by his attackers.
The defense, a team of more than 12 hot-shot lawyers, is trying to say that since the accuser didn't pick the accused out of a bewildering and muddling pile of hundreds and hundreds of pictures of men, and since she DID NOT do a live line-up (essentially putting herself once more in close proximity to those who attacked her,) that her case is flawed to the xxxxxxxth degree. The other dancer at this fucked-up white-guy soiree is held up for intense scrutiny, too, because she's being really blatantly honest, it seems, about her situation and her options.
To be perfectly honest, I don't see how, after the descriptions of the situation in question, these women are supposed to remember every little bit of minutiae. I don't see how they're supposed to fucking remember the exact times they were there, and I don't see how they wouldn't be confused - especially if one of them was drugged, and especially if it's the woman who's charging rape. Think about it.
Two black women, with barely any clothes on, amidst a swarm of 40, mostly-white, men, taunting them and groping them, most likely hurling obscenities at them, wanting them to do really fucked-up shit for the amusement of the crowd. Add in that one of the men throws a broom into the fray, tells one of the dancers that she should basically fuck herself with it.
I don't know if any of y'all have ever been in a situation where you're performing, and you're doing sexually-charged stuff in front of a more or less male audience. The only experience I have with this kind of situation comes from when I performed as a dominatrix/fire-breather with a rock band, something I did for shits and giggles in my early twenties, for a couple of years. I had a partner who acted as my onstage "slave-girl," and we'd do these little vignette-type deals when we worked together onstage, very provocative stuff without full-on nudity.
I was more or less rudimentarily armed with either a whip or a cat or a crop the whole time I was performing, and I had my clothes on. The female who sometimes performed with me wore less clothes while onstage, and while she wasn't onstage she'd wear a big coat to cover herself, and we stuck together. We were with the band, a group of 5 male musicians, and they DID keep an eye on us. My situation is different on many, many levels (the most obvious of which being that I was never raped by audience members.) But working the crowd in that up front, middle-of-the-swarm context; well, I can say a little bit about it. Men are Fuckin' Scary when they get together and drink to pounding music. They would fuck with us, a LOT. Skinheads and thugs, for the most part. It's a gig I wouldn't have done, a crowd I wouldn't have gotten that close to if I didn't have some sort of battering implement in my hands or wasn't carrying live torches and a mouthful of accelerant. I did come close to burning a guy's mohawk off his head one time, 'cause he KEPT getting in my face and fucking with the band.
When those things happen, you tend to get fuzzy-headed. I don't know if it's adrenaline or what. But it's a bit of a stretch, logistically, in my view, to expect somebody who's facing attack in that kind of context, or any sort of context which involves violent sexual assault, for that matter, to remember everything in stark and clear detail.
And as for the timing, I don't think it's odd or off or wacky to think that these things could have happened in a very short period of time anyways. It just doesn't take that long for the average guy to "finish his business," not if he's worked up enough. Ask any woman who's been there, and by that I don't mean ask any woman who's been raped. I'm saying, talk to women who've had crummy sex. It doesn't take long at all. And it doesn't take more than a few minutes to make a woman feel like she's going through an impossible stretch of time when she's being brutalized, especially when there's more than one attacker present, ESPECIALLY when her orifices are being all jammed up without her consent.
I can say pretty much certainly that if I were in her shoes, my thoughts would be muddled as hell.
I have to go to work now.
4.22.2006
Blog Reification
In an attempt to make this blog more like a thing I've added a picture of part of my face.
I don't know how that's supposed to add substance, but there you have it.
I will be posting later this evening on something interesting, I'm sure. More later.
Also, I was serious when I asked how in the holy fucking jesus of blogly living I can change the way this thing looks. I'm totally backwards here, folks. Any help would be appreciated.
I don't know how that's supposed to add substance, but there you have it.
I will be posting later this evening on something interesting, I'm sure. More later.
Also, I was serious when I asked how in the holy fucking jesus of blogly living I can change the way this thing looks. I'm totally backwards here, folks. Any help would be appreciated.
4.19.2006
White Male Vermin- (Duke Rape Post #2)
What I'm gonna say next shouldn't be too much of a surprise to anybody.
Fuck Michael Savage, and fuck his ilk. That's who I'm referencing with the title, here.
I recently read some stuff from a transcript of one of his broadcasts. A very nice person posted it in the comments section of Stan Goff's blog. This motherfucker (Savage) seems to think that women and people who aren't white simply aren't human. He seems mighty testy about growing community solidarity around the rape at Duke university, and awfully antsy about the possibility of women coming together, especially on college campuses to do something definitive to bring about a drop in the occurrence of rape.
Why do men get so angry when we start talking about VERY HARSH rules against rape in a general sense? Why is it that all of a sudden, when this shit happens and we're forced out of isolation from and insulation around the "ugly" topic, why is it that men get so bloody goddamned defensive?
It's starting to sound to me like y'all (men) are scrambling to preserve your rape culture. Your access to OUR bodies is a privilege that maybe you took for granted, and when people start talking about taking it away, well, y'all get all weirded-out and start stamping your big 'ol feet and demanding "due process" for your rape-culture bretheren. Generally, your access is something that we don't talk about out loud; it's usually implied. You don't want us to take away your "right" to rape us. And the burn's gonna be especially bad on your fragile egos if we somehow manage to do it without any damn help from y'all.
I know that exceptions to the rule exist among you. I'm not saying that every man out there is gung-ho for rape, at least not superficially, and hopefully, I hope to hell not consciously. But think about that little nugget the next time you leap to the defense of an "alleged" rapist.
Here are some facts: The white men who raped the Black Woman at Duke University had enough money to go their bail, which was substantial. That speaks to the high degree of privilege they're privvy to. If they're put away, they won't get 25-life, they won't be executed, they won't be tortured. They'll be supported and fed by the state for however long their sentence is, and they'll have to dive into prison culture. That ain't no fucking picnic, but then again, when we think of the Black Woman who actually got raped, well, I have to say it looks more like a picnic to me than the scenario she's in now, and that she's gonna be in probably for the rest of her life.
These boys don't have right-wing-nazi-shock-jocks pleading with the rest of fundamentalist white america to refer to them as "vermin." Who's the fucking vermin, the woman who does what she has to do to, no matter how degrading or unpleasant, take care of her kids or a bunch of beer-swilling, woman-attacking, queer-bashing, racist, rich, white perverts, who'll end up leeching off the state if they're in jail? Which human critter more closely resembles the "vermin" of the fucking animal world?
I know, I know. This talk of humans as vermin is a very clear explosive emergence of the "white man" in me. I realize this. This situation, the ways that fucking white male supremacy touch the lives of women everywhere, of my friends and my family, the more ugly seems to want to come out of me. I'll try and keep that part held in, as much as I can. I'll call the above my humble attempt to point out a logical fallacy, wave my magical first-amendment wand to protect my "right" to "free" speech, and leave it at that.
*Invokes the northern wind of truth, cast protection spell, tosses 20-sided di, puts on magical patriarchal-healer cloak*
You're damn right, white men need to be shaking "on the golf course," Mr. Swasti-Savage. If more and more women start making the connection between your fucking defensive, vitriolic spew and sputter and your UNWILLINGNESS TO GIVE UP RAPE AS A MALE PRIVILEGE, then you ALL just better fucking watch out. 'Cause you're outnumbered.
And don't go getting pissed at me for pointing all this shit out. Y'all comply with the bed-making, don't bitch if it's fucking bumpy unless you've been active in removing the lumps.
I have to go and try to sleep with this shit on my fucking mind. I CAN be raped, by Y'ALL. Tell me why the fuck I shouldn't be more hostile than I am.
Fuck Michael Savage, and fuck his ilk. That's who I'm referencing with the title, here.
I recently read some stuff from a transcript of one of his broadcasts. A very nice person posted it in the comments section of Stan Goff's blog. This motherfucker (Savage) seems to think that women and people who aren't white simply aren't human. He seems mighty testy about growing community solidarity around the rape at Duke university, and awfully antsy about the possibility of women coming together, especially on college campuses to do something definitive to bring about a drop in the occurrence of rape.
Why do men get so angry when we start talking about VERY HARSH rules against rape in a general sense? Why is it that all of a sudden, when this shit happens and we're forced out of isolation from and insulation around the "ugly" topic, why is it that men get so bloody goddamned defensive?
It's starting to sound to me like y'all (men) are scrambling to preserve your rape culture. Your access to OUR bodies is a privilege that maybe you took for granted, and when people start talking about taking it away, well, y'all get all weirded-out and start stamping your big 'ol feet and demanding "due process" for your rape-culture bretheren. Generally, your access is something that we don't talk about out loud; it's usually implied. You don't want us to take away your "right" to rape us. And the burn's gonna be especially bad on your fragile egos if we somehow manage to do it without any damn help from y'all.
I know that exceptions to the rule exist among you. I'm not saying that every man out there is gung-ho for rape, at least not superficially, and hopefully, I hope to hell not consciously. But think about that little nugget the next time you leap to the defense of an "alleged" rapist.
Here are some facts: The white men who raped the Black Woman at Duke University had enough money to go their bail, which was substantial. That speaks to the high degree of privilege they're privvy to. If they're put away, they won't get 25-life, they won't be executed, they won't be tortured. They'll be supported and fed by the state for however long their sentence is, and they'll have to dive into prison culture. That ain't no fucking picnic, but then again, when we think of the Black Woman who actually got raped, well, I have to say it looks more like a picnic to me than the scenario she's in now, and that she's gonna be in probably for the rest of her life.
These boys don't have right-wing-nazi-shock-jocks pleading with the rest of fundamentalist white america to refer to them as "vermin." Who's the fucking vermin, the woman who does what she has to do to, no matter how degrading or unpleasant, take care of her kids or a bunch of beer-swilling, woman-attacking, queer-bashing, racist, rich, white perverts, who'll end up leeching off the state if they're in jail? Which human critter more closely resembles the "vermin" of the fucking animal world?
I know, I know. This talk of humans as vermin is a very clear explosive emergence of the "white man" in me. I realize this. This situation, the ways that fucking white male supremacy touch the lives of women everywhere, of my friends and my family, the more ugly seems to want to come out of me. I'll try and keep that part held in, as much as I can. I'll call the above my humble attempt to point out a logical fallacy, wave my magical first-amendment wand to protect my "right" to "free" speech, and leave it at that.
*Invokes the northern wind of truth, cast protection spell, tosses 20-sided di, puts on magical patriarchal-healer cloak*
You're damn right, white men need to be shaking "on the golf course," Mr. Swasti-Savage. If more and more women start making the connection between your fucking defensive, vitriolic spew and sputter and your UNWILLINGNESS TO GIVE UP RAPE AS A MALE PRIVILEGE, then you ALL just better fucking watch out. 'Cause you're outnumbered.
And don't go getting pissed at me for pointing all this shit out. Y'all comply with the bed-making, don't bitch if it's fucking bumpy unless you've been active in removing the lumps.
I have to go and try to sleep with this shit on my fucking mind. I CAN be raped, by Y'ALL. Tell me why the fuck I shouldn't be more hostile than I am.
4.18.2006
Duke Rape Case Post #1
About a month ago, a Black Woman was brutally raped by 3 white men from the Duke Lacrosse team (Durham, NC).
The case has drawn national media attention. This in itself is news- most rapes go unreported, and even the reported ones don't get any media attention, usually. Especially when the person who's been raped is not white, especially when the person who is raped is employed by the sex industry, as is the case with the Black Woman who was raped in Durham.
Every time I've read about this in the news, the modifier "alleged" is placed before the noun "victim;" the adverb "allegedly" is consistently used to modify the verbs "raped", "attacked," etc. The reason for this language-play is to keep the idea in the heads of the general public that this Black Woman, whose name I do not know, and who I do not want to call "victim," might very well be making the whole thing up.
Well. Apparently one of her attackers, Collin Finnerty, "allegedly" participated in a group gay-bash in DC with two cohorts. Allegedly, this dipstick hurled "homophobic remarks" at the "victim" before and while he beat the shit out of him for being homosexual. Sounds like a familiar M. O., for those of us who have read about the rape case at Duke. Allegedly, this "supposed" assailant went to a diversity class and will just have to do some community service for his participation in the assault.
It's a sad fucking social commentary, to say the least.
Two arrests were made today, that of Finnerty and also an asshole by the name of Reade Segilmann. They've both either posted bond or will be doing that today. Nice.
I have to go to work right this minute. I'll be posting more on this tonight. My head's a-reel.
The case has drawn national media attention. This in itself is news- most rapes go unreported, and even the reported ones don't get any media attention, usually. Especially when the person who's been raped is not white, especially when the person who is raped is employed by the sex industry, as is the case with the Black Woman who was raped in Durham.
Every time I've read about this in the news, the modifier "alleged" is placed before the noun "victim;" the adverb "allegedly" is consistently used to modify the verbs "raped", "attacked," etc. The reason for this language-play is to keep the idea in the heads of the general public that this Black Woman, whose name I do not know, and who I do not want to call "victim," might very well be making the whole thing up.
Well. Apparently one of her attackers, Collin Finnerty, "allegedly" participated in a group gay-bash in DC with two cohorts. Allegedly, this dipstick hurled "homophobic remarks" at the "victim" before and while he beat the shit out of him for being homosexual. Sounds like a familiar M. O., for those of us who have read about the rape case at Duke. Allegedly, this "supposed" assailant went to a diversity class and will just have to do some community service for his participation in the assault.
It's a sad fucking social commentary, to say the least.
Two arrests were made today, that of Finnerty and also an asshole by the name of Reade Segilmann. They've both either posted bond or will be doing that today. Nice.
I have to go to work right this minute. I'll be posting more on this tonight. My head's a-reel.
The Requisite Tirade
Every day, in big ways and in little ways, we deal with The Man's shit.
We listen to him bitch. We listen to him moan. We pick up his underwear, his socks. We pick up OUR shit and put it back in it's proper place after he's moved it and not bothered to put it back. We put up with the farting, the nose-picking, and when his music is too loud, we deal with it. And if he's musical, or artistic in ANY way, or politically active, or just generally some kind of genius then we're his #1 Fan. We're his muse, his cause, and his audience at home.
We don't mind so much when he never, ever listens; when he looks at us and smiles and nods his head, and nothing sinks in. We shouldn't even tell him that we generally know when he's doing this, or that it hurts. We won't begrudge him his porn, or his need to have sex with other women and leer at young girls. We argue in circles with him, sometimes, about Big Ideas; we give the conversation over when he's proved to himself that he's right, or when he's raised his voice sufficiently to wake the neighbors.
Because we DO listen to him, we hear him crystal-clear; especially when he's critical about how we look or how we fuck, or how prudish or garish we are. When we're too fat we know, because he tells us. He shoots from the hip, and it smarts sometimes; we understand why, when our guts fall out of our mouths or we lose our tempers, he sometimes will wince or scream. We GET it, we get it and we understand when sometimes he just punches us in the fucking face.
When he hits us, when he rapes us, many times we forgive him. We have a lot of reasons for doing that, most of which have something to do with basic survival, and not philisophical or political morality. He could be ours and/or our children's economic support system, or the greater part of it. He could be the only reason we have a roof over our heads. He could be fucking psychotic, and threaten to kill and/or hurt us if we leave. He could say that if we leave, he'll kill himself. He could just even imply as much with his behavior, and we'll stick around, just in case.
Sometimes, it's not so bad, and he's just the thing that validates us socially. When that happens, and everything's fine and dandy and the kids are clean and well-fed, and when we have nice things and pretty clothes and make-up, then we REALLY try to overlook the little things, even BIG things, because we're really lucky that we found someone like that to take care of us, to love us, to treat us like the princesses we'll never be and we've never, ever been. Even if it's only on his good days, even if a bad day means bruises or broken bones or torn tissue or him fucking the babysitter. We have to look at the big picture, and we have to face the world, no matter what we do.
We are held accountable for what happens, when we leave. We either "left too soon" or didn't leave "soon enough." What were we thinking? Didn't we know he was crazy? We should have. We should have known he would go nuts and run off with the kids. Or that he had a gambling problem, and spent all our money. We shouldn't have married him if we didn't like shaving our pubic hair and bleaching the skidmarks out of his whities.
We should have left the first time he hit us, or raped us. We should have done something. Anything. If only we'd have been better mothers, better sisters, better wives, better daughters, better nieces; if we could have just kept our shit together and plowed through, then we would have all been better off.
God forbid WE go nuts. When we lose it, the whole fucking world finds out. If we hit him back, and we survive, he or his uncle or his brother or his father will stick up for him. He will hit us harder or just kill us. If we kill him, he will put us in jail. He will have us killed by the system. He will make sure that somebody, somewhere is there to give us what he's decided we deserve.
And we DO love him. We know when he is trying, we understand that the world made him this way. We really do love his music or his art. We want him to be happy, as happy as anyone can be in a world like this. We want to be a source of relief to him. We don't want to have to hurt him. We don't want him to be left-out.
Thing is, what we want doesn't ever seem to materialize.
Oh, sometimes we acquire a lot of nice things. Sometimes we are well off financially. But when we pull away from him, we pay, one way or another. He's never fully satisfied, no matter where we go, or who we are, or what we do.
We have to talk to somebody about it. We talk to each other. We rely on each other, whether or not we like or love one another. We have to keep ourselves in check. We can't talk to him about our period clots, or our diahrea; we can't talk to him about our hopes or our deepest emotions or our most irrational superstitions. We can't bother him with our needs, we have to take care of that ourselves. We really shouldn't expect him to have time to listen when the kids have homework, or when we're having an existential crisis. We have to be our own harshest critics, we have to hold each other fully accountable, because we only really, truly exist to and among one another.
We feel like we can't live without him, sometimes, like we never could.
We have to remember that he can't live without us, either. We've got to remind ourselves that he's not really some mythic monster that self-replicates with every drop of blood that hits the ground when we wound it in defense of ourselves. He very well COULD listen, or do the dishes, or throw-out the porn. Sometimes he DOES care, sometimes he really means it when he says that we're beautiful, and we don't have to look like Selma Hayek or fuck like Jenna Jameson, or cook like Martha Stewart, or keep a house like her, for that matter.
Sometimes, and you can see it hit like a switch in the pools of his eyes when this happens, it's amazing-- sometimes he does see us as fully human as he is. He has his moments. He has potential.
We have to realize, he is in our hands. He is critically wounded at this juncture in our shared history; HE's got to realize that without us, he'll never walk again. He won't even be able to stand back up. When we're finally gone, if that's what he really, really wants- when we're gone he will certainly die.
I don't just want to let him finish killing us so that he'll "learn the hard way." I don't want him to see how he likes it when we're finally gone for good. I don't want to have to fight him any more for that recognition. I don't want to have to kill myself to glean it from him.
I really can decide for myself whether or not I'm human. I can read for myself and think for myself; I think I could even make laws for myself and decide how I want to look or whether or not I want to have children. I think I'll be OK if I call the shots on how fat I am or am not; I'll live if I'm not what he wants me to be. I have never been what he wants me to be. I won't, ever, and he's not gonna like that. Not at all. But I've tried to make him happy. I have. He's broken my heart, he's left, he's died. I've survived. He's hurt me, and he hurts me less when he's not around so much. I'm tired of fighting him. I would rather fight him out there, with help. I am so tired of having to fight.
I certainly don't want to fight with myself anymore, or with the rest of us. It looks like I'll have to fight with him, if I'm tired of answering to him. He might not want to love me, he might not think I'm anything very special. He might even kill me. I don't want to kill him, so I hope he won't over-react.
I know that there are others of us who do not want him to hurt us any more. I'm going to go to them. We can fight him together, when we have to- and we will have to a lot. It wouldn't be so hard if everyone could help. We know that we can not all do this.
We want to be able to help ourselves. We want to show each other that we want this, and we want to help one another to do this. We want us all to be strong enough to fight.
I am afraid that we will all have to fight him, together, one day. I hope he will stop thinking that one of us has to lose. I hope he can see, somehow, that we can't live without each other. I hope he doesn't think that if he's defeated, he'll be worthless. I want him to know that we never stopped caring. I want him to know that if we turn him out, it really is tough love speaking. I want him to help us fight him when he needs to do that. It's gonna be hard for him, I know, but it's been hard for us for so damn long. We have to think about what's fair, in OUR minds, and stop second-guessing ourselves and rethinking our tactics to make sure that it doesn't interfere with what's good for him.
We have to know that whatever we do, it's gonna be harder for us. If we sink back into material comfort, we have to know that we are hurting others of us who have nothing. We have to know that. We have to know that when we are silent about our own lives, we are silent about the lives of those of us who suffer more acutely.
We have to decide, together, what we're going to do with this world that we clean, that we nourish, that we care for. We can't let him continue to decide for us. He's got a record, a long one, of ignoring us and fucking shit up as a result.
He'll have to step aside, even if we have to push him, hard.
If we don't, we push ourselves into oblivion. I can't live with that. So I'll plant my feet next to those who are already pushing, and dig in.
We listen to him bitch. We listen to him moan. We pick up his underwear, his socks. We pick up OUR shit and put it back in it's proper place after he's moved it and not bothered to put it back. We put up with the farting, the nose-picking, and when his music is too loud, we deal with it. And if he's musical, or artistic in ANY way, or politically active, or just generally some kind of genius then we're his #1 Fan. We're his muse, his cause, and his audience at home.
We don't mind so much when he never, ever listens; when he looks at us and smiles and nods his head, and nothing sinks in. We shouldn't even tell him that we generally know when he's doing this, or that it hurts. We won't begrudge him his porn, or his need to have sex with other women and leer at young girls. We argue in circles with him, sometimes, about Big Ideas; we give the conversation over when he's proved to himself that he's right, or when he's raised his voice sufficiently to wake the neighbors.
Because we DO listen to him, we hear him crystal-clear; especially when he's critical about how we look or how we fuck, or how prudish or garish we are. When we're too fat we know, because he tells us. He shoots from the hip, and it smarts sometimes; we understand why, when our guts fall out of our mouths or we lose our tempers, he sometimes will wince or scream. We GET it, we get it and we understand when sometimes he just punches us in the fucking face.
When he hits us, when he rapes us, many times we forgive him. We have a lot of reasons for doing that, most of which have something to do with basic survival, and not philisophical or political morality. He could be ours and/or our children's economic support system, or the greater part of it. He could be the only reason we have a roof over our heads. He could be fucking psychotic, and threaten to kill and/or hurt us if we leave. He could say that if we leave, he'll kill himself. He could just even imply as much with his behavior, and we'll stick around, just in case.
Sometimes, it's not so bad, and he's just the thing that validates us socially. When that happens, and everything's fine and dandy and the kids are clean and well-fed, and when we have nice things and pretty clothes and make-up, then we REALLY try to overlook the little things, even BIG things, because we're really lucky that we found someone like that to take care of us, to love us, to treat us like the princesses we'll never be and we've never, ever been. Even if it's only on his good days, even if a bad day means bruises or broken bones or torn tissue or him fucking the babysitter. We have to look at the big picture, and we have to face the world, no matter what we do.
We are held accountable for what happens, when we leave. We either "left too soon" or didn't leave "soon enough." What were we thinking? Didn't we know he was crazy? We should have. We should have known he would go nuts and run off with the kids. Or that he had a gambling problem, and spent all our money. We shouldn't have married him if we didn't like shaving our pubic hair and bleaching the skidmarks out of his whities.
We should have left the first time he hit us, or raped us. We should have done something. Anything. If only we'd have been better mothers, better sisters, better wives, better daughters, better nieces; if we could have just kept our shit together and plowed through, then we would have all been better off.
God forbid WE go nuts. When we lose it, the whole fucking world finds out. If we hit him back, and we survive, he or his uncle or his brother or his father will stick up for him. He will hit us harder or just kill us. If we kill him, he will put us in jail. He will have us killed by the system. He will make sure that somebody, somewhere is there to give us what he's decided we deserve.
And we DO love him. We know when he is trying, we understand that the world made him this way. We really do love his music or his art. We want him to be happy, as happy as anyone can be in a world like this. We want to be a source of relief to him. We don't want to have to hurt him. We don't want him to be left-out.
Thing is, what we want doesn't ever seem to materialize.
Oh, sometimes we acquire a lot of nice things. Sometimes we are well off financially. But when we pull away from him, we pay, one way or another. He's never fully satisfied, no matter where we go, or who we are, or what we do.
We have to talk to somebody about it. We talk to each other. We rely on each other, whether or not we like or love one another. We have to keep ourselves in check. We can't talk to him about our period clots, or our diahrea; we can't talk to him about our hopes or our deepest emotions or our most irrational superstitions. We can't bother him with our needs, we have to take care of that ourselves. We really shouldn't expect him to have time to listen when the kids have homework, or when we're having an existential crisis. We have to be our own harshest critics, we have to hold each other fully accountable, because we only really, truly exist to and among one another.
We feel like we can't live without him, sometimes, like we never could.
We have to remember that he can't live without us, either. We've got to remind ourselves that he's not really some mythic monster that self-replicates with every drop of blood that hits the ground when we wound it in defense of ourselves. He very well COULD listen, or do the dishes, or throw-out the porn. Sometimes he DOES care, sometimes he really means it when he says that we're beautiful, and we don't have to look like Selma Hayek or fuck like Jenna Jameson, or cook like Martha Stewart, or keep a house like her, for that matter.
Sometimes, and you can see it hit like a switch in the pools of his eyes when this happens, it's amazing-- sometimes he does see us as fully human as he is. He has his moments. He has potential.
We have to realize, he is in our hands. He is critically wounded at this juncture in our shared history; HE's got to realize that without us, he'll never walk again. He won't even be able to stand back up. When we're finally gone, if that's what he really, really wants- when we're gone he will certainly die.
I don't just want to let him finish killing us so that he'll "learn the hard way." I don't want him to see how he likes it when we're finally gone for good. I don't want to have to fight him any more for that recognition. I don't want to have to kill myself to glean it from him.
I really can decide for myself whether or not I'm human. I can read for myself and think for myself; I think I could even make laws for myself and decide how I want to look or whether or not I want to have children. I think I'll be OK if I call the shots on how fat I am or am not; I'll live if I'm not what he wants me to be. I have never been what he wants me to be. I won't, ever, and he's not gonna like that. Not at all. But I've tried to make him happy. I have. He's broken my heart, he's left, he's died. I've survived. He's hurt me, and he hurts me less when he's not around so much. I'm tired of fighting him. I would rather fight him out there, with help. I am so tired of having to fight.
I certainly don't want to fight with myself anymore, or with the rest of us. It looks like I'll have to fight with him, if I'm tired of answering to him. He might not want to love me, he might not think I'm anything very special. He might even kill me. I don't want to kill him, so I hope he won't over-react.
I know that there are others of us who do not want him to hurt us any more. I'm going to go to them. We can fight him together, when we have to- and we will have to a lot. It wouldn't be so hard if everyone could help. We know that we can not all do this.
We want to be able to help ourselves. We want to show each other that we want this, and we want to help one another to do this. We want us all to be strong enough to fight.
I am afraid that we will all have to fight him, together, one day. I hope he will stop thinking that one of us has to lose. I hope he can see, somehow, that we can't live without each other. I hope he doesn't think that if he's defeated, he'll be worthless. I want him to know that we never stopped caring. I want him to know that if we turn him out, it really is tough love speaking. I want him to help us fight him when he needs to do that. It's gonna be hard for him, I know, but it's been hard for us for so damn long. We have to think about what's fair, in OUR minds, and stop second-guessing ourselves and rethinking our tactics to make sure that it doesn't interfere with what's good for him.
We have to know that whatever we do, it's gonna be harder for us. If we sink back into material comfort, we have to know that we are hurting others of us who have nothing. We have to know that. We have to know that when we are silent about our own lives, we are silent about the lives of those of us who suffer more acutely.
We have to decide, together, what we're going to do with this world that we clean, that we nourish, that we care for. We can't let him continue to decide for us. He's got a record, a long one, of ignoring us and fucking shit up as a result.
He'll have to step aside, even if we have to push him, hard.
If we don't, we push ourselves into oblivion. I can't live with that. So I'll plant my feet next to those who are already pushing, and dig in.
4.17.2006
Technical Difficulties
So last night I tried to get on here and add an entry, and the site told me again and again that I had to "enable cookies." Thing is, I "enabled the cookies" again and again to no avail. Finally, something fucked-up happened and my computer shut down- didn't RESTART, didn't shut down the INTERNET. The screen went blank and the computer shut down as if I had pushed the "off" button.
So I've hijacked my brother's computer for a minute. Which means I'm in the living room, and my mom keeps trying to talk to me and tell me junk, and my nephew and his girlfriend are behind me on the couch doing random teenager stuff.
This environment's not quite conducive to critical, bloggerly thinkin' by any stretch of the imagination. But at least I'm trying, and maybe I can get some links added or something.
Anyways. More later.
So I've hijacked my brother's computer for a minute. Which means I'm in the living room, and my mom keeps trying to talk to me and tell me junk, and my nephew and his girlfriend are behind me on the couch doing random teenager stuff.
This environment's not quite conducive to critical, bloggerly thinkin' by any stretch of the imagination. But at least I'm trying, and maybe I can get some links added or something.
Anyways. More later.
4.15.2006
Trash Talks- Again
Long ago, in a land far, far away, I had a blog of my very own on this site. I was negligent and the people just stopped coming.
Sites like this put me at a frustrative melting point. They never let you do what you want to do. There's always some field you've neglected to fill out. You think you've saved your shit and you really haven't. It doesn't look the way that you think it's gonna look.
I don't have high-speed internet, not at the moment. And I don't have a very good computer. I think my computer's 7 years old.
I work a lot, too. I don't have a lot of time to fiddle with my blog. That's why I dumped the myspace thing, that and the friggin' pedophiles. Jesus.
But I was told I need a blog of my own. So here we go again.
The main content of this blog will consist of my thoughts on white, capitalist patriarchy and living in it, and ideas for how to squash it. That's oversimplifying, yes. But it's the truth in a nutshell. Obviously I'd like my blog to be a place where radical feminist minded folks can comment and discuss.
So over the next few days be expecting to hear about the blog's creation, if you happen to have a blog I like to fill up with my long-winded commentary. Now, how in the name of holy fucking Jesus do I change the way this thing looks?
Sites like this put me at a frustrative melting point. They never let you do what you want to do. There's always some field you've neglected to fill out. You think you've saved your shit and you really haven't. It doesn't look the way that you think it's gonna look.
I don't have high-speed internet, not at the moment. And I don't have a very good computer. I think my computer's 7 years old.
I work a lot, too. I don't have a lot of time to fiddle with my blog. That's why I dumped the myspace thing, that and the friggin' pedophiles. Jesus.
But I was told I need a blog of my own. So here we go again.
The main content of this blog will consist of my thoughts on white, capitalist patriarchy and living in it, and ideas for how to squash it. That's oversimplifying, yes. But it's the truth in a nutshell. Obviously I'd like my blog to be a place where radical feminist minded folks can comment and discuss.
So over the next few days be expecting to hear about the blog's creation, if you happen to have a blog I like to fill up with my long-winded commentary. Now, how in the name of holy fucking Jesus do I change the way this thing looks?
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