talking at me, not talking to me

there were some middle age white communist dudes passing out literature at the hollywood farmers market today. one of these fuckers invoked harvey milk in an attempt to draw common ground after i had begun speaking about the legacies of black feminist marxism within this country.

excuse me sir, my first reaction is anger.

*how dare you make assumptions about my political identifications. you might as well call me a lesbian (a low down dirty shame on you). you are listening to the words i am saying. no no. you are looking at me and assuming i am at best a leftist leaning dyke with some complimentary economic views that you might be able to sway into organizing ranks for your leader bob avikian.
you need to sit down and think about a few things.

another smug asshole scraping from the barrel of identity politics. i am wiser than i look.

*why is harvey milk standing in as a the placeholder for the common ground of our conversation? and does it make you feel good about yourself that you can get out there in the middle of hollywood and preach the gospel, you aint trying to hear it from anyone but yourself?

youre up there riding on an awfully high horse to be considered a comrade.
dont get it twisted.
those persons constituted into subjects in the aftermath of the recognition of your own privilege are making you feel real good about your solidarity capabilities.
and i bet you call yourself an lgbt ally.

my second reaction is anger tempered with a bit of saddness.

the rich historical and contemporary litany of great organizing work being done by and for queer folks engaged in a struggle for economic justice reaches far closer to my heart than that of a post-sean penn harvey milk symbolism.

Feminist?

Want an article that fails to complicate feminism's relation to the sex trade?

Here it is:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/25/iceland-most-feminist-country

Apparently Iceland is completely closing down all strip clubs in the country, leading the article-writer to herald the country as "the most feminist in the world." Wha? From where I'm standing "feminists" have been asking to decriminalize the sex trade, not ban it.

According to the ban, this decision might be attributed to the lesbian prime minister or the many vocal feminist groups in the country. This article writer fails to even reference the common anti-porn/pro-sex debates common to feminisms before, fails to make any reference to the possibility that this might not be a win for feminism but the opposite.

This might lead us to the question: Have these stripping women been in the way of feminist change the entire time? How dare they! Don't they understand the ways that their choice to take off clothes for money keeps women from rising above oppression? No? Okay, let's put them out of a job; I've heard the economy's really good lately.

Andrea Dworkin writes of the ways that strip clubs, the porn industry, and the sex trade tells men that they should always have access to sex. These avenues teach men incorrectly that women's bodies should always be available to us. This logic follows objectification in any form to violence, from an American Apparel add to rape. I do not necessarily disagree with this logical tract, in fact I wish that this article on Iceland could have at least made some mention as to possible decrease in violence against strippers outside of their clubs that this might lead to. But it doesn't.

I do think that feminist responses to sex work, especially when the argument is to legalize sex work, needs to be very articulate about relationships between sex and violence. And I think we commonly are: when you criminalize these people who use their body for money you contribute to a prison industrial complex, one of the most violent institutions in existence.

Granted, I know nothing about Iceland's prison system. It will be interesting to see how this stripping ban shapes the political and feminist landscape to come. But articles like the one above makes me HATE calling myself a feminist, which I've come to understand as largely a too-broad-to-mean-anything-and-sometimes-dangerous-term. Just go ahead and google: "feminism" and "middle-east" if you want a world of complicated and fucked-up "feminist" reading.

hello again

i paid money to see that horrible film, Avatar 3D. and i will apologize in advance for what might seem like an incoherent rant.

starring a young white disabled ex marine twin who utilizes an avatar in order to infiltrate an indigenous community and resistance movement. and throughout the course of the film our white saviour - through a number of couragous able bodied hyper masculine acts- is accepted by the community and finds affinity with their cause. he is seen and sees.
(call and response interpellation ?)

what the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck.

1. why are the scientists left free of blame? excuse me. sigourney weaver being brought to the navi diety as the entire community prays for her human spirit to enter a native body. are you kidding me!

2. the discourse surrounding jake sully's romance with female lead, zoe saldana was disgusting.
and the part at the end when she holds his human self as a baby made me want to vom.

3. the part where jake sully dominates the giant bird thing and ascends to the symbolic throne of leadership and gains the silent respect of the new warrior king - dick fest.

4. jake sullys video diaries. fuck off.


the scariest thing about this film for me was the fact that it encouraged the very same kinds of multi-culti diversity post racial bullshit that perpetuates US imperialism in a very very real way and it does so through a weird retelling of indigenous struggle led by a white US marine.
the arc of the film pulls the audience in to empathetically identifiy with jake sully as a race traitor and with the indigenous people as spiritually pure underdogs. it focuses on jake sullys ability to become one with the navi people through his avatar. let me say that again.....
THE MOVIE REVOLVES AROUND THE FACT THAT (through technology) THE MAIN CHARACTER A FORMER MARINE CAN UTILIZE A NATIVE BODY IN ORDER TO BECOME A SYMBOLIC AND POLITICAL LEADER FOR AN ENTIRE ANTI-COLONIAL MOVEMENT. and this is the highest selling movie in America baby.

as you probably can see i have only half formed thoughts and fairly good amount of anger.
so for the purpose of furthering the convo to bring something good out of it... i will pose some reflective questions to help think through it all

how does this film make meaning out of bodies and which bodies, and what is that meaning used to do?

how is the nobility and innocence of scientific discourse upheld through the film in order to differentiate between good colonialism and bad colonialism. sigourney weaver wants to educate the natives and mine delicately for research whereas the big bad white dudes just want to mine for precious natural resource and kill anyone in the way. how do these two seemingly different approaches push and pull with each other to create good guys and bad guys and for what reason?

jake sully is taken as a joke by weaver for not being smart or well studied enough and by the marine general for being in a wheelchair. when do we get to see him shine with courage, quick wittedness, physical prowess, and sweltering romance? oh yea. thats right.

and of course there is more. but we will talk of it in later times i am sure.

and even more interestingly....
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/avatar-on-the-west-bank/

Feminists with Disabilities Talk Back: Amanda Palmer and Avant-Garde Ableism

Hello Everyone,

I thought you may want to check out this:

http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/02/22/a-few-words-on-some-previous-words/

It maps the controversy (and lets say extremely problematic and may I add violent conceptions) of the Evelyn Evelyn show/album by Amanda Palmer. I didn't know who she was before but I sure do now! I encourage everyone to read it. It is written by one of my esteemed cohort members, Anna, whose work encompasses the intersections and necessity of disability/ability within feminist discourse and action. I find that this actually speaks to the larger impulse on the side of art (black face in vogue cause its so avant-garde) to use controversial images and minstrelsy for capitalist gain. Anyway, I really enjoyed reading it and I hope you do as well!

Law and (Dis)Order: B.D. Wong and Psychosis

In the second season of Law and Order SVU we are introduced to the department's psychologist(chiatrist?) Dr. George Huang (B.D. Wong) who comes off as the slightly nerdy, well-informed and dare I say dashing man - duckbill hairstyle and all. As he steps into the multicultural circle of the SVU unit he is met with extreme distaste from those officers, namely Stabler, who can't fathom that this small time doctor knows about the big leagues. Oh, but he does! With a simple look at the case file, Huang can attest to the killer's personality right down to his intimate habits and possible working environment. How does he know? Psychology of course, something that doesn't stand up to Stabler's years of experience and NYC swagger. He finally becomes one of the crew, though, and most certainly post-9/11 becomes an asset to the team. What amazes me about Huang in these episodes is that he is so spot-on. I had no idea that forensics and criminal psychology was so great at identifying the criminal body and mind (insert sarcasm here). Huang finally makes the beginning credits and notorious shot of the SVU unit with arms crossed and gazing into the camera as if to say, "we know who you are." And I am led to believe that yes, Dr. Huang, you know who I am. I could possibly make a point here about the impulse of psychological knowledges that were used to describe, codify and order the terrorist body in times of national dilemma but the show doesn't seem to follow this call. There victims and killers span seem to be relatively white washed with obvious motives (money, sex, control). The slew of psychological disorders are saved for them - antisocial, DID, gender dysphoria. As for their racialized counterparts they seem to lack psychological distress. Why is this? My guess would be that rehabilitation, as it is shown in the show, is reserved for white bodies. They do their crimes because they have mental disorders. They often have family trauma, mommy and daddy issues, pedophilia urges and an inability to articulate their feelings. Whereas the criminals of color seem to be just bad. They are caught up in gang activity or just on the wrong side of life. Thus, in the midst of psychological narratives for terrorist bodies of color abroad there actually seems to be a lack of necessity for bodies of color within the nation state. While psychology may appease those going to war by ensuring them, that indeed they know the terrorist mind it doesn't seem to work the same in the context of SVU and the space of NYC. This contradiction is well worth noting in times of prison popularity. While the liberal eye is asked, for a moment, to reflect on what is going on with the white criminal mind they are also asked to kindly dispose of bodies of color without the same kind of respect. Now, psychological narratives are fucked up, I am not asking that they should be reserved for profiling (EVER) but I will say that they work in insidious ways to dissagregate those who may be curable and those who just need to be locked away.

Dating Tips...

Wanna know how to date right?

http://pbh3.tumblr.com/post/390543309/1938-dating-guide-for-single-women

This link was sent to my girlfriend by her sister. I feel like I encounter something like this every six months where people look at old dating advice for women or old advertisements and go "oh that's scary; things used to be so different back then." Bullshit! This kind of stuff is everywhere still. Every magazine advertised to straight women HAS to have some sort of list dating tips or ways to "please your man." You can easily google search "dating tips" and find contemporary lists that are more conservative than this one. (I found one that encourages women not to act so "butch" and never to be the first person to say "I love you." I'd like to give men a little more credit than these stereotypes that so many self-help articles do.)

We should do our best to avoid these false narratives of progressive gender politics. In cases such as "dating tips," the tips are often removed from their specific contexts: was this from the Glamour of the time, or from some gender-conforming propaganda? We also cannot assume that tips directly correlate to customs of the time, although it is true that cultural artifacts such as this do influence the norms of the time. By painting these progressive narratives we often effaces our connection with the past, how the past still haunts and stays with us. We can shrug our shoulders and say "that was then, we're much more advanced now." Not only is it dishonest, but these narratives of progressivism underlie excuses for colonization (speaking of histories we often try to distance ourselves from).

I do think the photos are pretty hilarious though. Especially the one where she rubs the head of the person in the next booth. If a girl did that on a date she'd be a total keeper in my book. But that's just me.

Citizenship Application

Here are some questions one must answer in order to apply for U.S. citizenship

"Have you ever been a member of or in any way associated with:

The communist Party

Any other totalitarian party

A terrorist organization

Have you ever advocated (either directly or indirectly) the overthrow of any government by force or violence

Have you ever persecuted any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group or political opinion?"

It then goes on to ask if you’ve ever been in direct relation with the Nazi party. Or any association with Germany during the Nazi regime.

I think the irony of asking "have you ever persecuted any person because of...national origin" is particularly rife. I assume the correct answer is "no," and that this application process does not count as persecution. I also can't tell if the advocation of the overthrow of any government by force or violence is something that would make you a bad candidate to be an American. I'd imagine that there are certain governments that would be considered acceptable to overthrow. What if the person was a member of a communist party, but only to start a ring of terrorists within the group with the party in order to overthrow the totalitarian regime? It seems like the application process is missing out on these very specific potential patriots.

Also, who is going to admit that they have been a member of a terrorist organization? That would be stupid.

The whole application is a good indication of the types of people The U.S. government considers "undesirable." Much like the type of people recent liberal legislation is hoping to crack down on with new reforms, while allowing for "better" processes for the desirable one. This is a time when I wish I had a good critique on how discourses on desirable versus undesirable immigration relied on racial and xenophobic histories that suck.

It later asks about things like prostitution and arrest record, an other example of the ways our frameworks for immigration our not created solely on racism and xenophbia, but gendered and sexual phobias are at play as well.

Fuck, it's been a minute since I've made myself think and write critically and complicatedly. I take solace knowing that no one is reading this.

Let's get this started again!

Some might start a new blog. Give up on the past, chalk it up to childhood antics. Get excited about a new project ("we could make a tumblr!"). How many blogs have we seen, become fascinated with, and then noticed that they haven't been updated in two years? How many projects have we started only to let die, drift away in our past conscience. On the Internet or elsewhere.

Sometimes it's necessary. Some projects serve their purpose before they're completed. Sometimes we get caught up in other "more important" stuff, so we can't dedicate the time or the energy that we'd like to our old projects.

But fuck that. I don't have time to start another project. But I do have time to reawaken an old one. And the people who started "gut the house" are too badass to leave behind in past conscience.

Maybe this is a rallying cry? Maybe I'm just bored or feel like I've become complicit. Maybe I want to reconnect to my old friends. (I miss you!!!)

Let's tear it up.

"The Pimp's Slaves" NY Times Article

Here is a link to Frank Rich's New York Times article titled "The Pimps' Slaves." Check it out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/opinion/16kristof.html?ex=1206417600&en=6b434f464f3d3e57&ei=5070&emc=eta1

12/18/07

i havent much to say but for the consistency's sake, i figured i would throw a post out there. ive been thinking about how feminism can be used monolitically as a crutch, maybe like most -isms get used as crutches to an over-simplification. this maybe not sound coherent, but hear me out. those who stride forth and proclaim ardently their affiliation and dedication to feminism (myself included) find a hard time understanding when women (and men for that matter) do not take on the same points of view. and furthermore, it can be those who are so resolute in their beliefs that fail to effectively translate the theoretical and discursive underpinnings of their stances. extremists, though not radicals, can be bad news bears when it comes to a productive conversation. advocates of feminism who fail to recognize the vitality of different feminisms make coalitions impossible.

now i am not just speaking of the obvious tensions that evoke broad discussions multiculturalism vs. universalism. i mean to look more specifically at how my own opinions and beliefs have evolved on a very personal level. i think its valid to say that people can identify with parties and movements and theories that have a definite and concrete set of questions and answers. example : the democratic party is like a tangible entity, hence the availbility of such a party base. its like subscribing to the template. i see this as the most flagrant failure of those who claim their 'liberal' status. maybe that is what im talking about, im thinking about the ways in which we subscribe to the templates of 'American' feminism without turning the critical lens on the racism and classism that pervades it. but then we get back into the world of isms and ists. i need a means of conceptualization that does not find itself stuck in poststructuralism or feminism or socialism etc. etc. i guess my problem is that its so easy to espose something as doctrine without even needing to understand more than its basic pillars. but maybe thats what makes things reachable. and then we have to include the ideas of agency and access.

yea, this post isnt coherent at all. itd do us better to have a conversation. i guess my point is that in my younger days i found strength in the title of a feminist but more recently, i find more solace in the notion that feminism and feminists are hardly coherent and collectively consolidated.

just something ive been thinking about. hope all is well rounding out '07!

trading cards.

Theory.org.uk has a set of 21 trading cards for some popular theorists throughout the ages. Some of them are quite funny. Its also a pretty cool website that has info about media studies, critical studies, resources, projects, etc etc. check it out if you feel compelled...

trading cards: http://www.theorycards.org.uk/main.htm



main index: http://www.theory.org.uk/index.htm

nussbaum vs. butler round 1

martha nussbaum, the universalist HR philosopher takes a few hits at judith butler. and by a few hits, i mean she attacks her entire philosophical approach. a good read, but take it with a grain of salt.

make sure to check the letters to editor section after her piece. Gayatri Spivak, Joan Scott, Nancy Fraser chime in amongst others. Nussbaum replies.

http://www.arlindo-correia.com/100702.html

a letter.

dear gay and lesbian rights activists,

i hate you. and you know what else, i dont really like Ellen either. She's not really that funny and shes sterilized herself of sexuality via NBC (or whatever network it is that shes sold out to). I don't really find much liberation in Miller Light floats in gay pride parades while there are still Man Law commericals out there. Fuck you, Advocate magazine. Hear me out, corporate homos and power lesbians suck. The L Word is blatantly racist (yet i still watch it). Gay marriage will not solve all your problems. I want to be with the freaks. I want to be a freak. Don't get me wrong, I understand from where you are coming, but what is it really going to do? Will we be further entrenched in the quagmire of liberal politics that fail time and time again to recognize the structural and institutional problems within the discourse of 'sexual freedom'? Where is the queer? I understand that there are a multitude of areas for subversion even within the liberal gay and les politics, but it doesnt impress me.

Single gender education

I know I'm not technically a U of I GWS major any more (though I think it's a lifelong title, really). But here's a GWS related conflict for you. I'm teaching in a coed high school now, and the other day, a teacher who was using my classroom made the comment that he thought all high school should be separated by gender. He used to work at an all boys' high school. Having attended an all girls' high school myself (which I loved) I tend to agree with him. I don't specifically track how often students of different genders raise their hands or do any other behavior. but I do notice that they spend a LOT of time during the day discussing who is dating whom, who is eyeing whom across the room, who is passing notes to whom during class, who is paying extra careful attention to their appearance for whom, etc. The whole environment is very heteronormative (though I suppose dividing anything into two genders would be heteronormative, too) and very different from how I went through my four years of high school. So, one part of me knows that my high school experience played a major role in cultivating a lot of the things I like about myself now. And the other part of me says that treating people differently or separately based on gender only reinforcees the dichotomy and naturalizes the social construct. I've been telling myself that gender divided schools are an appropriate response to the fact that we can't avoid that boys and girls are raised differently and therefore may need different things. But it seems like that just feeds into the cycle rather than interrupting it. Thoughts? Does anyone even still read this thing?

Speak out for sexual assault survivors

Here's a quick petition to sign. I think someone posted about this case below... or perhaps I read about it somewhere else. Either way, it's apalling and could set a dangerous precedent. Basically it's a rape case in which the words "rape" and "sexual assault kit" are not allowed to be used in the courtroom. You can read more about it by clicking the links on the petition page.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freespeechforsurvivors/

How To Tame Your Liberal Husband

Hey, this was a video that we made for our sketch comedy group The Other Other Guys. I figured I'd post it and see what everyone thought. We have other sketches under the same username if you find this one funny, although they have no right being posted on this blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGlI6JX1eo

Its too long to post, but i read this article on recommendation by Bess via gws470 (i think)

check this out if youve got a chance...

The "Empire" Strikes Back: The Post-Transsexual Manifesto
By: Sandy Stone
http://www.sterneck.net/cybertribe/gender/stone-posttranssexuel/index.php

On Love of The Neighbor- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: First Part

YOU CROWD around your neighbor, and have fine words for it. But I say to you: your love of the neighbor is your bad love of yourselves.
You flee to your neighbor from yourselves, and would rather make a virtue of it: but I fathom your "unselfishness."
The you is older than the I; the you has been consecrated, but not yet the I: so man presses near to his neighbor.
Do I advise you to love of the neighbor? Rather do I advise you to flight from the neighbor and to love of the farthest!
Higher than love of your neighbor is love of the farthest and future ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things and phantoms.
The phantom that runs on before you, my brother, is fairer than you; why do you not give to it your flesh and your bones? But you are afraid, and run to your neighbor.
You cannot endure yourselves and do not love yourselves sufficiently: so you seek to mislead your neighbor into love, to gild yourselves with his error.
If only you could not endure any kinds of neighbors; then you would have to create your friend and his overflowing heart out of yourselves.
You call in a witness when you want to speak well of yourselves; and when you have misled him to think well of you, you also think well of yourselves.
Not only does he lie, who speaks when he knows better, but more so, he who speaks when he knows nothing. And thus you speak of yourselves, and lie to your neighbor with yourselves.
Thus says the fool: "Association with men spoils the character, especially when one has none."
The one goes to his neighbor because he seeks himself, and the other because he would rather lose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison to you.
It is the farthest ones who pay for your love to the near ones; and even when there are five of you together, there is always a sixth who must die.
I do not love your festivals either: I found too many actors there, and even the spectators often behaved like actors.
Not the neighbor do I teach you, but the friend. Let the friend be the festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of the Superman.
I teach you the friend and his overflowing heart. But one must know how to be a sponge, if one would be loved by over-flowing hearts.
I teach you the friend in whom the world stands complete, a capsule of the good,- the creating friend, who always has a complete world to give away.
And as the world unrolled itself for him, so rolls it together again for him in rings, as the becoming of good through evil, as the becoming of purpose out of chance.
Let the future and the farthest be the motive of your today; in your friend you shall love the overman as your motive.
My brothers, I advise you not to love of the neighbor- I advise you to love of the farthest!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Hello! Hello! As school has winded down and the first few weeks of summer have now settled themselves....we can all get back to the bloggy-bloggy goodness! Recently, Ive been reading a bit of Nietzsche. Some would call him the father of the geneaology and I would go as far to say that he had some major major influence on our old pal Michel Foucault. So I figured, if Im down with Foucault it would be a good idea to take a look at who he was down with. Right yo! But more to the point, this exerpt above struck me so as an allusion to what we would now call the problem of "self/other" dichotomy. We love our neighbors in the way that allows us to construct the other in opposition to ourselves. So as our neighbors become the self, we enlist those in closest proximity to ourselves whether that be locational, idealogical, etc. We do so sometimes at the expense of a difficult and sometimes contradictary and complex coalition. on a more global scale its the difference between what we call Western feminist neo-imperialism and a transnational feminist politics.

We enlist ourselves under a binary system that fails to address the problems with how and why we construct a 'common identity'. So instead of a coalitional (is that a word?) identity politics, we have the bastardization/demonization/pathologization of the "other" that can parade under the guise of the arrogant self-righteousness of what I see as modern day missionary sensibilities of those who call themselve allies to feminist causes or it can parade under liberal humanist notions of authority and agency backed by science and reason.

So we use our neighbors and the love of our neighbors as a replacement for the love of the the farthest and the future. Even further along, he goes into the idea that higher than the love of the farthest and the future is the love of phatoms and things. In my version that line was translated as...."I esteem the love of things and ghosts." Might this read as a what we can call a post-structuralist account of our histories...much like a genealogy? A love of those ghosts which still present themselves and have a hand in the construction of the languages and discourses which constitute our identities.

And so he goes on to preach the teaching of the friend, love of the friend with the overflowing heart. To be a sponge to such overflow...to learn, to be open to learning, to be open to the furtherst. Now Nietzsche was definitely not a feminist, but he exhibits a degree of honesty throughout what Ive read thus far. He is not afraid to take the polemic stance, and to deconstruct what we take blindly as morality or common sense. And maybe thats where Foucault and others have picked up (non-linearly of course). Maybe the friend with the overflowing heart and the sponge is symbolic of what a transnational politics can look like. Sponges....yea for real yo....sponges-you can get all kinds of nice symbolism of them.

Word. I may be wrong, a high probability. But, I was reading this passage today and I thought it was rather lovely and I wanted to share...

ps- the exerpt i included isnt exactly the same as the translated version ive got, but its fairely close.

Mary Jane... what the fuck are you doing?

O MJ... so beautiful with your thong hanging out and your breasts popping out of your shirt while you work hard to wash spiderman's clothes.... how rediculous is this? AWEFUL!!!! i tell you... and this is a real figurine? HA! Comments.... you can also check out the LJ that girl posted this on and others comments...

http://devildoll.livejournal.com/750924.html

My Family

I always tell stories about my niece and how she is being raised and how I always feel like I have to go home and "fix" all the things she has learned about gender in 4 years. Well, after seeing this picture, my work is going to be infinitely harder than I had imagined.