My Top Ten Wishes for the New Year, 5770 (the Jewish New Year, that is)

[image is from here]
My Top Ten wish list for this new year, 5770, is as follows:

1. That white Europeans, U.S. whites, and other white people currently not living in Israel not relocate to Israel.
2. That Jews currently living in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories move out of the region.
3. That the Israeli government get forces out of any Palestinian land they are militarily occupying and stop economic sanctions against Palestinian farmers and families.
4. That the Israeli government stop oppressing Palestinians, stop all racist policies and practices--including against Mizrahic Jews, and stop behaving like a white male supremacist state.
5. That Israeli men stop battering and raping Israeli women, Palestinian women, and any other women.
6. That at any check-point, Palestinian women are not verbally, physically, or sexually assaulted by Jewish guards and officers.
7. That Palestinians secure a safe, stable, sustainable homeland in the Middle East.
8. That Middle Eastern Jews secure a stable, sustainable homeland in the Middle East that in no way requires the oppression or expulsion of Palestinians.
9. That Jews no longer experience any expressions or manifestations of anti-Jewish bigotry and violence.
10. That G-d bring peace to all the descendants of Shem, allowing us to see each another as part of one loving family.

END OF POST.

Even more misogynist and racist stupidity by the media on the abduction, rape, and murder of women by white men

Dr Gary Martin, director of operations for Marshall Medical Center's pathology department, said Le was the best student he'd ever had as a volunteer. She was "a little stick of dynamite," he said. "She was smart, she was vivacious, always cheery, a ton of energy."

And heterosexual men say they only wanna kill the st*pid b*tches and d*mb h*s. Guess not. They'll apparently just as easily murder a woman of color who was smart, cheery, a ton of energy, like a little stick of dynamite. It's too bad she didn't have a little stick of dynamite to shove into her murderer's body before getting away alive. Perhaps that's what those who are systematically targeted for men's violence need now, in addition to pepper spray, a model mugging course, and car keys poised between the fingers.


The case of alleged kidnapper Phillip Garrido and the murder of Annie Le are linked through a Californian town

By Charles Laurence
FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

El Dorado County has not been much in the headlines since the heady days of the California Gold Rush. But the county that stretches east from Sacramento, the state capital, to the Sierra mountains, currently finds itself at the centre of two of the hottest crime stories in America.

In a bizarre twist of fate, the abduction by Phillip Garrido of Jaycee Lee Dugard and the murder of graduate student Annie Le at Yale University, both making headlines in the United States, are linked through El Dorado County and its county capital, Placerville, situated in the densely wooded foothills of the Sierras.

Garrido (above), dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, appeared before a judge at the El Dorado County court in Placerville on Monday, to have his bail set at a stunning $30m. The judge called for psychological evaluation and announced that his next court appearance will be on October 29, when a date will be set for Phillip and Nancy Garrido's preliminary hearing.

At a press conference afterwards, District Attorney Vern Pierson said it was likely Jaycee Lee Dugard would appear to testify against the man who is alleged to have abducted her, raped her and imprisoned her for 18 years in the backyard of his Californian home. Pierson said it was a constitutional requirement that a defendant has the chance to face in court the key witness to their alleged crime.

Placerville is only 60 miles from South Lake Tahoe City - El Dorado County's only other city - where Jaycee was famously snatched in 1991 as she walked to school. Not only are the Garridos alleged to have held her captive in their backyard in Antioch - a neighbourhood south of Sacramento, on the edge of the San Francisco Bay area - but Garrido is known to have fathered two girls by her. Hence the rape charges.

There is no confirmation yet as to whether Garrido might face further charges concerning other disappearances and deaths in California in the intervening years.

On the same day that Garrido faced the judge in Placerville, police in New Haven, Connecticut, confirmed that the body found on Sunday hidden in a basement cable duct in Yale University's medical building was that of 24-year-old Annie Le, who came to the Ivy League university from El Dorado County.

She volunteered at the Marshall Medical Center in Placerville after graduating from the Union Mine High School in El Dorado town, five miles down Highway 50.

Annie Le's death has gripped the public imagination, partly because her body was found on Sunday on the night she should have been marrying her fiancé, a Columbia University graduate called Jonathan Widawsky.

Police in New Haven, where crime-ridden ghettos surround the leafy Yale campus, have so far offered no clues as to Le's killer. On Monday they denied that they had any suspects or "persons of
interest", as had been reported. They had found clothes hidden in a drop-ceiling near Le's body, but they were not the clothes Le was wearing as she entered the building on September 8, filmed by a security camera.

Officer Joe Avery added that "we are not looking at it [the murder]
as a random act".

Anyone going into the laboratory building where Le, a graduate medical student, was murdered would have to have security clearance and passes. "Only Yalies had access to that basement," said Thomas Kaplan, editor of the Yale Daily News, "and that seems to point to someone in our community being involved in this."

Back in Placerville, locals were remembering the 4ft 11in girl who clearly made an impact. Dr Gary Martin, director of operations for Marshall Medical Center's pathology department, said Le was the best student he'd ever had as a volunteer. She was "a little stick of dynamite," he said. "She was smart, she was vivacious, always cheery, a ton of energy."

Her class yearbook from 2003 - the year she graduated from Union Mine - showed that she was voted the female student "most likely to be the next Einstein". We do not yet know what Phillip Garrido's classmates might have said in his yearbook.

___________________

Or, maybe the two cases are linked by the necessary violence against women needed to maintain white male supremacy. Ya think? -- Julian

END OF POST.

A "Demanding Job" is the Latest Excuse for why White Men Kill Women of Color

[photograph of Annie Le, who was murdered by the white man in the photo below, is from the AP]

Men who knew Raymond Clark III (in photo below), the white man arrested for the murder reported to CNN that he was "a nice man, always" and "'not at all' violent". Ah, the patriarchy-protecting Bonds of Brotherhood. And more proof that men who hate and harm women don't run around like lunatics waving old issues of Ms. Magazine. They are nice guys, sweet men, kind, considerate, and fun. (And some of them are also known for being grumpy, disagreeable, overtly controlling bastards.) The point being: they are the men we know, who live everywhere.

[photograph of Raymond Clark, Yale employee, who has been charged with murdering the Yale University student Annie Le. Photograph: John Woike/AP/Hartford Courant]

The New York Times' version of the murder of Annie Le is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/nyregion/18yale.html. From that piece is the following passage:

Chief James Lewis of the New Haven police would not speak about a possible motive, but said, “It is important to note that this is not about urban crime, university crime, domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country.”

The chief sought to dispel any notion that Ms. Le, who was about to be married, had been stalked by Mr. Clark or that Yale itself was unsafe.

Police chief James Lewis is full of CRAP and doesn't have a goddamned clue what the fuck he's talking about. We are not surprised he's risen to be a police chief in a city thick with racism, classism, and misogyny.

Strange, isn't it, how white men's stress seems to get acted out disproportionately against women, given that men work with other men so often. Let's be clear: "a demanding job" has nothing whatsoever to do with why white men kill women of any ethnicity or race. Men kill women because men can kill women and usually get away with it. Men kill women because women are systemically targeted by men for systematic assault and murder. End of story.

I just wish the dominant media would tell it like it is.

One presumes if the jobs in the lab were so demanding, she might just as easily have killed him. Hmmm. But it never works that way, does it? One might also presume the lab conditions might be a tad more stressful on the lab animals than on the white man working there. Too bad the animals themselves didn't take him out before he murdered Annie Le. But again, we know who is allowed to kill whom, in a white male supremacist society that thinks of non-human animals and human women as things for men to exploit, torture, and destroy, with a regularity that ought to strike most people as constituting an atrocity. And, to report all the facts, he was known as "an animal lover" and "a kind man". With lovers and kind men like that...

The white male president of Yale, Richard Levin, was equally politically stupid about this crime, noting:

Yale's president, Richard Levin, said Clark had worked at the university since December 2004, and that nothing in his employment record foreshadowed violence.

"It is very disturbing to think that a university employee might have committed this crime," he said, stressing that the campus and the city are safe.

"What happened here could have happened anywhere," he said. "It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about anything else."

"This incident could have happened in any city, in any university, or in any workplace. It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures," Levin said in a message sent to the Yale community.

Nice try, Levin. But this murder says much more about the very white side of masculinist atrocity. The harassment and rape, and now murder, of women on your campus would lead anyone to a different conclusion. It should lead anyone to conclude that Yale University is not a safe place for women to study or work:

Even statistics tell only a partial story of acquaintance rape at universities across America: one-fifth of college women experience forced sex by someone they know, and more than 80 percent of all rapes are acquaintance rapes (according to the National Institutes of Health Study and the US Department of Justice). At Yale, the statistics seem more reassuring at face value. No incidents of rape have been reported to the University Police department so far in 1996. An untold number of incidents are excluded from this statistic, however; they are either handled by Yale's Executive Committee for disciplinary action or simply dropped because of lack of evidence, publicity-wary authorities, or the victim's own shame. "When I talk to women's groups, they cannot believe that the official rape statistics at Yale are so low. They've heard of many more incidents by word of mouth. But people have to realize that acquaintance rape is almost never reported to the police," Yale Police Sergeant Patrick Wrinn said.

Hey, Patrick, break the bonds of The Brotherhood and educate the president of the place where you're employed, as well as the New Haven police chief, about what is really going down there.

My condolences to the friends and family of Annie Le, who lived to be only 24 due to "a co-worker's demanding job". May she rest in peace.

May her murderer rot in hell, ASAP.

[Richard Levin's quote and both images are from the guardian.co.uk article linked to here]

And they say white men don't protect one another's crimes against humanity and non-human life. How much proof do we need? How many more women have to be murdered, at home, at school, and at work, in men's apartments, motel, and hotel rooms, and on the street, before white men, collectively, "get it"?

END OF POST.

Tracking U.S. White Men Raping Female Children in Cambodia

[image is from here, where there's an article on global trafficking and sexual slavery]

ABC News prefers to pretend these predators are unraced and ungendered by calling their report: Tracking Suspected American Pedophiles in Cambodia.

The name of this effort to catch these Western white male rapers of female Cambodian children is termed "Operation Twisted Traveler" not "Normal U.S. white men going to Cambodia to rape children, again". Why is that?

The man most focused on in this report is from Arizona, and his name is Harvey Johnson. He has been spending time in Cambodia as "a teacher". This particular girl-raper lies through his teeth as easily as he breathes. It is my sincere hope that he soon not be able to do either.

The story is told in what I found to be a very TRIGGERING way. BE WARNED: graphic details of child-rape are in this report. And, this report is another terribly usual story of yet another white man taking advantage of his privileges to use and abuse human beings for his own pleasure. See here for more. The written report and the video are BOTH VERY DISTURBING. Related stories are below on the same page. Parts 1 and 2 of the story which includes tracking down and interrogating this PRICK may be found at the following two links:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8597611

and

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8597618

END OF POST.

Rest in Peace and Love, Mary Travers (1936-2009)

I love so many Peter, Paul, and Mary songs, but perhaps this one is my favorite:



I am just so sad to hear the news of your passing, Mary. May your voice sing on in harmony with the call for justice and freedom for the oppressed.

From here:

Mary Travers of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary died Wednesday after a long battle with leukemia. She was 72.

Bandmate Peter Yarrow said Travers handled her disease with "great dignity."

"It was, as Mary always was, honest and completely authentic," he said. "That's the way she sang, too, honestly and with complete authenticity," Yarrow told The Associated Press.

Travers underwent a successful bone marrow transplant to treat her leukemia and while she could perform after that, she told WTOP radio in Washington that her condition had worsened earlier this year.

Noel "Paul" Stookey praised Travers for her inspiring activism, "especially in her defense of the defenseless."

"I am deadened and heartsick beyond words to consider a life without Mary Travers," he told The Associated Press.

The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, said Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.

Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk groups of the 1960s, with hit songs such as "If I Had a Hammer," "Lemon Tree," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff the Magic Dragon."

Mary Allin Travers was born Nov. 9, 1936, in Louisville, Ky., to two journalists who moved the family to New York's Greenwich Village. She attended school through the 11th grade before pursuing a singing career.

Pete Seeger, a founding member of the folk group the Weavers, lived in the same building as the Travers family and Travers performed with him.

Travers backed Seeger on one album and for two shows at Carnegie Hall, but it wasn't until she connected with Yarrow and Stookey that she found worldwide success. Yarrow was managed by Albert Grossman, who later worked with Bob Dylan.

The trio rehearsed in Travers' apartment for several months before its 1961 debut at the Bitter End in New York City.

The group won five Grammy Awards for its three-part harmony for "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Puff the Magic Dragon" and Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."

Travers is survived by her fourth husband, Ethan Robbins, and daughters Alicia and Erika.

For a video featuring three of the greats of 1960s U.S. white folk-pop music: Mama Cass, Joni Mitchell, and Mary Travers, singing a Bob Dylan song "I Shall Be Released", click here.

END OF POST.

Radical Feminist Divine Purpose CALLING OUT A MAN: one of many astounding ways to do so...

I do not WANT you to just concede and agree. David for ME this is more than some debate, and it is certainly not just an argument that I want to win. I want to point by point make crystal clear to you YOUR privilege and YOUR ignorance to female issues. I want you to walk away from this discussion and think “Why didn’t I see that saying that women need to take defense classes puts the responsibility on WOMEN to stop rape? Why didn’t I think that it would be MORE PRODUCTIVE to create classes on sexual harassment, rape, and coercion for men as a BETTER means to stop men from raping women? How can I change that, how can I address my male privilege so that I don’t view everything through THAT lens?” I do not want you to simply agree with me, glad you do, but that does NOTHING for me or for women who are raped. It is most important that you address, consider and OWN your own male privilege so as to be accountable for it, and to make sure you filter every thought, word, deed before you proceed. It is your JOB to do so; it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to do so.

The above passage by Divine Purpose, aka A Lady Divine was copied and pasted by me from what follows below. I welcome all men to read, and reread, all of this post, as many times as it takes to "get" what she's saying. For the earlier portions of this exchange and discussion, see here.

For me, what Divine Purpose says below stands on its own as what I feel is a superb calling out of a man on his male privileges and ignorance. It angers me that women have to go to such lengths to get men to "get" and "own" the simplest things. But welcome to the world of patriarchal privilege.

David, here, get's what ought to be considered a GREAT learning opportunity to expand and deepen his humanity and consciousness. It is his words that are in quotes. Divine Purpose's comments follow each quoted portion of what David wrote to her.

Does he learn from this? Stay tuned.
-- Julian (ROCK ON LADY DIVINE!!)

Part 1 of 5 of my response:

[David wrote:] “So I'm not sure if it is a pro-male system as much as a pro-white male system. That means that there are plenty of men of color who go to jail for crimes they do not commit, see Troy Davis as a prominent recent example of this.

I am of the impression that you are a white male, so maybe you think your proposed idea will not affect you, because you will not rape/abuse a woman. But a POC male cannot afford the same type of thinking, as they are falsely accused of crimes all the time.”

David, up until this point I’ve been very nice and very kind to you, even in your ignorance of your privilege. I feel very strongly that much of what you are saying stems from ignorance and white supremacy, and I also feel very strongly that you’re largely unaware of it, which is why I have been nicer to you than I would be to most men. That said, gloves are off and swords are drawn, punches will not be pulled, and I request, in advance, that you listen to what I am saying, and not assume it is an attack on you. Disclaimer over.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 12:50:00 PM EDT
aladydivine said...
Part 2

What you just said above is VERY typical of a male, and of most of our society. Men of color, primarily black men, issues ALWAYS eclipse female issues, and especially black female issues. Take Skippy gates for example. Fool mouths off at a police officer and the nation is a buzz about race… a Boston Police officer responds to Yvonne Abraham (a writer for the Boston Globe) about her article on the situation. Yvonne is a WHITE female who wrote about race issues and the “struggle” Gates has had to over come to be a Harvard professor. First, that in itself is BULLSHIT because if ANYONE knows Gates or has read his writings on the so called black community you would understand that he doesn’t identify with the black struggle. Actually he trivializes it and holds a very white supremacist view on blackness and black people who aren’t middle/upper class pompous assholes like himself, but I digress. So Abraham writes a column, Officer Justin Barrett responds calling her all types of DISGUSTINGLY anti-female pejoratives, and using very inflammatory anti-black language as well. What does everyone see? They see that Barrett called Gates a banana eating jungle monkey. What they FAILED to see is that Barrett also told Abraham, an established and accomplished Journalist, that she was only good to fetch him coffee, that she was a hot little bird, and worse shows his contempt for women, his contempt for blacks, and his contempt for anyone who talks about race issues in general. Officer Barrett was working out of Mattapan Ma, in Boston which is one of the MOST predominantly Black communities in the city. But people didn’t even see that shit, all they saw was an accomplished black man being called a banana eating jungle monkey by a white officer, because black men’s issues are MORE IMPORTANT than any woman of any color’s issues. Read more on that, and my position on black male issues eclipsing ANY female’s issues here: http://aladydivine.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/apparantly-black-mens-oppression-is-more-important/

That said, you are guilty of that same crime by pointing out how MOC will be affected blah blah blah. I’m very aware of the disparity and the disgusting numbers of black men behind bars doing harsh time for shit charges, it’s a serious issue to me. It should be to anyone who isn’t racist, and white supremacist, HOWEVER it does serve a male supremacist agenda to ALWAYS allude to, and discuss black male issues while IGNORAING black female, and any female, realities and issues. You pointing out how the justice system overwhelmingly impacts black men is done so at the expense of women, of all women. I see how it could need to be addressed, and how it is important that we keep in mind that systemic racism and white supremacy STILL EXIST, yes, great wonderful, however, you say this and place your primary focus on MOC. I’m unimpressed by this… and I’m a WOC. I’ll delve more into this further down.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 12:51:00 PM EDT
aladydivine said...
Part 3:

“ALD responded and agreed, but also added that I was not focusing on male responsibilities and that classes that taught them why rape/violence against women is bad would be good as well. I conceded that, and agreed.

I do not WANT you to just concede and agree. David for ME this is more than some debate, and it is certainly not just an argument that I want to win. I want to point by point make crystal clear to you YOUR privilege and YOUR ignorance to female issues. I want you to walk away from this discussion and think “Why didn’t I see that saying that women need to take defense classes puts the responsibility on WOMEN to stop rape? Why didn’t I think that it would be MORE PRODUCTIVE to create classes on sexual harassment, rape, and coercion for men as a BETTER means to stop men from raping women? How can I change that, how can I address my male privilege so that I don’t view everything through THAT lens?” I do not want you to simply agree with me, glad you do, but that does NOTHING for me or for women who are raped. It is most important that you address, consider and OWN your own male privilege so as to be accountable for it, and to make sure you filter every thought, word, deed before you proceed. It is your JOB to do so; it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to do so.

“My goal is to protect the innocent. Innocent men from a punishment that cannot be reversed in light of new information, innocent women from rape/other types of abuse. I am not sure how this is only about protecting innocent men, maybe you could clarify?”

Only recently did you even mention WOMEN when you were talking about innocence. Prior to here, and perhaps in an email to me (but only after I pointed it out to you) you didn’t put innocent and woman in the same sentence. In prior conversations innocent=man as your point of contention, it wasn’t until I asked you were not women and girls innocent? Is a rape victim not innocent? So the point HERE is to yet again get you to see your privilege and ignorance as I believe that your failure to acknowledge the innocence of girls and women who are raped to be a product of your privilege. If your goal is to protect the innocent, period, and there isn’t a presence of thought or a bias towards men, then why was your ONLY solution to defending women and girls one that places responsibility on THEIR shoulders? If your goal is to protect the innocent, why do you continually mention innocent men when we’re talking about MEN WHO HAVE INDEED raped women (as with the fucker in the article on my blog)? Think DEEPLY about that, and when I say think I really mean that. You men are rarely able to think without an instant need to rebut, I do not want to debate you, I do not want you to go on the defense, I want you to THINK and to consider these points without needing to defend yourself. No one is saying you’re a rapist; no one is trying to call you anything negative. What I am trying to do is to get you to see, own, acknowledge and deal with your privilege. If you respond with the same nonsense after I have very clearly spelled it out for you it will be very telling of the depths to which your privilege/ignorance runs. That is not an indictment on your character, it is the truth about men raised in patriarchy and the way we normalize male privilege in this culture in such a way that men don’t even SEE it.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 12:51:00 PM EDT
aladydivine said...
Part 4:

“The only point of contention I had was that me arguing to defend men who did not rape was not me putting them over innocent women (I felt that was a result of me only referring to men, which was a result of the points I addressed leading me to only responding to points about men). I also suggested a way to protect innocent women, through self defense classes.”

I would first suggest that you do some reading on rape, and on how victims respond. I can tell you that when I had 3 men chase me home because I refused to go round the corner with them the very last thing I was thinking about was the 6in knife I kept in my coat pocket. ALL I could think of was “fuckin pick your feet up and put them down girl, get your keys ready, faster, faster, don’t turn around it will slow you down, breathe, pay attention to the sounds of their footsteps you will know if their gaining on you, ok there are two to the left of you and one right behind you, oh shit one on the left is trying to get ahead of you so you’re surrounded… would it be better to run to the main street where there are more people? What if you run to the main street and NO ONE HELPS You? Make it look like you’re going straight and at the last second bang that left they’ll never see it coming. God help me please I don’t want to be hurt tonight, ok up the stairs, key in door QUICK FUCKIN CLOSE THE DOOR.” After getting safely behind one door and going through the second door to the stairs I collapsed on the stairs out of breath, heart racing, tears streaming down my face, scared out of my mind, wondering if I should call the cops, and then I ran up the stairs to my apartment, of course I didn’t turn the lights on, because they were throwing their bodies into the fuckin door. So typical of a man, who will NEVER in his LIFE have to face the fear of what it means to be a woman being preyed on by men to say take self defense classes. Been there done that, and NONE Of it would’ve helped me in that situation. I didn’t even REMEMBER any of it. This isn’t fuckin Kill Bill! This is real life! And as a woman who has gotten into her fair share of fights with men, I would’ve been no match for THREE MEN hell bent on getting what they wanted from me that night. I was just trying to go home after a long day at work and a night class that went from 7-9pm. But yeah, thank you for throwing us poor womyn folk a bone by saying we should be taught how to defend ourselves against men. How does that address incest? Or Date rape? Or when a woman is raped by her friend? I’m going to say something publicly that I never thought I would… when my “friend” preyed on me, when he waited until I was so fucked up and vulnerable that I wouldn’t be able to resist him, when he got closer and closer to me with the goal of fucking me, I wasn’t able to fight him. I wasn’t in any way prepared for what he did to me… you never are. I don’t care how kick ass you are, how strong and empowered you are, when someone preys on your weakness, and waits until something tragic has happened to you to make their move you freeze. You don’t think of the moves you learned in some damn class… you introvert, you steel yourself emotionally and you prepare for the worst. But of course, a man full off of his privilege would think that he’s “done something” grand by saying self defense classes for women means he acknowledges our innocence. It speaks more to your IGNORANCE and the lack of knowledge you have on rape, and victim responses than anything else.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 12:52:00 PM EDT
aladydivine said...
Part 5:

“Since the basis of my argument is that it is better to let ten guilty go free than to punish one innocent, I expect you to disagree with me… If you believe that I am saying, a few innocent men are worth more than many innocent women, I am trying to tell you I would not.”

And here is the most male supremacist thing you’ve said to date. Of COURSE to YOU it is better, and my anger wants to tell you to fuck off for being so ignorant to the pain that inflicts on women like me who have been victimized and who have watched their attacker go FREE. How the hell do you think you’re not saying a few innocent men are worth more than many innocent women when you also believe that it is “better to let ten guilty go free than to punish one innocent?” To let 10 guilty men go free is to sentence countless women and girls to victimization. It is to put innocent men over innocent unsuspecting unprotected women and girls and I deeply resent you for saying that. I am enraged in a way I cannot even begin to describe to you cordially, for DARING to say you’re concerned about innocent women and girls then spit that filth about 10 guilty men freed being “better” than 1 innocent punished. How painfully MALE of you to say so, how ignorant, privileged and FUCKED UP of you to say something like that, particularly on a feminist woman’s blog with NO KNOWLEDGE of what her reality is, and with NO CONCERN for what such a comment could and would mean for women who read her blog who have been raped, then further victimized by the “justice” system only to see her attacker walk free. I don’t think I can even attempt to address anymore of your ignorance right now, because I am so fuckin angry at the level of contempt you show for women and the camaraderie you show with men. You are supporting rape in that statement whether you acknowledge it or not.


“If that is disrespectful to you, that’s too bad, but that is a reflection on you seeing the worst in people, not me.”

Yet another privileged statement from you David. You did that same thing to me remember? I was “attacking” you when I pointed out male privilege and the typical arguments male supremacists make when talking about holding men accountable for raping women and girls. It’s not about Julian seeing the worst in people, it’s him seeing the TRUTH in people, and particularly men like you.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 12:52:00 PM EDT

What to do about Internet Pornography: One Approach

[until the Internet entered the lives of millions of people, making pornography--women's exploited and/or raped bodies, accessible to men 24/7]

What follows is a link to a PDF document, which is an outline, table of contents, and summary of a thesis paper on how best to tackle the problem of Internet pornography. Click here to read this PDF document. The thesis it describes is titled: "Regulating Internet Pornography as an Issue of Sex Discrimination", by Michelle Evans.

The argument put forth by Evans is that a censorship approach to dealing with pornography, which is a form of sexual discrimination negatively impacting women's civil and human rights, as a class, is misguided and inadequate. An approach that cannot even see what pornography is and does, cannot remotely remedy the serious problems its existence presents. Offered as an alternative, by Evans, is a civil rights-based legal approach to combating the harm perpetrated by the makers, marketers, and consumers of pornography.

I wish the whole thesis paper were available online, but until I find that, we have a sketch of what Michelle Evans proposes.

I fully support approaches to ending white and male supremacist exploitation and violence against women that names what is being done rather than pretending "pornography" is some abstract, vague idea in the liberal imagination, a matter of sexual taste, or a bunch of naughty pictures of people being sexual. If you think pornography is any of those things just listed, you are not really examining the content and consequences of pornography as a white heteromale supremacist industry earning billions of dollars annually.

Can you name me one industry that earns billions of dollars annually run by pimps, rapists, and drug dealers that does not harm humans and non-human animals is some way?

What is uniquely harmful about pornography as a practice of sex discrimination, as a practice of oppression, is that it makes sexual violence, sexual exploitation, racist sexism and sexist racism seem like it is simply apolitical little ol' sex, at least to its consumers. It isn't. It is, among other things, virulent misogyny and racism created in such a way as require incest and rape. No other billion dollar a year industry I am aware of so effectively makes hate and harm both invisible as such while managing to sell its product as a kind of sexual stimulant. The result is that people believe hatred of women is sexy, and that racism is hot. How this negatively impacts white women and women of color cannot be understated.
END OF POST.