Rape, India, and White Male Supremacy

image is from here

Rape is manufactured and mass produced in the U.S. and is marketed all over the world. This is done, in part, by patriarchal and white supremacist men carrying their racist misogyny to other regions of the globe. White men, especially but not only from the United States, travel to many places, including Southeast and South Asia, with the express purpose to rape girls and young women. The men then hide this crime from everyone, including their spouses and children. Millions of girls are trafficked and sold as slaves because of white men's belief that girls and women ought to belong to them to be used and abused sexually, economically, and socially.

I have not written here about the preponderance of rape in India because as a white Western male, I know such news is misused in the West to promote an idea that misogyny is worse in other places than within the U.S. Misogyny is organised and expressed in similar and dissimilar ways around the world; in the U.S. rape, battery, the sexual sale and renting of women and girls, forced sterilisation, restrictive regulations on abortion, economic inequality and capitalist exploitation are among the many ways woman-hating violence manifests. Violence occurs disproportionately against women of color. Indigenous women, for example, are raped more than non-Indigenous women in the U.S., overwhelmingly by white men. But when non-white men, here and internationally, are identified as abusers of women, that is erroneously determined to mean that white men are less violent than other men.

Feminists of all colors have been explicitly and systematically organising against men's violence against women for the last several decades. They have challenged male supremacist entitlements to take what they desire; they have confronted the industries that promulgate the idea that women want to be raped and sadistically hurt; they have fought for economic justice and civil rights, the lack of which keep women vulnerable to men. And even with this level of resistance, men still rape and do other harm to women, mostly with inpunity and with the perverse idea, shared among men, that such violence makes them more of a man.

Men of all colors commit atrocities against girls and women although some cultures have not historically promoted and protected men's commitment to violence. Structurally, socially, and economically, white men are most oppressively empowered and are therefore the most dangerous. Nonetheless, white men promote the lie that men of color are more dangerous: more dangerous to women and more dangerous to men. It is against great and overwhelming evidence that white men believe this.

Such a distorted view ignores the reality that colonial/imperialist invasion by white men into India is part of the story of how rape happens there. It is not the whole story, but invasion by white men anywhere brings the rape of girls and women with it. Military invasion is one form of assault against a country that is carried out with sexual violence against female bodies. Male soldiers commit rape systematically--not all male soldiers, but too many for the rape to not be systemic and protected. U.S. male soldiers rape not only the girls and women of occupied countries, but the women who militarily serve along with them.

This doesn't mean were it not for white men, no rape would occur. It is to notice, however, that white men's chronic and cancerous invasions of other countries and human bodies is historically undeniable but ought not be assumed to be inevitable. White supremacy, male supremacy, and corporate capitalism intersect and become mutually reinforcing.

Below is a perspective directly out of India that takes into account how the sexism of economics factors into the preponderance of rape. It is by the great feminist, philosopher, and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. I believe her voice is so important and that what she has to say ought to be centered in Western conversations about how to stop rape. I post her words here to hopefully bring her message to a few more people. (You may click on the title just below to link back to the source website.)

Vandana Shiva: Our Violent Economy is Hurting Women

Wednesday, 23 January 2013 17:07 Vandana Shiva

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Source: Yes Magazine

Violence against women is as old as patriarchy.

Traditional patriarchy has structured our worldviews and mindsets, our social and cultural worlds, on the basis of domination over women and the denial of their full humanity and right to equality. But it has intensified and become more pervasive in the recent past. It has taken on more brutal forms, like the murder of the Delhi gang rape victim and the recent suicide of a 17-year-old rape victim in Chandigarh.

In India, rape cases and cases of violence against women have increased over the years. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported 10,068 rape cases in 1990, which increased to 16,496 in 2000. With 24,206 cases in 2011, rape cases jumped to incredible increase of 873 percent from 1971 when NCRB started to record cases of rape. And Delhi has emerged as the rape capital  of India, accounting for 25 percent of cases.

The movement to stop this violence must be sustained till justice is done for every one of our daughters and sisters who has been violated.

And while we intensify our struggle for justice for women, we need to also ask why rape cases have increased 240 percent since 1990’s when the new economic policies were introduced.

Could there be a connection between the growth of violent, undemocratically imposed, unfair economic policies and the intensification and brutality of crimes against women?

I believe there is. I am not suggesting that violence against women begins with neoliberal economics. I am deeply aware of the deep gender biases in our traditional cultures and social organizations. I  stand empowered today because people before me fought against the exclusions and biases against women and children: My grandfather sacrificed his life for women’s equality, and my mother was a feminist before the word existed.

Violence against women has taken on new and more vicious forms as traditional patriarchal structures have hybridized with the structures of capitalist patriarchy. We need to examine the connections between the violence of unjust, unsustainable economic systems and the growing frequency and brutality of violence against women. We need to see how the structures of traditional patriarchy merge with the emerging structures of capitalist patriarchy to intensify violence against women.

Cyclones and hurricanes have always occurred. But as the Orissa Supercyclone, Cyclone Nargis, Cyclone Aila, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy show, the intensity and frequency  of cyclones has increased with climate change.

Our society has traditionally had a  bias against the girl child. But the epidemic of female feticide and the disappearance of 30 million unborn girls has taken that bias to new levels of violence and new proportions. And it is into this context of the dynamics of more brutal and more vicious violence against women (and multiple, interconnected forms of violence) that the processes unleashed by neoliberalism are contributory factors.

Firstly, the economic model focusing myopically on “growth” begins with violence against women by discounting their contribution to the economy.

The more the government talks ad nauseum about “inclusive growth" and “financial inclusion,” the more it excludes the contributions of women to the economy and society. According to patriarchal economic models, production for sustenance is counted as "non-production." The transformation of value into disvalue, labour into non-labour, and knowledge into non-knowledge is achieved by the most powerful number that rules our lives, the patriarchal construct of GDP—Gross Domestic Product—which commentators have started to call the Gross Domestic Problem.

National accounting systems which are used for calculating growth as GDP are based on the assumption that if producers consume what they produce, they do not in fact produce at all, because they fall outside the production boundary.

The production boundary is a political creation that, in its workings, excludes regenerative and renewable production cycles from the area of production. Hence, all women who produce for their families, children, community, and society are treated as "non-productive" and "economically inactive." When economies are confined to the marketplace, economic self-sufficiency is perceived as economic deficiency. The devaluation of women’s work, and of work done in subsistence economies of the Global South, is the natural outcome of a production boundary constructed by capitalist patriarchy.

By restricting itself to the values of the market economy, as defined by capitalist patriarchy, the production boundary ignores economic value in the two vital economies which are necessary to ecological and human survival. They are the areas of nature’s economy, and sustenance economy.  In nature’s economy and the sustenance economy, economic value is a measure of how the earth’s life and human life are protected.  Its currency is life-giving processes, not cash or market price.

Secondly, a model of capitalist patriarchy which excludes women’s work and wealth creation in the mind, deepens the violence by displacing women from their livelihoods and alienating them from the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend—their land, their forests, their water, and their seeds and biodiversity. Economic reforms based on the idea of limitless growth in a limited world, can only be maintained by the powerful grabbing the resources of the vulnerable.  The resource grab that is essential for “growth” creates a culture of rape—the rape of the earth, of local self-reliant economies, and of women. The only way in which this “growth” is “inclusive” is by its inclusion of ever larger numbers in its circle of violence.

I have repeatedly stressed that the rape of the Earth and rape of women are intimately linked, both metaphorically in shaping worldviews, and materially in shaping women’s everyday lives. The deepening economic vulnerability of women makes them more vulnerable to all forms of violence—including sexual assault.

Thirdly, economic reforms lead to the subversion of democracy and privatization of government. Economic systems influence political systems. The government talks of economic reforms as if it has nothing to do with politics and power. Leaders talk of keeping politics out of economics, even while they impose an economic model shaped by the politics of a particular gender and class. Neoliberal reforms work against democracy. We have seen this recently with the Indian government pushing through "reforms" to bring in Walmart through FDI in retail. Corporate-driven reforms create a convergence of economic and political power, a deepening of inequalities, and a growing separation of the political class from the will of the people they are supposed to represent. This is at the root of the disconnect between politicians and the public that we experienced during the protests that have grown throughout India since the Delhi gang rape.

Worse, an alienated political class is afraid of its own citizens. This is what explains the increasing use of police to crush nonviolent citizen protests, as we have witnessed in Delhi. A privatized corporate state must rapidly become a police state.

This is why the politicians must surround themselves with ever increasing VIP security, diverting the police from their important duties to protect women and ordinary citizens.

Fourthly, the economic model shaped by capitalist patriarchy is based on the commodification of everything, including women. When we stopped the WTO in Seattle, our slogan was, “Our world is not for sale."

An economics unleashed by economic liberalization—an economics of deregulation of commerce, of privatization and commodification of seeds and food, land and water, women and children—degrades social values, deepens patriarchy, and intensifies violence against women.

Economic systems influence culture and social values. An economics of commodification creates a culture of commodification, where everything has a price, and nothing has value.

The growing culture of rape is a social externality of  economic reforms. We need to institutionalize  social audits of the neoliberal policies which are a central instrument of patriarchy in our times. If there was a social audit of corporatizing our seed sector, 270,000 farmers would not have been pushed to suicide in India since the new economic policies were introduced. If there was a social audit of the corporatization of our food and agriculture, we would not have every fourth Indian hungry, every third woman malnourished, and every second child wasted and stunted due to severe malnutrition. India today would not be the Republic of Hunger that Dr. Utsa Patnaik has written about.

The victim of the Delhi gang rape has triggered a social revolution. We must sustain it, deepen it, expand it. We must demand and get speedy and effective justice for women. We must call for fast-track courts to convict those responsible for crimes against women. We must make sure laws are changed so justice is not elusive for victims of sexual violence. We must continue the demand for blacklisting of politicians with criminal records.

We must see the continuum of different forms of violence against women, from female feticide to economic exclusion and sexual assault. We need to continue the movement for the social reforms needed to guarantee safety, security, and equality for women, building on the foundations laid during India's independence movement and continued by the feminist movement over the last half-century. The agenda for social reforms, social justice, and equality has been derailed by the aganda of “economic  reforms" set by capitalist patriarchy.

And while we do all this we need to change the ruling paradigm that reduces society to economy, the economy to the market, and is imposed on us in the name of “growth."

Society and economy are not insulated from each other . The processes of social reforms and economic reforms can no longer be separated. We need economic reforms based on the foundations of social reforms that correct the gender inequality in society, rather than aggravating all forms of injustice, inequality, and violence.

Ending violence against women needs to also include moving beyond the violent economy to nonviolent, sustainable, peaceful, economies that give respect to women and the Earth.

---

Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned activist for biodiversity and against corporate globalization, and author of Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; Soil Not Oil; and Staying Alive. The last section of this essay was adapted by the author from “Forest and Freedom,” written by Shiva and published in the May/June 2011 edition of Resurgence magazine. Shiva is a YES! contributing editor.

Mohawk Nation News 'Awakening, 150 Million Murdered Indigenous'

There is no meaningfully inclusive women's liberation while genocide against Native/Indigenous women is on-going. This is a cross-post. Please click on the title just below to link back to this information at Mohawk Nation News.

MNN: AWAKENING, 150 MILLION MURDERED INDIGENOUS

Mohawk Nation News

http://www.mohawknationnews.com

Posted on January 16, 2013

Calling out from the earth to us Indigenous people are 150 million of our men, women, children and babies who were murdered by the white race for our lands. They are urging us to bring back natural law and order for the sake of the future generations, who are waiting to be released to us by our great Mother Earth. 

Our ancestors are not gone, invisible, forgotten. We are here.

The Canadian and US corporations are trying to find and punish “leaders” of the Idle No More movement.  Our ancestors in each of us are calling us. Even the plants and animals are waiting for us to hear them.  

Canada is vulnerable. All infra-structure is critical to transport our resources to international markets for their war program. This will end. The Corporation of the US is involved when their source of electricity, oil and gas are at stake. US Military Northern Command or NORTHCOM has already been given the green light through 911 treaty fraud to invade Canada at any time they deem fit.  

The circulation of our goods, resources and energy drives the war economy.  Our duty is to stop the war problem. Critical infrastructure is at our mercy.  Blockades are deadly to the economy.  Millions are employed in the theft of our natural resources.  All consultation for our resources is between industry and government, not with us. That is why the wars continue.  

Corporations tire of Indigenous protests. They want to deal directly with Harper’s corporate Indians who are willing to be paid off without consulting us, to have the guise of legality for their contracts. Our ancestors won’t allow that. We will stop genocide.  We the owners want a list of the shareholders of each corporation. Our ancestors direct that any involved in the genocide of our people will not be doing any business on Great Turtle Island.  

Corporate Chiefs and band councils are agents of the crown, who take an oath to the Queen of England. They are no longer in but out of the canoe.  

Canada holds $3 trillion of our Indian Trust Funds. The Queen and her family take a cut on everything that’s done in Canada. It is used to finance non-stop war and to kill us off.  The criminals responsible for the biggest holocaust in all humanity will be held accountable.  

Split of Indian Trust Money:  4% goes to the Vatican, international Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.  3% goes to the Mediating Group? 2% for the ASM?  1% to the eternal trust deposit forever.  The Queen signs this deal.   

Nothing can stop this awakening of our people.  We stand with nothing to lose.  The fight is ours to win. 

Faces coming to us.   

As Robbie Robertson sings in “Ghost Dance”:  “Crazy Horse was a mystic, he knew the secret of the trance.  Sitting Bull, the great apostle of the ghost dance.   Come on, Commanche. Come on, Blackfoot.  Come on, Shoshone.  Come on, Cheyenne. We shall live again.  Come one, Arapahoe.  Come on, Cherokee.  Come on, Paiute.  Come on, Sioux.  We shall live again.”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLM1H8JH9XA

MNN Mohawk Nation News kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, workshops, to donate and sign up for MNN newsletters, go to www.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Archives.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0

Did Jodie Foster Come Out? Yes: Here's the Complete Transcript of Jodie Foster's Coming Out Speech, Accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Television and Motion Pictures at The 70th Golden Globes, January 13, 2013

***UNEDITED, UNBLEEPED TRANSCRIPT OF COMING OUT SPEECH BELOW***

Revised on 16 Jan. 2013.

Preface: 
There's much more to be said about this whole matter. Lenses interrogating white supremacy, male supremacy, Western culture, the systematic eradication of lesbian existence, white queer politics, and feminism can all focus different points of attention on this event. I was quite disturbed to see Mel Gibson's face so front and center at this year's Golden Globe awards. I consider his expressed values and abusive and oppressive behavior (virulently anti-woman, homophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic) to be antithetical to progressive social change. But for right now, I'm narrowing the lens considerably to focus on who Jodie was to me in my early and later life.

Jodie and I are the same age and I grew up watching her on television and in movies, including lying atop my aunt and uncle's station wagon with my cousins while seeing her in Napoleon and Samantha at a Drive-In, with my parents watching Tom Sawyer on the big screen (indoors), on the small screen on The Partridge Family and Paper Moon, and in ABC Afterschool Specials, and in movies from The Little Girl Who Lived Down The Lane to The Hotel New Hampshire, to her especially fine and feminist work in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs, to Sommersby and Maverick, to two of my favorites in which I also thought she was brilliant: Nell and Contact. I also saw her in Taxi Driver, but not when it came out as it was rated R and I was underage, as was she.

I've watched her grow up and wondered early on about her sexuality. Among my lesbian and gay friends in my adult life, it was kind of known she was a lesbian. Not known the way I might now my best friend was lesbian or gay, but just known, the way it is known that Meryl Streep is heterosexual, but with the added secrecy about the actual orientation that straight folks don't need because they believe being straight is normal and natural. Being lesbian and gay is just as normal and just as natural--if any sexual or affectional orientation and ways of naming oneself can be said to be natural; it's just less prevalent and is, too often, socially despised.

So it was very cool for me to finally hear her come out beyond acknowledging a female partner as she did in 2007. I probably would have thought the speech was cooler if she did so while using the word Lesbian to describe herself. But it surprised me to read online that some people doubt she came out at all! Below is a transcript of her speech from 13 January 2013 as she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hilton in California.

I think after reading this and re-watching the speech, there will be little doubt about whether she did or did not come out as lesbian. Here is the complete unedited speech in which she addressed several matters in addition to coming out, such as her love for her ex-partner, her sons, the future of her career (she's not retiring, by the way), and her, perhaps most poignantly of all, the expression of her abiding love for her mother at this time of her mother's dementia. Source for the transcript is *here*.

Well, for all of you SNL fans, I'm 50! I'm 50! You know, I need to do that without this dress on, but you know, maybe later at Trader Vic's, boys and girls. What do you say? I'm 50! You know, I was going to bring my walker tonight but it just didn't go with the cleavage.

Robert [Downey Jr], I want to thank you for everything: for your bat-crazed, rapid-fire brain, the sweet intro. I love you and Susan and I am so grateful that you continually talk me off the ledge when I go on and foam at the mouth and say, "I'm done with acting, I'm done with acting, I'm really done, I'm done, I'm done."

Trust me, 47 years in the film business is a long time. You just ask those Golden Globies, because you crazy kids, you've been around here forever. You know, Phil you're a nut, Aida, Scott — thank you for honouring me tonight. It is the most fun party of the year, and tonight I feel like the prom queen.

Thank you. Looking at all those clips, you know, the hairdos and the freaky platform shoes, it's like a home-movie nightmare that just won't end, and all of these people sitting here at these tables, they're my family of sorts, you know. Fathers mostly. Executives, producers, the directors, my fellow actors out there, we've giggled through love scenes, we've punched and cried and spit and vomited and blown snot all over one another — and those are just the costars I liked. But you know more than anyone else I share my most special memories with members of the crew. Blood-shaking friendships, brothers and sisters. We made movies together, and you can't get more intimate than that.

So while I'm here being all confessional, I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I've never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration that I'm a little nervous about but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But I'm just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I'm going to need your support on this.

I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I'm kidding — but I mean I'm not really kidding, but I'm kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? Jesus. Seriously, I hope you're not disappointed that there won't be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now I'm told, apparently that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.

You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I'm sorry, that's just not me. It never was and it never will be. Please don't cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I'd have to spank Daniel Craig's bottom just to stay on the air. It's not bad work if you can get it, though.

But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.

I have given everything up there from the time that I was three years old. That's reality-show enough, don't you think?

There are a few secrets to keeping your psyche intact over such a long career. The first, love people and stay beside them. That table over there, 222, way out in Idaho, Paris, Stockholm, that one, next to the bathroom with all the unfamous faces, the very same faces for all these years. My acting agent, Joe Funicello — Joe, do you believe it, 38 years we've been working together? Even though he doesn't count the first eight.

Matt Saver, Pat Kingsley, Jennifer Allen, Grant Niman and his uncle Jerry Borack, may he rest in peace. Lifers. My family and friends here tonight and at home, and of course, Mel Gibson. You know you save me too.

There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most beloved BFF of 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you, Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family. Our amazing sons, Charlie and Kit, who are my reason to breathe and to evolve, my blood and soul. And boys, in case you didn't know it, this song, all of this, this song is for you.

This brings me to the greatest influence of my life, my amazing mother, Evelyn. Mom, I know you're inside those blue eyes somewhere and that there are so many things that you won't understand tonight. But this is the only important one to take in: I love you, I love you, I love you. And I hope that if I say this three times, it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life. You're a great mom. Please take that with you when you're finally OK to go.

You see, Charlie and Kit, sometimes your mom loses it too. I can't help but get moony, you know. This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting and now what? Well, I may never be up on this stage again, on any stage for that matter. Change, you gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved, the greatest job in the world. It's just that from now on, I may be holding a different talking stick. And maybe it won't be as sparkly, maybe it won't open on 3,000 screens, maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle. But it will be my writing on the wall. Jodie Foster was here, I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply and to be not so very lonely.

Thank you, all of you, for the company. Here's to the next 50 years.

Thank you, Jodie, for 47 years of quality work in the entertainment industry. I hope in the next fifty, you get the life you most desire.

White Jewish Feminist Herstorian and Philosopher, Gerda Lerner (1920 - 2013) has died at the age of 92

Professor Gerda Lerner, in a handout from the University of Wisconsin, Madison

University of Wisconson, Madison [this photo and caption's source is here]

The Creation of Patriarchy, by Gerda Lerner is probably one earliest feminist books I owned. It helped me understand patriarchy as a force born of human history, not God, not Nature. What I appreciated about Gerda Lerner was her courage in creating and promoting new academic disciplines which have served so many women across race, ethnicity, region, language, and era.

From *here* (Feminist Philosophers blog):

Historian, feminist, and author of The Creation of Patriarchy Gerda Lerner died Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013, in Madison, Wisconsin.  She was 92.

Most American scholars reading this post do not remember a time when women’s history was not at least a possible area of study.  This is thanks in part to Lerner’s efforts, as she contributed to the creation of the first graduate program in women’s history in the USA.  Before I read feminist philosophy, I read Creation of Patriarchy. Yet despite the tremendous impression that work made on me, I’m disposed to quote the passage from her more enjoyable read, Fireweed: A Political Autobiography, cited by the NYT in the obituary linked above: “My perfectionism, insistence on anti-fascist commitment in word and deed, and general ‘heaviness’ as a person set me apart from others.”

She certainly was a distinctive presence.

From *here* (Wisconsin State Journal):

Long before Gerda Lerner helped redefine the study of history to give women a more prominent place in it and before she established the doctorate program in U.S. women's history at UW-Madison in the 1980s, she had to live through one of history's worst horrors and — barely — survive it.

Lerner (then Kronstein), who died Wednesday night in Madison at age 92, spent her 18th birthday in a Nazi jail in Vienna expecting death and being fed food scraps by two gentile cellmates after authorities cut rations to Jews.

"They taught me how to survive," Lerner told the State Journal in 2001. "Everything I needed to get through the rest of my life I learned in jail in those six weeks."

Lerner, UW-Madison professor emerita of women's studies, was able to escape alone to New York in the late 1930s. Decades later she started an academic career as a historian of women who led a movement almost from its infancy, eventually writing 11 books, earning 18 honorary degrees and in 2002 becoming the first woman recipient of the prestigious Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Historical Writing from the Society of American Historians.

"She's one of two people from what you might call the eldest generation of this wave of women's history," said Linda Gordon, a New York University professor who taught women's history at UW-Madison with Lerner in the 1980s and 1990s. "She had an enormous influence."

While earning an undergraduate degree in the early 1960s at the New School and her doctorate at Columbia University in 1966 at age 46, Lerner grew frustrated by the portrayal of history as told by textbooks and professors.

"The teachers told me about a world in which ostensibly one-half the human race is doing everything significant and the other half doesn't exist," she told the Chicago Tribune in 1993.

It became her life's work to balance out the story. She founded the women's studies program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., which included the first graduate program in women's history in the country. In 1980, after the death of her husband, Carl, a theater director, she moved to UW-Madison to establish a Ph.D. program in women's history.

Although women could get a Ph.D. in women's history at that time, their programs of study were not orderly and structured. Lerner wanted to create a degree that was rich in depth — the sort of program a Ph.D. candidate in American studies or another area would follow — but that included extra work in women's history.

Structure, sequence and staffing were her goals, and she chose UW-Madison because it already had a high-ranking, high-status history department from which Lerner created a model that would eventually be imitated elsewhere.

Throughout her career — Lerner retired from UW-Madison in 1991 — she maintained a vigorous schedule as a historian and writer, earning respect early as the editor of "Black Women in White America" in 1972, one of the first books to document the important struggles and contributions of African-American women in American history.

"What was unique is that she understood women are not all alike, that race and class make a very, very big difference in their lives and you can't generalize about all women," Gordon said.

Later contributions included her two-volume magnum opus, "The Creation of Patriarchy" in 1986 and "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness" in 1993.

"Fireweed," a memoir covering Lerner's years before she started on her academic path, came out in 2002 and was later adapted into a play by Heather McDonald.

Lerner established and funded a fellowship at UW-Madison that goes annually to a first- or second-year graduate student in women's history with a preference given to non-traditional students such as older women. When she earned her doctorate at Columbia at age 46, she was told her age and preference for studying women's history would doom her career.

"The fact that I could not take that advice was a very important thing," she told the State Journal in 2002. "The history of women had been forgotten, oppressed, silenced and marginalized until the last 30 years. I'm one of the people that helped bring that history alive, to point out it was valid and important. I couldn't have done that without my long history of resisting conformity."

In August 2011, UW-Madison named the third floor of the newly renamed Vel Phillips Hall (formerly Friedrick Hall) after Lerner.

Survivors include sister Nora Kronstein, daughter Stephanie Lerner Lapidus, son Dan and four grandchildren. Services will be private.

— State Journal reporter George Hesselberg contributed to this report.

Yoko Ono gets Germany's Peace Prize and finally is publicly released from the lie that she broke up the Beatles

photograph of Yoko Ono is from here

There's been a fair amount of news of late about conceptual, musical, performance, and visual artist, Yoko Ono. As you may well know, she's also an environmental, human rights, and peace activist. Recognition and appreciation of a range of her work is happening, as it has on and off over the decades. Yes, much of it, especially her work in avant-garde movements during the 1950s and 1960s, was eclipsed and overshadowed for a time due to her relationship with Beatle John Lennon. And then came the association of her name with the break-up of the Beatles.

The inaccurate association has always been a deeply misogynist and racist one, primarily put forth by white men who love to hate on women and blame them for whatever hurt and pain happens in men's lives. (The assumption that any woman and man sharing power in an egalitarian, non-patriarchal relationship means she must be controlling and dominating him are flat-out misogynistic.)

As all four Beatles have said over the years, the lads from Liverpool were breaking up for a while, starting as early as 1966, due to many factors including growing apart after being so close since their teen years (with John, Paul, and George) and early twenties (with Ringo). But there were also differing levels of interest in drugs and spirituality, financial and business problems particularly since the death of manager Brian Epstein, and assorted musical and legal battles. But Paul McCartney finally came forth recently with this statement in interview with David Frost. (See *here* for more.)

"She certainly didn't break the group up, the group was breaking up," he says, which may do something to dispel decades of hostility directed at Lennon's widow by diehard fans since the group disbanded officially in 1970.

He goes further and says that without Ono opening up the avant garde for Lennon, songs such as Imagine would never have been written: "I don't think he would have done that without Yoko, so I don't think you can blame her for anything. When Yoko came along, part of her attraction was her avant garde side, her view of things, so she showed him another way to be, which was very attractive to him. So it was time for John to leave, he was definitely going to leave [one way or another]."

So now that that's out of the way, let's get back to focusing on Yoko Ono's work.

She and her son, musician Sean Ono Lennon, are speaking out against "fracking" or the process of forcefully injecting toxic chemicals into the earth's rocky crust to fracture it and release oil. It poisons earth and water and also has caused earthquakes in areas that never had them before. Big Oil wants to pretend it's all nice and safe and good for us (them). For more on that, see *here*.

The most recent news is this. It is of note for many reasons. One of them being that the most recent Nobel Peace Prize went to the EU, which does many things but promoting peace isn't among them. For more on how the prize going to the EU disrespects the will and work of Nobel himself, see *here*.

Someone who does promote peace and has done so for over forty years, is Yoko Ono.

Congratulations to you, Ms. Ono, for getting and deserving this latest award.

(You may click on the title below to link back.)

Yoko Ono picks up human rights prize in Berlin

Yoko Ono on Friday accepted a German human rights prize for peace activism with her late husband, Beatle John Lennon, as well as her more recent work championing equality for women and gays [and lesbians].

Ono, who will turn 80 in February, picked up the Rainer Hildebrandt Medal at Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie Museum next to the former Cold War border crossing.

Wearing a black top hat and trouser suit, she gave a two-fingered peace sign as she thanked the jury.

"I'm very honoured to get this award and I will consider this award as an encouragement to do more work in humanitarian causes," she said.

Hildebrandt, who died in 2004, founded the museum to document daring attempts by East Germans living under communism to escape over the Berlin Wall and in protest against the regime's shoot-to-kill policies.

His widow Alexandra handed Ono the prize, which was selected by a jury she said included German President Joachim Gauck, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

"Since the early days of her career, and in addition to her music and conceptual art, Yoko Ono has always drawn attention for her political statements and her fight for peace and human rights," the jury said.

"She is a great proponent of gender equality, and is committed to world peace and the recognition of same-sex partnerships."

Previous winners include jailed Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky and assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The Tokyo-born artist -- raised in both Japan and the United States in a well-off family of bankers -- became a global icon when she married the rocker from Liverpool.

Since her Montreal honeymoon with Lennon, during which the couple called for peace from their marital bed, Ono has used her celebrity to raise awareness for causes.

In 2002, she launched the "LennonOno" grant for peace in Iceland, given every two years.

In honour of Ono's 80th birthday, the Schirn Kunsthalle in the western German city of Frankfurt will present a retrospective of her work from February.

I encourage you to read this guest post: "In a Quiet Place", by Itoro

What follows was posted originally on Itoro's own blog, "Thoughts of my Mind". She has welcomed me to repost it here. And it is with gratitude to her that I do so. To link back to the post on her blog, please click *here*.

In a Quiet Place

why some people be mad at me sometimes

by Lucille Clifton

they ask me to remember

but they want me to remember

their memories

and I keep on remembering mine

This testimonial is a celebration for all the ways we survive, often unnoticed and alone in our struggling to make a difference from the many places we inhabit. This testimonial does not belong to me, it could not be written without the wisdom and knowledge of many other peoples remaining vigilant in putting our dreams of a world free of exploitation into practice. Our collective memories of the ways in which unchecked supremacy can run rampant in our practice towards one another fuel our determination to realize this dream. We often find ourselves marginalized and alone, unwelcome in radical communities with curt responses or none at all, and usually no acknowledgement of the ways in which we have been torn in these movements.    Radically telling this truth can be viewed as divisive to the movement and a “pathological” issue. This logic is an effective tool to manage dissenting voices, sanitize our lived realities and allow for treacherous interactions. Many of us have horror stories of the types of systemic disrespect and negation we have gone through.  In fighting for a more expansive politics, to openly name the ways dominant behaviors surface across many institutions and people is met with hostility. To honor our rage and pain, to use our stories as a way to salve our wounds and name the abuse is a radical endeavor. It suggests the possibility of healing and allowing ourselves to find wellness. Acknowledging pain demands a critical reflection on all the interactions that happened to get us to the point of betrayal in the first place. It also demands us to interrogate our own habits and question the role we have played in the matter. Often, this type of radical truth-telling does not happen, we end up leaving or staying in these places looking in from the margins, completely discredited. So of course, the scars are here, still swollen and bruised. Wherever do we go from here?

Hey, big woman–

with scars on the head

and scars on the heart

that never seem to heal–

I saw your light

And it was shining.

(Assata Shakur)

As someone who identifies as Black, as woman, first-generation, African, working class and energetic, I have seen how my rage has been treated as counter-productive to the movement.  I think of my own horror stories expressing the destructiveness that can come with doing this work. The most recent and painful memory. I am working as an educator within a radical teaching organization. We care about solidarity, critical thinking, understanding and liberation across difference for our common struggles, Yet, when I note the overwhelming whiteness and privilege often exercised within the organization I am either met with an eerie silence or hostility. More specifically, when I say that the movement to end class exploitation must also deal with white supremacy and assert that we (yes we, not just the ruling classes) must investigate our roles in reproducing this class system with our own internalized supremacy I suddenly become that sore on every one’s side.

 “Am I crazy? No one has said anything so maybe it’s me…”

I soon start to believe that I am the problem. Besides, there are people of color here too, who care about solidarity, critical thinking and liberation across difference. We have to care about it and love each other fiercely…right? When trying to voice my concern to this woman of color she swiftly cuts me off and says, “It’s not about a black pedagogy or white pedagogy but a class pedagogy.” End of discussion, there is no longer a conversation to be had. She does not even look me in my face, just like the rest of them. Maybe I should have said something else, maybe I missed something… I am that sore on her side. This is a woman of color, she holds a lot of respect and authority within this organization. I respect her too…is this my fault?

The refusal to not scrutinize how we practice freedom in our daily lives often leads to this type of unspoken and unrecognized pain. When these contradictions remain unchallenged, usually the most vulnerable within the organization are the one’s who experience the worst of what the organization has to offer (or refuses to offer). In other words, we become easy targets for your unspoken rage and anger to be unleashed and accepted at any moment when our mere presence calls out your particular contradiction and shortcoming. My rage speaks to the pain of the explosive silence and broken relationships that has deterred all our efforts to see us finally liberated from a larger structure of outright violence, denial and repression. I think of my sources of anger. I have had to go back and scrutinize these memories to break my own fears and silence:

●      A colleague of mine has told me that the all white teaching staff is wondering out loud if I am really serious about teaching. Constantly dealing with these students and administration is hurting my health. I have had racial slights hurled at me and most of the teachers act as if I am not there…living in this area has physically made me sick and yes I have been absent for a couple of days. I come back to hear that now the teachers are talking about whether or not I am serious about this work…never mind that my white colleague can go to a wedding for a week and not have these things wondered about him, or the quality of his work questioned…in fact, his teacher mentor wants to keep him for the next semester…

● I demand a meeting to talk about the institutional racism going on in the schools and teaching program. I go to the administration (comprised of two women of color and one white woman) they ask me questions about why I am so upset. One of the women (a woman of color) even says that when she saw me crying one day in front of my classmates she read my display of emotions as “impulsive.” She notes my silence as the primary reason the administration does not know what is going on (never mind that I told her about the “white teachers gossiping” incident a couple weeks ago) She questions why I want special treatment around race when other people in the program also have their issues. I am questioned so much that I begin to think what I am asking for is trivial. All the things I “demand” remain mostly unchanged.

● A white male student has been allowed to teach in Harlem New York. It was my understanding that no student could travel this far out for an internship. I think back to previous meetings I had when I said I wanted to work specifically with children of color. The administration told me that my wanting to teach students of color is a subjective issue.  Most of my white peers talk about wanting to do prison work, feeling that people of color need the most help and wanting to work with “vulnerable” populations. But this colleague can go teach students of color and even travel away to do so. He comes back to class saying he is having a difficult time relating to the issues he is seeing with this population. I watch the same woman who used her questions to discipline me, use her questions to help this student with his specific situation.

●  I have become completely silent in class no longer wanting to engage. I should do better and hate the fact that I feel so stuck. But still, I do have to note that two of my other colleagues are incredibly silent however no one seems to stare their way and demand and answer when the white people exclaim, “Not enough people speak up in class!…”

● I’m in a role play in a small group on intervening to stop racism. The scenario: One woman wants to cross the street because she spots an African American male walking on the sidewalk. The other friend is supposed to intervene. For the next ten minutes I watch these two white, well meaning women theorize around why they would not intervene in saying the woman wanting to cross the street is acting in a racist manner. I finally come out with my uneasiness and say this is dominant thinking. After I finally said those words I dealt with the brunt of these two “allies” insidious shame and guilt.

●      A teacher is teaching us aspiring teachers about cultural sensitivity and bias in the classroom. She is White. (This should not matter because we are in a radical setting.) In order to teach us about cultural understanding, she makes an almost entirely white class take the Chitling test. These are the things I know about the Chitling test 1). It is extremely offensive 2). It pyschologizes the black experience and 3). It should not be taken (even with well meaning adults) if we do not talk about the legacy of white supremacy. None of this is talked about. In fact, the white teachers defend why this test makes sense. One of them notes that a black sociologist created the test. I don’t give a damn if a black sociologist created this test. We are not all on the same side. Some of the students look confused, most of us say nothing, most of us do not understand the history behind this test. This is confusing. One white woman across the table from me laughs and says, “Let’s take the test!”

●      I’m working at a new teaching site. It’s a progressive school. If I want to be paid for substitute teaching I must go through a background check. I pass in the required documentation within the first two weeks of school…two months later I hear no word about my paperwork going through. I send emails to no avail. My other white male colleague who entered the site the same time I did has passed his background check. He has started subbing and is getting paid for his work. I take on the same teacher load but the situation is different. Not having my background check cleared requires a “real” substitute teacher to sit in and monitor what I am doing. By law I am not allowed to be alone with the kids. The kids wonder who is the authority figure…I teach any way. A week later I am sitting eating my lunch. The lady who is supposed to handle my paperwork comes in wanting to check in about the situation. She tells me that for some reason my documentation has not yet been passed in. She proceeds to ask me, “…so about your background check. Are you…legal?”

● The most devastating memory: A professor of color asks me in front of the all white class, “You’re black, why are you silent?” I express a tenth of the rage and anger at white supremacy and finally say I am tired. The teacher says “I knew you would say that,” and for a moment I think I have an ally. She goes on to swiftly tell me that John Brown understood what this struggle meant, and that I am doing this work for the people. It is this day when I really start to wonder if by the people she is referring to the predominantly white middle class students sitting in her classroom.

● Note to self: Document everything you can and don’t let them get you alone (unless you’re strong enough to take them on), that’s their way of coercing you into things you might not want to do. Try to have someone there as a witness to verify what they tell you in private from what they actually do when everyone is watching. My last day meeting with two of the administrative members at the end of program. I finally tell one of them that I felt chastised within the program and that there was absolutely no support offered. She asks me, “Did something deep in you change?” At this time, I do not realize how deeply patronizing and dismissive her question is.  I reply yes. The respect for her authority is still there. I still try to hold my position that there should have been some support. She goes on to tell me: “The institution is not supposed to be supportive.” This feels like the twilight zone. It also feels deceptive. This is confusing.  I was under the impression that we wanted to build community, namely with one another… I’ve seen her be supportive when she needs to be…why is she always so heavy handed with me? And what about me needs to change? And if something is wrong why can’t she at least be clear about it so I can fix it?  Has she said this same statement to any other student? This is information you do not hide, if I had known she felt this way I would have known that for all this talk about principles, it was a “pick and choose what works for me” game at best.

●  A little over a year and all’s been said and done. I must still ward off these anti-racist white women who have not shaken their case of Missy Anne syndrome. One of them wants to “touch base.” She cannot take no for an answer when I say no to meeting and hosting her. She uses her creativity to get my phone number, my partner’s phone number and persistently texts and calls. She’s found out where I work and I hear that she’s been to my workplace. With all this persistence there must be something she needs to say. When we finally meet she smiles without acknowledging anything. Not what happened back then and certainly not that her supremacy is showing now.  She still feels insufficient in her work for social justice and something about maybe buying a house. This meeting is awkward at best. I will not use my energy to soothe her guilt. People reflect the organizations and ideologies they’re coming from.  And inaction and denial is such a reactionary and tired tune. Haven’t heard from her since. You cannot force a relationship.

As I think of these memories, I wish I had been resolute in knowing that these people were very much tied to their positions of power and dominance.  Under such an abusive gaze, where there was much more going on than this little story can touch, I celebrate that I did not give in to grief.

Finding the language to analyze these habits becomes a necessary task when the words of radical thought is so readily available, while in the same hand, we feel the constant jerking of an elbow hurting our sides. Like everything, there is no pure place to work from. Social justice work is also rife with historical contradiction and struggle. Within a capitalist structure, it has become professionalized. If you play your cards right, you can make your meal ticket off of “helping” people, and even your feelings of wanting to “do good” can be used to buttress your career. So please be sure, this is not a compartmentalized race story. The way things played out politically was steeped in the protection of white supremacy and tokenized positions of status for a few people of color.  These terror stories should alert us to the types of spaces we inhabit within the overall class hierarchy when there are no built in structures for us to critically reflect and change these contradictions as a collective. When we look at how our right to lead our own movements, to teach in our communities, to have our ideas heard and published, and to safely work, is constantly thwarted by this type of hidden supremacy, we cannot be so naïve as to not connect these structural behaviors to our economic options.  If we care about movement building we must challenge the institutional silence that erases and shames us while these injustices occur in the space and cracks of our liberation work.

Where does the pain go/when the pain goes away?

Audre Lorde

Women of color, in a quiet place, come together to talk about the ways in which we have been hurt. We name the things we have had to go without; from adequate health care to employment discrimination to worrying if we’ll be the one picked up on the street when walking home at night from the train station. We talk about our struggles and dreams. We choose to use rage as insight to continue. We are not fodder for the “cause.” We are here. There is much to fight for and no time to waste.

Without the love of my sister-friends I would not have made it. They built me up to be a warrior and tore down those sinking doubts and feelings I had. Their stories put steel in my spine and resolve in my throat. They massaged that crackle in my voice that had internalized blame and doubt. They were committed to practicing love as a principle.  They were confident in knowing that we should not be the ones to always receive the brunt of contempt, to be the ones who must be taught harsh lessons so we can really internalize how dreadful this system is, for fear that we become too “coddled.”  Mutual caretaking and intimacy is part and parcel of our survival. To toughen ourselves does not mean we must be cruel to one another. To survive does not have to mean that we allow ourselves to be tokenized to call rank on one another, that we give in to the values of this system and see each other as an opportunity for individual benefits. Through their words and commitment to heal what had been scarred I was made whole.

Constant conversations with sister-friends who knew what I was going through was my healing balm. Whenever we could get together, we would develop strategies to protect ourselves from the daily blows and assess how far we needed to go with our particular struggles. One sister-friend would write very detailed and thought out letters that helped develop my analysis when I needed words to name behaviors beyond feelings. In one tough situation she wrote:

In many ways being in this situation has helped me to polish my analysis, and understand more broadly what boundaries i must establish.  i am able to also see more clearly my own internalized oppression and how this manifests in my comments/behaviors, etc. In addition, i can also see how my knowledge and analysis is quite powerful and if not used carefully can be destructive towards my allies as well as others who do not hold my same opinion.  I am very glad to have gone through the process of conflict transformation.  for though i am a big critic, i learned much about myself and my capacity to try to bring understanding and solidarity in situations like this, without negotiating my fundamental values. i really don’t think i will be able to work with this group of people, but i will continue to support their efforts for social justice, as i will others.  the white privilege is present in every work, gesture, and suggestion.  it is much to much and will take to much of my energy which is continuously being challenged by those who are really in power.  but at least there i am visible…..very visible. i will be writing soon, with details, attaching emails, and recording the negligence of some of our colleagues, who just happen to be people in positions of power and decision making. i never thought these groups were perfect, for i am also not.  but, i was not expecting to have to put up with so much rejection and dominance. this is absolute nonsense coming from such an organization. let’s stay positive, let’s not dismiss anyone regardless of their positions, left, right, moderate, even fundamentalist. let’s try not to do what they do.

And I must shift the eye towards myself. I fed into the supremacy and hatred for another woman of color who I consider a dear sister friend. I should have raised my voice when her anger was being laughed away in front of my peers. I did not intervene when another woman of color said that she would not respond to this woman’s anger. Never mind that she was a professor saying such a dangerous statement to two students of color.

The “angry” woman in question was just “easily pissoffable.” That day, I did nothing to earn my title as an educator truly wanting to see a just world. I was too afraid to claim a position that brought humanity to my friend;  I chose to stay comfortable. I should have said it would be more productive to analyze the situation than to individualize her anger as an unwarranted abnormality. Or say that we have become all too accustomed at discrediting each other when the other is not there and this is something to be pissed off about.   I did not use that moment as an opportunity to speak to the larger structure of the organization and our serious issues around not explaining our choices, ignoring one another, and justifying our positions as the only fact that can exist. I could have even gone on about how we explain away brutal ego-tripping gossip as “analysis.” My friend’s anger was justified and should have been taken seriously. I did not have to contribute to the cruelty of that situation. When I look back, there are many could-a, should-a, would-a’s I wish I had claimed as moments for clarity.

I am sure that there are stories about my shortcomings that has done an incredible amount of damage, and I have to hear them if I am committed to sharpening my analysis, healing and creating solutions that restore dignity.

Too many of our stories are fraught with betrayal, distortion and violence in struggling to reach a place of equality. What type of hard and difficult work are we doing to ensure that we are creating the conditions for the massive change we want to see? Are there structures where we can all be clear about the choices we make? Do we consent to the targeting of our peers? Is our work restoring our dignity? The struggle continues. In my new place of struggle I knew what mistakes I did not want to continue…this knowing is liberating and involves much risk.

It took me a while to own that burning part of myself, the part that could spit fire and the part that could honor my resistance. Being around such strong women made me want to own that power and continue to struggle. There are so many peoples we do this work for, who have given much more than I can imagine and suffered greater losses. I am still here. To give in to my fear is a slow death at best. There is much too live for.  I remember a time when I wrote an email about the privilege and dominance within the program, how it hindered our goals. There was no response from my peers and I began to wonder if there would be a punishment for my thoughts. My sister-friend was able to salve my wound with her final words:

“And yes, I noticed no responses. As we know this is a strategic move of privilege and hegemony…to deny the existence of our thoughts, ideas, and creativity. Oh, but they heard loud and clear…do not doubt this my friend. Keep speaking, for if we don’t we will lose our humanity and dignity.  i know what it feels like when we feel we have spoken to much. it’s really okay. Breathe and know it is okay.   gather your thoughts, honor your life and your way, give people a chance to take it in….you will know when and how to continue. but never, never, be silent for too long…remember that what we say is deep, much to deep for others to sometimes handle.  but remember we have handled even more and have survived and become better women because of it.  don’t let guilt or shame stop you….those are the masters tools….do away with them.”

[The website this is from is: http://thoughtsofmymind-itoro.blogspot.com/2012/10/in-quiet-place.html ]

Why should non-oppressed people focus on oppression?

image is from here

As I look back over some of my posts and some of the themes I've focused on, I thought I'd write up something about "why": why this focus, why these issues?

From a pretty early age, the things that stood out for me were how some people suffer injustices systematically, and that those injustices didn't appear to register as such by the less-effected masses. The pain of enduring oppression--the depression, the anxiety, the exhaustion, the psychic, sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual assaults, the post-traumatic stress--were as real as blood, but were somehow not registering as important, not sounding any alarm in those not oppressed. The pain wasn't just unheard and unseen; when heard and seen it was ignored and denied, when not ignored and denied it was called something else, like "what she really wanted" and "what they deserve".

Seeing both disregard and contempt among whites and men, disregard for women and men of color, contempt for women and girls across ethnicity, is something that demands a humane response. Not excuses. Not denial. Not lie-telling about oppressed people.

If you scratch the surface of the intellects and psyches of enough oppressor-class people, you'll find unsubtle thought processes and distancing mechanisms that allow them/us to not feel and not think about and not know what oppressed people contend with and die from.

This blog exists to say, "What oppressed people experience is real. And once faced as reality, oppression calls us forth into action to create justice and liberation where there is none."

As a Jew, the stories of "the Good Germans" of WWII haunted me: how could ordinary citizens of a country stand by while other citizens were carried off, gassed, and burned into ash floating in the sky?

The question may be answered this way: How does it happen that the on-going genocides against Indigenous people worldwide demands no action at all from the non-Indigenous? How do the realities rape, incest, battery, trafficking, and poverty not call resource-advantaged people to stop these atrocities?

Because isn't the answer the same about the non-Jewish Germans as it is about the non-Indigenous and about men? Isn't it the case that whites, for example, express some variation of this: "I didn't know there were any genocides still going on." Don't men express, in one way or another: "I don't see rape and the rest as endemic and horrifying."

Once the horror, the terror, the atrocity is as real as anything else, one is called forth to act. Enough things happened to me early in life, and through my early adulthood, to make it impossible to not see the horror and not feel the pain.

I want other whites and men to work together in alliance with oppressed people, to take down the defences and barriers whites and men construct to stay separate from the conditions we don't live with so directly and daily, but are primarily responsible for. And to dismantle the institutions and transform the structures that hold hate and disregard in place. I want oppressor-class people to see oppressed people as fully human beings who cannot deserve the oppressive conditions. And to act humanely with everyone's life in mind.