"No Ass At All" by Aisha Tyler

Enjoy:



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"No Homo" explained by a man who conveniently leaves out the connections to misogyny and white supremacy

Homophobic language is contained in this video. An even basic understanding of how homophobia is a manifestation of misogyny is not. For that analysis, check out this book, and this one.



Also, for a more astute analysis by a man about homophobia, sexism, and racism, than what I've heard from Jay Smooth, please see Byron Hurt's work, including his film, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, where connections between an oppressed-while-oppressive cultural artform is discussed in context of the cultural offerings of white heterosexual male supremacist Amerikkka.
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Phil Spector: Murderer of actress Lana Clarkson

[the above image of (on left) Phil Spector and (on right) Lana Clarkson, is from here]

You'll be hearing this again and again:
He was violent to a woman because of the drugs he was on or the alcohol he consumed. He was violent to a woman because he was crazy. He was violent to a woman because he was trying to be funny. He was violent to a woman because he was a depressive, or a misanthrope. What is left out of these "don't-blame-me(n)" analyses is that he was violent to a woman precisely because he was a man and she was a woman.

As has been once noted, men's violence against women becomes "a human being's violence against another human being" when it is committed by a man against a woman and the media wishes to de-politicise it by calling it something other than part of men's war against women, part of the on-going gynocide.

Jim Fusilli closes the article below, from the Wall Street Journal, with this:
"Phil Spector, producer, is now Phil Spector, murderer. It may take a good long while until we can listen to his work without remembering that."

And I suppose that's the point: we're supposed to not worry our little heads about the gynocide or any particular woman-killers for too, too long. Eventually, folks, it'll all fade away, and we can once again listen to music made by a gynocidalist, and think, "Wow, what an artist!" I hope that we remember one thing primarily about Phil Spector: he is a woman-killer.

To any Beatles fans:
I strongly recommend purchasing and listening to the 2003 release of Let It Be... Naked, by the Beatles, rather than the original (1970 vinyl/1990 CD) release of Let It Be, way over-produced by the gynocidalist Phil Spector.

The following article on Phil Spector is from here.

* ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
* APRIL 16, 2009

From a Wall of Sound to a Prison Cell
By Jim Fusilli
Los Angeles
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. (Reproduced here for non-commercial purposes only.)

Phil Spector's contribution to rock is undeniable. His productions elevated the pop record to art through outsize arrangements and orchestrations that heightened the poignancy in songs of adolescent love. Now-classic early '60s "Wall of Sound" productions for the Crystals, the Ronettes, the Righteous Brothers -- "little symphonies for kids," he called them -- are among rock's greatest recordings, as is his later work first for the Beatles and then for John Lennon and George Harrison as solo artists. Had he only been a composer, co-writing such songs as "Chapel of Love," "Spanish Harlem" and "Baby, I Love You" with the likes of Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Jerry Leiber, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, his role would be memorable. He played the guitar solo on the Drifters'"On Broadway" and piano on Lennon's "Love," two pretty nice credits. You can run down the litany of popular music's great producers -- Berry Gordy, George Martin, Brian Wilson, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, Daniel Lanois, Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam, Rick Rubin, Dr. Dre and Timbaland, among them -- and not find someone who had his sense of scale and breadth of vision.

But that's just part of his legacy, which will soon include a sentence of at least 18 years in prison. On Monday, a jury here convicted Mr. Spector of the second-degree murder of actress Lana Clarkson, and the 69-year-old now awaits sentencing on May 29 for his crime.

People in the music business have long known that Mr. Spector could be a crude, desperate little man. In the studio, he demanded absolute control and demonstrated utter disdain for many of the singers and musicians he employed. He hadn't done any meaningful work in decades. Surrendering to the sway of alcohol and drugs, and taken to comparing himself to Shakespeare and Mozart, Mr. Spector ended up in a succession of Los Angeles-area mansions surrounded by go-fers, bodyguards and seemingly interchangeable girlfriends prior to his 2006 marriage to Rachelle Short. In his Spector biography "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound," writer Mick Brown reveals a troubled man who might have been dismissed as another delusional show-biz misanthrope -- if he hadn't had a propensity for violence through gunplay.

In some circles, Mr. Spector's disregard for gun safety was as legendary as his productions. He greeted guests at his home wearing a .38 in a shoulder holster. In 1972, he was arrested in Beverly Hills for pointing a gun at a woman; charged with carrying a concealed weapon and a loaded firearm in a public place, he paid a $200 fine and was placed on one year's probation. Three years later, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge after he aimed a gun in the face of a valet at the Beverly Hills Hotel. During his two trials for Ms. Clarkson's murder, the first of which ended in a deadlocked jury in 2007, five women testified that Mr. Spector threatened them at gunpoint.
[f] Associated Press

Phil Spector, center, stands with his attorney Doron Weinberg, left, as the verdict is read his trial in Los Angeles on Monday.

Celebrities were treated to similar shenanigans. According to Mr. Brown's biography, Mr. Spector, weapon in hand, locked the door to his Beverly Hills mansion behind Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, refusing to let her leave. Mr. Brown also reports that Mr. Spector was wearing a handgun in 1973 when he attended the Ali-Norton fight at the L.A. Forum in a group that included Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond and James Taylor; later that night, when he was introduced to Frank Sinatra at Trader Vic's, he was still wearing the gun. Once he pulled a gun in a studio at the Record Plant and accidentally fired it; the bullet somehow missed Lennon. On another occasion, a drunken Mr. Spector pressed the muzzle of a gun against Leonard Cohen's neck. "Leonard, I love you," he said. Nudging the barrel aside, Mr. Cohen replied: "I hope you do, Phil."

On Feb. 3, 2003, after a night of drinking at four Hollywood-area nightspots, Mr. Spector brought Ms. Clarkson, 40, to his Alhambra mansion, arriving at about 3 a.m. Some two hours later, he emerged through a back entry, gun in his hand. "I think I killed somebody," he told his driver, who when he entered the house saw Ms. Clarkson's body. A single .38 caliber bullet had been discharged in her mouth. The driver called 911.

At the police station, Mr. Spector, who had tried to alter the crime scene prior to the arrival of the authorities, claimed the victim had killed herself while singing "Da Doo Run Run" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," two of his best-known productions. The jury agreed with the prosecution, finding that Mr. Spector had killed her.

Phil Spector, producer, is now Phil Spector, murderer. It may take a good long while until we can listen to his work without remembering that.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter @wsjrock.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D9
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Men Apologising for Behaving as Misogynist Assholes Means What, Exactly?

William Hurt [image is from here]:


Jamie Foxx [image is from here]:


Hulk Hogan [image is from here]:


Below:
Hulk Hogan figures out how to be racist and misogynistic all at the same time.

Jamie Foxx misogynistically targets a very popular white girl to make people laugh.

William Hurt used his brutal power as a white man to hurt Marlee Matlin. "Hurt" being an understatement.

I think "Sorrow", "Regret", "Remorse", however sincere and heartfelt, and a public apology--when there is one, is NOT DOING ENOUGH. More is called for from any man who harms women in these ways.

To William, Jamie, and Hulk:
How about donating MILLIONS of your dollars to radical Womanist and Feminist activists who are fighting to stop men's violence against women? And how about doing public service announcements about the wrongs of men's degradation and violence against women, including in "humor"?

The following article is from here.
Jamie Foxx took the higher road and used his Tuesday night appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno to apologize to Miley Cyrus, the 16 year-old Hannah Montana star he bashed on his Sirius radio show.

Among other things said during the profane broadcast, the Oscar-winner referred to Cyrus as a “white b[*]tch” and said she should get a gum transplant, do heroin, make a sex tape, and catch Chlamydia. Foxx of course said the entire rant was all in the name of comedy:

“I so apologize to Miley, and this is sincere. I am a comedian, and you guys know that whatever I say, I don't mean any of it. And sometimes, as comedians, as we do, we go a little bit too far. I have a radio show. We're really the black Howard Stern. We go at everybody. There was a situation with Miley Cyrus, and I just want to say, I apologize for what I said. I didn't mean it maliciously. You know I'm a comedian. You know my heart. Miley, I apologize, so I'll call you. I got a daughter too, so I completely understand.”

William Hurt also found himself issuing an apology, after his ex-lover Marlee Matlin accused the actor of beating her and forcing sex on her during their two-year relationship. Matlin claimed she herself was addicted to cocaine and marijuana and that Hurt was struggling with alcohol addiction. Hurt, who has four children from three different women, had this to say:

“My own recollection is that we both apologized and both did a great deal to heal our lives. Of course, I did and do apologize for any pain I caused. And I know we have both grown. I wish Marlee and her family nothing but good.”

As for the next celebrity apology, it hasn’t happened yet, but we’re counting down the minutes until it takes place. Wrestler (or is it finally ex-wrestler?) Hulk Hogan has put himself in the spotlight by opening his mouth and letting a whole lot of stupid fall out. In response to the ongoing divorce proceedings between he and wife Linda, and her new boyfriend Charley, the Hulkster had this to say:

“I could have turned everything into a crime scene, like OJ, cutting everybody's throat. You live half a mile from the 20,000-square-foot home you can't go to anymore, you're driving through downtown Clearwater and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife . . . I totally understand OJ. I get it.”
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On Misogyny and Genderism, Trans or Not

[Image is from here]

A core piece of analysis that I hold to, and have for over twenty-five years, is that man and woman are political categories more than they are anything else. This acknowledges that they ARE also social, cultural, mythic, religious, and ethnic categories, at least for those who use those English terms: "woman" and "man". This piece is speaking to those who use those words in English to mean "the [only] two sexes".

If dominant society cared enough about oppressed people to pay any attention at all, it would be obvious that for centuries cultures far more sustainable than the Western dominant one have understood, appreciated, and celebrated "Gender" as being about MORE than "two kinds of people, opposite in nature". This view of gendered people as "opposites" is an absurdly and dangerously sexist, racist, anti-Indigenous idea. It's also not that old, even though we promote stupid misogynist stories like Eve being born from Adam's rib. (Even if we believe in this patriarchal tale, we're usually forgetting entirely that Lilith* was in The Garden BEFORE Eve, and wasn't born from any bone of any man!) For many centuries in the West, for example, it was assumed there was one sex, male/man, and that female/woman was a sort of "inverted" man. No, really. See this for more. There's also plenty written, as if that's the only way we can know things!!, on how "Gender" is done in other cultures, and at other periods in human history.

The Womanist and Feminist critiques of gender I value, hold that the politics of gender (together with race and class) must be understood and challenged, to the root. My position is that if we in the West pretend that the two-gender system is maintained, with great force, as a hierarchy then we are doomed to never arrive at anything that resembles freedom for women from men's tyranny, subordination, oppression, and discrimination. Also left to continue unchallenged is men's horrifyingly normalised violence against women.

That said, I have been profoundly disappointed by the predominantly white, mostly class-privileged queer communities which I have known intimately, and their/our refusal to deal with gender this way--to talk about it this way, but also to do activism for girls' and women's freedom based on looking at it this way. Especially lacking has been such an analysis being combined with one in which class and race, among other ways of controlling and categorising people, are also understood as primarily political phenomena.

And if anyone knows of queer activists and queer communities who ARE taking the sexual political hierarchy, aka the two-gender system--"woman, the lesser, the submissive, the femme; and man, the greater, the dominant, the butch"--seriously as a political problem that must be confronted and radically altered, please let me know where those conversations and activism are happening. I'd like to support such work.

*From this website, with commentary added in brackets by me:
Lilith was Adam's first wife before Eve. Adam married her because he became tired of coupling with animals [and not, of course, because she could engage him in meaningful intellectual conversation or witty banter], a common Middle-Eastern herdsmen practice, though the Old Testament declared it a sin (Deuteronomy 27:21). Adam tried to make Lilith lie beneath him during sexual intercourse. Lilith would not meet this demand of male dominance. [This version of the Lilith story pre-exists Andrea Dworkin's book, Intercourse, just so you know. Dworkin didn't make it up that men try and dominate women through sexual intercourse; men did.] She cursed Adam and hurried to her home by the Red Sea.

Adam [being a self-absorbed, misogynistically possessive dickwad] complained to [that male in the sky] God who then sent three angels, Sanvi, Sansanvi and Semangelaf, to bring Lilith back to Eden. Lilith rebuffed the angels by cursing them. [This is one of my favorite stories!] While by the Red Sea Lilith became a lover to demons and producing 100 babies a day. [As "bad women" are want to do.] The angels said that God would take these demon children away from her unless she returned to Adam. [All one hundred per day? Couldn't He leave her with, say, two or three, just to grow up and help her out by the Sea?] When she did not return, she was punished accordingly. [And we are not surprised.] And, God also gave Adam the docile Eve. [Ah, Eve: the original Barbie to the Old Testament's Ken.]
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