My blog photo and white privilege

When we were sitting at the dinner table today, my 9 year old critiqued the image that I use for my blog... the one that reads "my Marxist feminist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard." I have this image on a Tshirt that I was wearing today. She read the shirt and examined it for a few minutes, then asked

"Why do they all have the same skin tone?"

I am embarrassed to say that this had never occurred to me. Not that I thought the image did have a racial analysis, but I didn't realize it was missing. The privilege of having white skin... as much as I try, I don't always notice how invisible whiteness is.

Harper's new anti-terrorism strategy

Harper's new anti-terrorism strategy (ie. his plan to protect corporation's profits based on Canadian oil) is very worrisome. I'm not sure if it is any different from the old strategy, insofar as all of this stuff was in place around the G20 and whatnot, but the boldness with which he is announcing these "anti-terrorist" tactics and the scope of who is considered to be a terrorist is disconcerting.

For example, the Public "Safety" Minister announced that they will not target "not only known terrorist groups, but "vulnerable individuals" who could be drawn into politically inspired violence."

My first question is with regards to this guy's title... which public and whose safety is he concerned about?

Also, they are vigilant against extremism based on causes like "animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism"

As an anti-oppression activist, I love seeing my work thrown in with white supremacists... it seems to be a very common strategy to discredit a movement. For example, I was having a facebook argument the other day, and was told that "to carry a label like feminist, [I] may as well wear the great dragon's cloak from the KKK because its no different.... feminism is associated with anger and hate" It seems as though people think that they can immediately discredit an entire movement comparing it to hateful movements (without knowing what you are talking about, or doing it purposefully to influence people who don't know what feminism or anti-capitalism is about).

In the article, it was said that

Terrorist action occurs when an extremist ideological group plans to carry out a violent attack that reasonably can be expected to kill people or destroy property,” Michael Patton, Mr. Toews’s director of communication, said in an e-mail Friday.

I guess Gandhi was a terrorist.

And why isn't Harper under arrest for terrorism?

We don't need feminism anymore!

I was listening to CBC radio the other day and they were doing a special show on the 40th anniversary of Ms magazine. They interviewed one of the founders of the magazine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and her daughter, a journalist named Abigail Pogrebin.

At first, I was kind of excited to be listening to a feminist story on the radio while I drove, but I ended up getting more and more irritated with it. It gave the impression that everything is fine right now, thanks to people like the founders of Ms magazine. While I appreciate how much things have improved in a variety of ways, I really get annoyed when people try to make it seem as though we no longer need feminism because men and women are equal now.

Abigail said that she doesn't feel that her life or her daughter's life are constrained by being a woman because we now have choices that weren't available when her mother co-founded the magazine. Then she went on to say that she used to work for 60 minutes, but found a new, less prestigious, job closer to home when she had children because she wasn't able to travel all the time anymore... and that she couldn't travel for work regularly because her husband had a job that required him to travel for work. She also said that he would not consider compromising his job to stay home with the kids. Now, this sounds like one of the reasons we still need feminism... women's choices are constrained in ways that men's choices often are not.

So, she quits a good job to take something closer to home in order to stay home with her children while her husband travels for work, but we don't need feminism anymore. Hurray for choices!

I hate this "I choose my choice" feminism. We do not have choices, in a lot of cases. The decision to participate in the nuclear family, to work in the waged labour force, to make sacrifices in one's career for the sake of raising children, even the decision about what kinds of clothing to wear are constrained by material circumstances, they are not made in a vacuum.

Not to be racist but....

I've said this before and I will say it again... if you have to say something along the lines of "I'm not racist but..." THEN YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY SOMETHING RACIST. I cannot stress this enough.

If you need to preface what you say with telling people that you are not a bigot, then you should not say it and think about why it is that you had the thought in the first place.

Also, I hope these are meant to be ironic or something, and I'm just not getting the joke

Also, I did get one laugh out of this at my friend's response on facebook, which was "not to sound racist but I'm wearing a green shirt"

Framing protests in the media

This post is from a presentation I gave at the University of Toronto a few days ago, where I spoke about the media's role in social movements. In discussing how issues were framed, I compared two newspaper articles covering some arrests at a budget cuts rally in Toronto. One article was in the National Post (found here) the other was from the Toronto Media Co-op (here).

Here are the headlines of the articles... National Post is on left and Media co-op on the right

“Four arrested after Toronto budget-cuts protest turns violent”

“Police crack heads as major budget cuts reversed”

Just reading the headlines, you have an idea of who is to blame. Did the protest turn violent, suggesting protesters started it, or did the police crack heads?

As for how many people were there

More than 100 demonstrators

“Approximately two hundred people were in chambers for the vote; almost ten times that number remained outside, prevented from entering by a line of police officers mixed with City Hall security.”

So, for those who read the National Post, this could seem like a really fringe thing... only 100 people... but if you read the media co-op, you would be told that there were move than 2000 in attendance, which gives the protest a lot more legitimacy.

What about the police officers... how threatening did they look?

“officers clad in yellow rain jackets and black bicycle helmets”

“horse mounted riot squad”

I don't know about you, but I would be much more afraid of a riot squad than a few guys in raincoats and bicycle helmets... the power relations would be much more obvious.

Who started the violent acts?

“demonstrators surged against the line of police”

”Attempts to enter the building for the vote were met with violence”

In both scenarios, protesters approach the officers, but it makes a huge difference if they were "surging against the line of police" or merely trying to enter a public building!

Lastly, were the police violent?

“three male protesters had been handcuffed and lined up against the wall of the building — one bleeding from his head.”

“Several arrests were made, people were beaten and choked, and an elderly man was thrown to the ground. At least one person was taken to St. Michael's hospital.”

In one article, some guy is randomly bleeding and nobody knows how. In the other article, there are specific and precise accounts of violent acts done by the police. We can use the pictures included in the article to take that further...

This photo, from the media co-op, shows a clearly violent act by a police officer...

The image from the National Post shows some angry protesters yelling while police officers watch calmly

The National Post also mentioned disturbances arising among the "ranks of occupy Toronto protesters"... you know, just in case anyone had stopped being afraid of them.

Which of these stories are read influences what readers think about the issues, the specific event in question, and their conception of protests and protesters more generally. Unfortunately, the National Post has a wider readership than Toronto Media Co-op (which usually only goes to already leftist people).

In my presentation, one of the things I mentioned was that we need to demand leftist journalists within mainstream papers (actually, I think I said that for every Margaret Wente, we need a column by Karl Marx). We need to demand that right wing propaganda is corrected and the media is held accountable for misinformation. I think think that letter writing campaigns are helpful, but at this point we might need to go further than that. I am wondering how an occupy media campaign might look and where it could take us.

Blog for Choice 2012

For the past few years, I have been involved in blog for choice (see posts here and here).

This years' question disappoints me however. I received an email from the organizers of Blog for Choice day, and was asked to reflect on this question in my post

What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?

First of all, Blog for Choice day is the anniversary of the American Roe vs. Wade court decision, so it makes sense that it is a very US-centric day, but, in light of the American election in 2012, this question becomes especially important to many American pro-choice activists and much less relevant to those of us who do not live in a country that has a major election of any kind coming up (yes, I know we can continue to lobby and whatnot after an election, but that isn't helping candidates).

Anyway, the question becomes even more frustrating and problematic for people who do not support the supposedly democratic political system. I, personally, think that the electoral system is a joke... I believe that by giving us two (or three or even five) candidates, and calling a select group of people citizens and allowing them to vote, it presents the illusion that we actually have a choice. But if you look at the candidates, we are basically selecting from A, A or A.... maybe NDP or Green party candidates can sometimes make up something that almost represents choice B in Canada, but in very limited ways. The way politics is currently organized upholds heterosexist, racist, patriarchal capitalist social relations. Anyway, this critique is not new, so I won't go into any more detail on it right now.

But to answer the question, what will I do to help pro-choice candidates (or members of parliament) in 2012? Absolutely nothing. I will, however, continue to write letters to newspapers and giving presentations as well as helping to organize and attend rallies when I believe it is useful to do so (such as on this and this occasion). I will continue to blog about the importance of choice. I will also continue to call out Harper (here and here) when he makes asshole decisions that affect women's ability to access abortion all the while saying that he will not bring up the abortion debate in parliament. But I will not help political candidates because I refuse to participate and further legitimize what I think is an illegitimate system.

Also, here is a cute failbook picture because it makes me happy.

Yet another offensive facebook comment conversation

I have been debating whether to post this or not because of thoughts I have been having about the ethics of posting about people in a blog that is no longer all that anonymous. This conversation was from facebook several months ago, and I have decided to go ahead and post it now because it still kind of bothers me and I find posting to be incredibly freeing in that once it is posted, it is no longer something that I think about.

Anyway, a friend on facebook updated their status asking if there were any men with a drivers license who needed a job, to which I asked if the work could be done by a woman (because I always seem to feel the need to comment on things that seem like they might be sexist). When I found out that it was for an actual company, I asked which one, so I could send some female friends down to apply, considering that sounds like a human rights violation.

One of her friends wrote

you must be gay!!! thats a gay woman's answer!!!

Because I guess only gay women care if men can apply for a job that they cannot. A mutual friend told them that their comment was totally uncalled for, to which this person responded

Am I wrong?????? If so I apologize. But I bet I'm right.

Why is it that he only has to apologize if I am not gay... if I am, then it is perfectly acceptable for him to talk about my sexuality on someone else's facebook wall based on a one sentence comment about why women couldn't apply for the job as well.

When I informed him that you don't have to be a lesbian to be a feminist (because I don't know when to walk away from an argument online) he responded with

it's ok really, i like pussy too.

and

Are you??? and i'm surprised you never spelled it " WOMYN"

So, I guess my point is if you think someone sounds queer in a facebook comment, great. But don't feel the need to post about it repeatedly. I was tempted for a while to comment on every post he wrote saying something like "you must be straight, with a comment like that" but figured it he wasn't worth the time and effort.

Also, am I the only person that seems to have repeated offensive conversations on facebook?