EDIT: Upon watching this video again, the gay couple strikes me as stereotypical and kind of offensive (although I know that as a straight woman, I’m not the one to make that call). So I apologize if the portrayal put anyone off.
Oh, Hollywood, I love you.
(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)
I’m considering having an ABW NYC gathering since I know a few of you live in the city Maybe on a Friday night we could gather at some watering hole and talk about how the white man is keeping us down or something :) Anyone interested?
Apurva, a blogger from India, writes:
In the midst of all this, we had Mr Advani talking about the need for stricter laws to control terrorism. If that is his solution, I wonder in which India he lives in. Stricter laws have never been a deterrent for crime anywhere in the world and least of all in India. If that were the case, dowry deaths would be non-existent by this time. Untouchability would have been a thing of the past. His unimaginative and primitive mind can only think of draconian laws that will inevitably be used to harass the minorities and the powerless. As John Oliver says in the above video, “when you’re a bankrupt ideology pursuing a bankrupt strategy, the only move you’ve got is the dick one.”
Also, Ganani Sankaran writes:
It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists – the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming themselves into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with the Marathis and Kolis
But the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST. No Barkha dutt went there to tell us who they were. But she was at Taj to
show us the damaged furniture and reception lobby braving the guards. And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were
again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities.
This is an open thread; use it to post what you like, with whomever you like, for as long as you like. Self-linking is beautiful, baby, beautiful.
There are episodes all over YouTube, and when those whet your appetite, please buy the DVD and support these comedic geniuses.”
(Note: I wrote three posts on the anti-feminist attack on The Family Place: One Two Three.)
Via Womanist Musings: Men’s rights advocate Glenn Sacks has gotten some press for protesting these ads, which were created by The Family Place and were displayed on buses in Dallas through November 30:
(Image description: The image shows a boy, perhaps 5-7 years old. The boy is wearing a striped shirt and smiling at the viewer. The text of the ad says “When I grow up, I will beat my wife. Men who witnessed domestic violence as children are twice as likely to abuse their wives. Break the cycle of domestic violence.” The first letter of the text is a child’s wooden block toy with the letter “W” carved on its surface. The ad also includes contact information for The Family Place.)
(Image description: The image shows a girl, perhaps 4-7 years old. The girl is wearing a pink dress and a toy princess crown. The text of the ad says “One day my husband will kill me. Girls who grow up in households with domestic violence are more likely to end up with abusive partners. Break the cycle of domestic violence.” The first letter of the text is an illuminated letter “O” in the style of an illuminated manuscript or a children’s fairy tale book with old-fashioned illustrations. The ad also includes contact information for The Family Place.)
From the Dallas News:
“The calls [for help and support] are coming more than we can handle,” Paige Flink, executive director of the nonprofit, told me yesterday. “That’s what we intended to happen.”
What Ms. Flink didn’t intend is happening just as quickly – an international backlash caused by a Los Angeles-based “men’s and fathers’ issues columnist,” Glenn Sacks, who blogs for the Massachusetts-based Fathers & Families nonprofit advocacy group.
Mr. Sacks is spearheading a campaign to get DART and The Family Place to yank the ads, saying they stereotype men as batterers and women as just victims of domestic violence.
“I think it’s over the top,” Mr. Sacks said in a phone interview. “And I think it is insulting.”
The Family Place created three ads, ((One ad I didn’t reproduce at the top of this post, since Glenn isn’t protesting that one. All three ads can be seen on this page at The Family Place’s website.)) all depicting female victim / male abuser situations. I wish they had done a fourth ad showing a boy child as a future victim. Men are a minority of victims of intimate violence, but “minority” doesn’t mean “nonexistent.” There are male victims of intimate violence who require assistance, and there seems to be virtually no outreach to abused men. (The Family Place provides assistance to both female and male victims of violence.)
But the best evidence we have indicates that most intimate violence — and in particular, the most severe and harmful cases — are typically cases of men abusing women. Given that context, it’s ridiculous that Glenn objects to the depiction of women suffering from male abusers. It’s notable that Glenn didn’t work to have a new ad added to the campaign, reaching out to male victims of abuse; that’s a goal I could support. Instead, he campaigned to have these ads removed. Whatever his intent, what Glenn’s demands called for wasn’t inclusion of male victims, but the erasure of female victims and male perpetrators.
Glenn assumes it’s an insult to fathers for domestic violence awareness ads to even implicitly talk about male violence against women. But why should fathers be insulted? The ads don’t claim, or even imply, that all fathers are abusers.
It doesn’t appear that Glenn attempted — or even considered — a more productive approach before he began grandstanding. Before demanding that the Dallas buses take down ads that might genuinely help raise awareness of domestic violence against women — and might even save a life — Glenn could have instead have contacted The Family Place and offered to help raise funds to help pay for a fourth ad intended to reach out to male victims of intimate violence. Instead, Glenn and other men’s rights advocates (MRAs for short) specifically attacked The Family Place’s funding:
A sub-group of our protesters who I selected called over 50 of The Family Place’s financial contributors to express our concerns about the ads. […] Several of The Family Place’s financial contributors withdrew or reduced the financial gifts they planned for the end-of-the-year giving season. I don’t say this with pleasure–I would have preferred that The Family Place do the right thing from the beginning rather than lose the funding.
Actions talk louder than words, Glenn. You specifically targeted The Family Place’s funding (although, as we’ll see in a future post, you didn’t succeed). This “I don’t say this with pleasure” plea is the worse sort of responsibility-dodging.
Glenn could have acted constructively. Glenn could have at least suggested that his readers give some money to The Family Place to make up for the funding damage Glenn claims they’ve caused. Instead, Glenn suggests his readers give money to Glenn, so that Glenn can organize more swell protests like this in the future.
That Glenn never attempted a constructive approach is telling. It’s typical of MRAs, most of whom are passionate about attacking feminism, and attacking people working to help victims of abuse and rape, but indifferent to helping male victims. Imagine if all the energy and time MRAs have put into bashing, hating, and attacking feminists for the last twenty years could be taken back and instead invested into building institutions that could help male victims of rape and abuse. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
This is the first in a short series of posts about the anti-feminist attack on The Family Place. Future posts will include never-before-published quotes from The Family Place’s Paige Flink, an examination of Glenn Sack’s statistical claims, more on how a constructive MRA movement would act, and explaining why Glenn’s protest actually didn’t accomplish much.
By the way, after talking to Paige Flink, I was very impressed by The Family Place. For decades, they’ve done good work to help victims of violence, regardless of sex. They should be encouraged and supported, not protested.
To donate to The Family Place, click here. Please let me know in comments or via email if you’ve donated to The Family Place because of what you’ve read on “Alas.” At the end of the week, “Alas” will match contributions made by “Alas” readers. ((Up to a maximum total of $800.)) So in a way, your contribution this week is worth double.
However, I have caved into pressure to put up an artist/writer page on Facebook. Here it is. I’m not entirely sure what to do with it yet, but you can become my “fan”, start discussions there, write on my wall, and some other stuff. If you’re on Facebook, that is.
Julie the Girl Detective has a thoughtful post right below this one about the American Thanksgiving mythos, the enduring myth that Sarah Josepha Hale ((Along with Thanksgiving, she is also the creator of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”)) created in the pages of Godey’s Ladies Book.
You should read the whole thing, but this is the question I wanted to respond to:
I’m all for a harvest festival that allows me the time to see friends and family living 400 miles away, but why do we have to perpetuate such a pernicious falsehood? What justification is there for this?
I’d like to posit an answer: It’s because we’re guilty as sin, and we know it.
By “we,” of course, I’m referring to white Americans, the folks who came up with the myth that the Wôpanâak and the Pilgrims were fast friends, working together to build a nation. It flatters us to think that we were welcomed by the indigenous peoples of this land, makes us feel like it was okay that we took it from them, piece by bloody piece, inch by bloody inch, body by bloody body. After all, they invited us in — they were asking for it.
The genocide of native peoples is hardly a unique event in human history — there have been many genocides in our past, and there will be more in our future — but it’s our genocide. This isn’t the slaughter of the Armenians or the Holocaust. This is death we caused, through disease and war and deprivation. This is land we ethnically cleansed, from sea to shining sea. This land is not yours nor mine; it was theirs. I write this on Lakota land.
The first recorded Thanksgiving in American history was in Connecticut Colony in 1637, celebrating the end of the Pequot War, and the genocide of the Pequot tribe. Those few Pequot who survived that war were either sold into slavery or fled into diaspora. But we don’t celebrate that because we’re not proud of that history. Like slavery, it is an indelible stain on our nation’s soul, one that nothing can ever erase.
This is why we cling to the myth — because we don’t want to believe our great-great-great-grandparents were murderers of a kind with the Nazis or the Hutus. We want to believe that our forbearers were good people, people who were kind to those with different skin and different languages than theirs. We want to believe that our ancestors were generous people, people who shared their bounty with others. We want to believe that our nation really was founded to be the shining city on a hill that Mather said it was.
But our nation was not founded by demigods. It was founded by people just as prone to prejudice and hate as we are today — only without the intervening four hundred years of wisdom we have gained just to get to the point where most of us believe genocide is evil — with the occasional exception.
We do ourselves no favors by clinging to the myth; believing our forebearers were good people who just happened to take over a mysteriously empty North America allows us to continue to hate immigrants, allows us to ignore the death toll in Iraq, allows us to continue believing that People Like Us are somehow superior to Other People. Better to accept that our ancestors, like all peoples’ ancestors, were flawed, and capable of the same kinds of evil that we ourselves would be capable of if not for one hundred years of concerted efforts by goo-goo liberals to drive home the point that genocide is evil. Accepting that would allow us to recognize the hatred in ourselves, and to work to eliminate it. But that’s hard, and uncomfortable. Much easier to simply hold to the fiction that there was a time, long ago, when Native Americans and American colonists sat down and broke bread together over a hearty meal, thankful for the bounty and for each other’s company. It’s a nice story, and unlike the genocide that followed the Puritan colonization, it never happened. And that makes all the difference.
I know this is ridiculously late, but I was visiting relatives in the Bay Area this weekend, and didn’t have much time to blog. Plus, traffic was so bad that each trip took over 9 hours. (Usually it’s around 7. A slog, sure, but doable.) For some reason, my husband and I thought we’d be the only ones zany enough to start the journey after work on Wednesday, but no, actually, everyone south of the damn Grapevine had that shitty idea. Who knew? It took us four hours just to get out of L.A. County. After midnight, when we finally decided to get a motel room south of Buttonwillow, we had to wait in line at the most crowded Motel 6 I’ve ever seen.
Anyway.
Plain(s)feminist and Nezua both wrote about the true origins of Thanksgiving, which I’d never heard before. (I’d always known that the Pilgrims-and-Indians-sitting-at-picnic-table version was more myth than fact, but I hadn’t known the extent of it.)
According to John Two-Hawks,
‘Thanksgiving’ did not begin as a great loving relationship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people. In fact, in October of 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial ‘Thanksgiving’ meal, the Indians who were there were not even invited! There was no turkey, squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. A few days before this alleged feast took place, a company of ‘pilgrims’ led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local Indian chief, and an 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of keeping Indians out! Officially, the holiday we know as ‘Thanksgiving’ actually came into existence in the year 1637. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed this first official day of Thanksgiving and feasting to celebrate the return of the colony’s men who had arrived safely from what is now Mystic, Connecticut. They had gone there to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women and children, and Mr. Winthrop decided to dedicate an official day of thanksgiving complete with a feast to ‘give thanks’ for their great ‘victory’.
However, this is one of a few versions of the story (and none of them involve the damn picnic table). According to the LA Times (via Rye Drinker),
Although there were sporadic local Thanksgiving days in Colonial and early America, it was not until the middle of the Civil War — 1863 — that President Lincoln issued a proclamation making the last Thursday in November a national holiday of Thanksgiving. Lincoln’s statement suggested that thanks were being given as much for “the advancing armies and navies of the Union” as for a bountiful harvest, and the president urged special prayers for “all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged.”
I’m all for a harvest festival that allows me the time to see friends and family living 400 miles away, but why do we have to perpetuate such a pernicious falsehood? What justification is there for this?
(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)
So here’s the story as I understand it. Every year at this elementary school they celebrate Thanksgiving by having the kids dress up as pilgrims and “indians”. Parents, mainly those of Native descent, have begun to object to this for several reasons. 1. It’s a completely inaccurate portrayal of what went on when the pilgrims got here. (I am also kind of sick of the way we lie to kids about history, only to have to reteach it later. Columbus discovered America, anyone? Lincoln fought the war to free the slaves? But I digress.) 2. The “indian” outfits are stupid and based on racist stereotypes, anyway. All they were asking is that they have the Thanksgiving stuff without the ignorant dress up time. The school board agreed and said that the feast should happen without costumes.
And then.
Well, most of you who read this blog can guess what happened.
Condit Elementary School parent Michelle Raheja said she was not prepared for the backlash she got from helping to write an e-mail to a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school.
She and her daughter have been harassed as a result, she said Wednesday.
“It was a private message to one kindergarten teacher,” Raheja said. “She did not ask me if she could circulate it to others or circulate it to the principal. I don’t think she was ill-intentioned.”
On Tuesday, numerous parents and their children dressed in American Indian and Pilgrim costumes to protest a Claremont Unified School District decision to have a Thanksgiving feast without the costumes that have been traditional for decades.
Another group of protesters, many younger and of American Indian descent, carried signs that said “Racism,” “No Thanks No Giving,” “Respect” and “Don’t Celebrate Genocide.”
…
Raheja said she and about 15 to 20 parents in the school helped write the private e-mail message about their concerns with the dress in the Thanksgiving feast to a Condit elementary teacher. She said the e-mail was redistributed without her knowledge.
At the Tuesday feast, Raheja said her 5-year-old daughter was harassed. A parent dressed up as an American Indian, Raheja said, “did a war dance around my daughter.” The parent then told her daughter and others to “go to hell,” she said.
Let’s pause here a moment. A war dance. A WAR DANCE, PEOPLE.
What the fuck kind of ass do you have to be to tell a 5 year old to go to hell? The same kind of ass who would do a “war dance” around one.
I don’t advocate violence, but if I had seen that, I would have just hauled off and hit that person.
Continuing…
On Wednesday, she said she had received more than 250 “hateful and intimidating” e-mails.
“They go from being anxious about political correctness to calling me (an epithet). They don’t know my daughter’s name, but they’ve said hateful and disgusting things about my daughter.” (Classy! –abw)
…
At Tuesday’s feast, Raheja said she was told “if I had any issue with the school, I need to leave the school, and my daughter would not be welcomed.”
Raheja said, “We love Condit. We love the staff. Overall, we’ve had a very good experience. But the anger and hatred has been unbearable.”
If you have an opinion on this matter, I suggest you express it to the Condit staff and administrators yourself. Website is here, complete with contact information. I personally think it’s a little messed up for them to have even allowed parents to act in despicable ways around kids at their school or to distribute that email in the first place.
Google News on the subject here. Beware clueless people being quoted and yammering on about how horrible political correctness is because it keeps their children from parading around in “headdresses”. Idiots.
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