As usual, use this thread to post or link whatever you’d like. Self-linking is entirely welcome.
- Raising a child to be neither girl nor boy, just “Pop.” Unapologetically Female and Feministing both comment.
- It’s like a sick Onion headline come to life: Texas police raid gay bar on 40th anniversary of Stonewall. One bar patron is seriously injured.(Via.)
- Ten things wrong with the President of France’s wanting to eliminate the burqa.
- And at Global Comment: “Banning women from wearing the burqa is not about freedom, it is about the normalization of the Western performance of femininity.” (Via.)
- Like a dictionary, but better, and crowdsourced: Wordnic. (Via.)
- Ezra on Obama, taxes, and giving in to the Republican framing.
- My God, who wouldn’t want a wife? (I wish she had posted this on “Alas.”)
- If we wipe out the financial managers, that would solve many problems.
- How Spike ruined Buffy, and Buffy ruined vampires. (Via.)
- Israel has made some improvements in response to Obama.
- How Obama’s big speech in Egypt gets a “C” at best on women’s rights. Although unlike Cathy, I’m not against mentioning that America has problems too; I don’t believe that Obama makes an equivalence just because he mentions them both in the same speech. (It’s a matter of contextual analysis, however, not a hard-and-fast rule.) In the end, the real question is: How could Obama have put it that would have been more likely to make a positive difference? I’m not sure what the answer is.
- Womanist Musings on prison rape.
- Unexpected allies department: The Corner gets it right on prison rape.
- Posted because it’s of interest, not because I agree with all of it: Does it make sense to “ally” with Iranians when I have no idea what I’m talking about? (Via.)
- Evolutionary psychology is still nonsense.
- On being a Christian who wants to treat lesbian and gay people justly.
- No, the financial crash was not caused by the Community Reinvestment Act. It really wasn’t.
- Little Wheel. You’re a robot trying to wake up a dozing robot city. “Nothin’ too complicated, not really what I’d call a “game”, more like an animated story with a bit of interactivity, but nevertheless, beautiful and enjoyable.”
those look like a great round-up of links. can’t wait to get home from work to read em all!
Dear Ladies: an open letter to all the ladies who think it’s cute or funny to blame your shortcomings on being a “girl.” newsflash: it’s not.
An “o filthy grandeur!” tattoo? Well, maybe…
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Resurrection of the Dumbo crows and women as props: there is a spoiler alert for this. I discuss the racism and sexism in the new (crappy) Transformers movie.
One cancer survivors take on Healthcare for all , the uninsured in North Carolina and how to make 20 bucks by getting a mammogram
Thanks for the link love and for this blog, it helps me stay grounded when I start to take myself too seriously :)
OMG! I am so honored to be planted in the link farm at Alas! I love you guys… keep it up.
Do I have to say the same thing I did 5-6 years ago? I guess I do…
The only thing that would have been worse than watching the characters of BtVS living in the vanilla, cut-and-dried world of “I’m so sad because I’m a loser in high school, boo-hoo” where high school is the most IMPORTANT thing you’re ever going to face in life is that some loser ACTUALLY penned that Salon article whining about how he’s mad BtVS didn’t remain that show. Sorry, BtVS was complex and it was from the start although it didn’t focus as much on that in the early seasons. Some people didn’t like that the show didn’t turn out to be as conventional as they’d hoped.
Somewhere along the line, a segment of mostly Buffy/Angel, Xander, Buffy-on-pedistal, and male fans of the show found a scapegoat in the fictional character Spike. It’s not an accident it coincided with Spike’s increased popularity. From then on, those fans tried to argue his presence on the show was Illegitimate. Suddenly, people cared about rape (umm, Angel had been a rapist), that Buffy didn’t stake a vampire when she should have (she should have staked Angelus several times), etc., etc. Then they tried saying Spike was “taking over” the show (ala Fonzie as the Salon article claimed), saying he got all this screentime and the lines. Unfortunately some poor soul tallied it up and it was revealed what anybody with any sense knew- Spike had among the least lines and screentime of any character in the last seasons. In many episodes he was showed mumbling in a corner and that’s it and his story line was used as an afterthought to tie the plot together, it wasn’t even ABOUT Spike when it was “about” Spike.
When that failed, they blamed Giles’ character leaving on him. But they had a hard time explaining how a fake character convinced Tony Head to go back to England after something his daughters said broke his heart. I think even that obnoxious Salon article tried to blame Spike for Emma Caufield not returning (it was her issues with FOX). They even went as far as wanting to change The Rules specifically for Spike just to work against him- Angel can have killed people, raped women (including Drusilla), lied to Buffy, been a stalker, been a border-line pedophile but that’s a-okay because he has a soooooul and, well, he’s Angel (not to mention those last 3 things were while he was ensouled). Just because we SAW it with Spike it was supposed to means omethign different. What, do you think when Angel did it it was prettier?! The show evolved and took us to scarier places, made us face things adults face that children are shielded from (ie., the crimes of Angel/Angelus), yet the Spike-deniers wanted some 6 seasons worth of established mythology negated because they had to WATCH something unpleasant. Or, you know, they saw Spike as a threat…
I’m not saying things weren’t messy, the attempted rape scene wasn’t problematic, or the writing of the show and characters didn’t get funky. Half the time there was disconnect between whatt he writers wanted, the writers admittedly didn’t know where they were going at times, and certain outside influences made them have to adjust the story in accordance. The attempted rape scene WAS problematic but it was ONLY bringing to light what had been going on, so to speak, for several seasons in the established mythology. Spike was a soulless vampire, not a man, so we hold him to the standard of a demon, not a man, so we can’t treat him like a man when he does it. If you didn’t accept that then the same has to go for Angel or it’s a double-standard. But for some that was precisely the problem because they could no longer hide behind the safety of having Angel’s hisory explained and described or briefly shown rather than having to FACE it so they resented Spike for that. Or they just never thought to hard about it.
The show is NOT there to validate people who were losers in high school (in the case of the Salon article and some fans) or to make life simple and pretty (in the case of other fans). If that’s a problem for people then they should stick to cartoons.
As for the “emo” thing, I didn’t fidn Spike “emo” at any point nor do I believe the aticle above adequately makes a case for it. I do watch ‘True Blood’ and dislike Bill and Sookie because they remind me of the Buffy/Angel thing. Yes, they are emo.
From the AP via Yahoo:
Court rules for white firefighters over promotions
The decision doesn’t set those paired directives at odds. The situation did. In order to overcome the disparate impact of the exam the city proposed to intentionally discriminate against white firefighters. Hence the lawsuit.
Justice Ginsburg is right – the white firefighters had no right to promotion. But then, neither did the black or Hispanic firefighters. Nobody has a right to a promotion, regardless of their color. But the citizens of New Haven have a right to have the most qualified men and women be promoted into positions of responsibility and authority so as to best insure the efficacy of their fire department and their safety.
It’s a fair question to ask “Why was there a racial disparity?” and to investigate various possible causes. One of the causes to be investigated absolutely should be whether there was some kind of flaw in the test. What I do not think is fair or sensible is to presume that the disparity must be due to a flaw in the test without first investigating that and any other causes. It is not fair to set the goal of diversity, laudable as it is, over the goal of protecting the citizens of New Haven.
With regards to the burqa issue; it’s nobody’s business if a woman decides to wear one, or not. It IS the public’s business if the decision is made by someone else and enforced with either the power of the State on the one hand or physical violence from a family member on the other.
Thanks for the link!
From the comments at Ta-Nehisi’s blog:
Not that this is entirely wrong, but I would generally suggest that you’ll enjoy the analysis more if the pundits have read the case and understood it. That’s why I linked to volokh (you might also try scotusblog.) I can’t tell exactly what they are saying from the post you linked, but it seems like both the original poster and the commenter in the link are relying on third hand information in their own summary.
This part, in particular, is incorrect:
This decision will probably have fairly major effects, and the judges are well aware of this.
#1 – “Pop” child. When I worked in a 0-3 year old classroom there was nothing that made me happier than playing house, dolls and dress up with the boys and playing sports and roughousing with the girls. The fact that I can’t think of a better male-specific example for the girls than “sports & roughousing” is more than enough reason in my mind to be conscious of gender identify and stereotyping. While I don’t think I would try to eliminate gender identity in this method and don’t know all of the parent’s purpose, I think this is awesome.
#14 – Supporting Iran without knowin what is being supported
Reading this made me think of this quote:
“I wish them progress. If I wished them liberation, perhaps some people wouldn’t agree. I just with liberation to those who are themselves aware that they have not yet been liberated and have difficulties making a living.”
This is from Mao Zedong: On Diplomacy, 1998 pg 427 and was from a talk with Edgar Snow on January 9, 1965. This was a response to Snow asking Mao to “say a few words to the American people who entertain good feelings toward China” but to me the message is deeper. It would take a more thorough exposition on the book and on Mao to explain why I love this quote and Mao’s logic behind it, but I think he would also wish progress for the people of Iran and so do I.
Related to this is another one from my favorite quotes:
“In 1963 in my ‘Statement in Support of the Struggle of the American Black People Against Racial Discrimination’ I said, ‘The evil colonialist-imperialist system rose with the enslaving and trafficking of the black people, and it will certainly come to an end with the complete liberation of the black people’. I still uphold that view”
Mao Zedong: On Diplomacy, 1998 pg 439
If you read around the colonialist-imerialist buzzwords this is an insightful comment about imperialism and racial oppression. I thought of this quote earlier today when I saw that the SCOTUS (well, the 5 asshatt majority at least) doesn’t recognize racial injustice as a systematic truth. I’ll admit that I haven’t read enough on this case (yet) to know if it was one of those 5-4 decisions where it should have been 7-2 because of bad law but the minority on the court feels that they have to make a point and get it through as a 5-4 or if it should have been 7-2 or 8-1 the other way because hundreds of years of racial oppression might just possibly effect a standardized test’s ability to treat the applicants equally. I plan to read up on this more, but it’s sad to see Souter leave after being on the wrong side of a 5-4 decision about race & priveledge.
(Aside) I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts would take his ‘the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis or race’ and apply it to ‘the way to stop creating gender identity is to stop creating gender identity’
This is the Supreme Court, not Congress. They have a fairly different standard. And they answer very, very, specific questions as a general rule.
The question in this case was not “are minorities oppressed?” That’s not really a legal question (though actually it would come up if someone challenged AA under equal protection.) And the question was not “should we accept racial injustice as a systematic truth?” (also an interesting question, which might come up in some other case.)*
There’s a balance here. And it’s an important one.
I guess I’ll post my own review:
As a general rule, we try to avoid discrimination based on race (this is also the end goal of most anti-discrimination regulation.) We seek neutral processes.
However, the temporary measures designed to level the playing field require discrimination based on race. We also seek neutral results.
[ETA: Yeah, people aren’t numbers, but it helps to think for a moment as if they were. People are inputs; processes are equations, results are outputs.
If you have a lot of people who are equal for the trait that’s being tested, ONLY THEN you can have a neutral process and expect neutral results.
The problems arise in two situations. One is that people may not have equal abilities in every trait, often based on what their lives and educations have been like. Since “what your life and education have been like” may well correlate to some degree with “what race are you” then you can end up with racially disparate inputs.
The second (and more difficult) problem is that you often aren’t testing what you want to be testing. So you may try to craft a test to find out whether someone knows how to assemble a jet wing, but you accidentally end up testing on whether they know how to spell “aileron.” Or you might try to see how well someone can do complex problems, but accidentally test for how fast they can read and whether or not they have test anxiety.
Anyway, it’s really easy to talk about a “purely neutral test” in theory, but it’s hard as shit to design one in practice, if they even exist at all.]
The area of law thus presents an inherent battle between the two competing goals. And this case specifically addressed a battle between two conflicting legal obligations which were held by the city of New Haven: (1) the obligation to treat all applicants the same way, regardless of their race(a “process” obligation); and (2) the obligation to avoid tests which produced an unwarranted racially disparate result (a “results’ obligation.)
Neutral process. Neutral results. Can’t have both, at least not in this circumstance.(*2), (*3)
oops, gtg. more later.
*1 One thing I find a bit frightening is that some writers apparently think that answering the question “should we accept racial injustice as truth?” is the same as answering the question “and what, exactly, should we do to fix it?” Obviously, those are very different questions.
*2 One of the concurrences notes–accurately, I think–that at some point in the fairly near future, Congress and/or the Court are going to really have to confront this issue head on, as the conflicting goals of “equality for all = treating everyone the same” and “equality for all = preferentially help those most in need” are becoming more problematic.
*3 Is there, in fact, a neutral way for New Haven to assess applicants for firefighter promotions, which will both coincide with skill/ability AND avoid racial disparity in results? There may well be, but nobody presented it in this case. The failure to present a viable alternative had a fair bit to do with the reason that the city had to accept this test as valid. If someone designed such a non-biased test and made a good case for it, then under this decision the city will probably be obligated to adopt such a testing system.
So what happens when no matter how you tweak the process while keeping it neutral, the result is a racially disparate result?
I think Justice Ginsburg’s dissent misses the mark entirely. It completely ignores the idea that New Haven’s primary objective in promoting firemen to lieutenant is to make the New Haven FD the best it can be. To me, her dissent sets diversity goals above the goal of keeping the citizens of New Haven from being killed in fires.
Is there, in fact, a neutral way for New Haven to assess applicants for firefighter promotions, which will both coincide with skill/ability AND avoid racial disparity in results? There may well be, but nobody presented it in this case.
Which touches the core issue, as does the commentary that Amp quoted. New Haven didn’t find that they had failed to determine who the most qualified people for promotion were. They just didn’t want to get sued. They completely lost sight of what their actual obligation is, and that’s to the safety of New Havenites. The Fire Department doesn’t exist to provide opportunity for fire fighters. It exists to serve the people.
The failure to present a viable alternative had a fair bit to do with the reason that the city had to accept this test as valid. If someone designed such a non-biased test and made a good case for it, then under this decision the city will probably be obligated to adopt such a testing system.
Actually, apparently the city decided to abandon the test results without doing any examination regarding the validity of the test at all.
Let someone come up with a reason based on an examination of the process as to why this test should be considered invalid. Let them propose a change to that process while being able to justify that the test still provides a valid way to sort out who’s qualified and who isn’t (which would require spelling out the criteria for what is necessary to make a good FD Lieutenant and spelling out how they can be validly tested). Let them then administer the test. If the results eliminate the racial disparity, fine. If not, then either accept them or re-examine the issues. But don’t base a decision that the test is invalid solely on racial disparity results. Getting a proportionate distribution of the high scores among the races of the test should not be the test’s primary objective. Getting the best people selected for promotion should.
If someone designed such a non-biased test and made a good case for it, then under this decision the city will probably be obligated to adopt such a testing system.
The thing is, for all we know the test that was administered was non-biased. New Haven never examined the issue.
I read the first Twilight book and it stunk in many many ways. But one thing I’m sure of is that as the characters were written Buffy would loose that fight. Emo-Boy is just shown to be too fast and strong, plus being able to read minds at a distance? No Contest.
Ginsburg’s dissent (which you’ve apparently read) clearly and prominently states that the city went through a lengthy process to decide whether or not the test was valid. Two of the four members of the commission voted that they did not, after examining evidence and hearing expert testimony, have faith that the test conducted by the city was valid.
Unless you think that Ginsburg was flat-out lying in her recounting of the facts of the case — which would be a pretty remarkable thing for you to claim — I don’t see how you can support your claim.
I read the beginning of Ginsburg’s dissent, wherein she sets forth her summery of how she adjudged the matter, but stopped before she got to the details about the test. I had written that statement on the basis of the AP report:
I have now slogged through both the majority and minority opinions. Which might lead one to ask: what the hell is the AP talking about? All I can think of is that the CSB took testimony about the type of testing that was used, the process that was used to develop it, etc., but never actually got down to the nuts and bolts of looking at the questions themselves, etc. They didn’t actually grab the test and rip it apart. So in that way, you can say that they chose to not examine the test; instead, they got a lot of testimony about the process of developing and administering the test but ducked examining the test itself.
I don’t think Ginsburg is lying, but I think she is stretching her interpretation quite a bit.
You can’t get a sense of the real facts just by reading Ginsburg’s dissent, any more than you can get a sense of the real facts just by reading one of the concurrences. You have to read everything, and you will see where various justices mention various (important) facts throughout the case.
I have to say that I have not read the trial transcript nor the 2nd circuit decision. However, I have read the entire opinion and all of the side opinions. Based solely on the facts which are referenced in the majority decision and the other opinions, it seems quite inaccurate to suggest that the city did any sort of in depth review of the process.
Oh, and BTW:
The recounting of facts in a biased manner, and/or presenting a subjective analysis of facts as objective, are quite common in the law and in USSC opinion fights between judges.
If a justice says that the city has “clearly performed an in depth review of the case” or if a justice says that the city has “clearly failed to adequately review the case” then, well… frankly, those are opinions about facts. And while the USSC justices are extraordinarily intelligent and extraordinarily well versed in the law, they spin facts just like the rest of us. Including Ginsburg.
Gee, SM, really? People present facts in a manner that is shaded to support their arguments? I had no idea that was the case! Who could have possibly known that?
*rolleyes*
Here is the statement I was responding to, with emphasis added, since you apparently missed it the first time:
The claim I was rebutting was whether there had been an examination at all.
There is, as you say, a legitimate argument over if the examination was sufficient (and over what “sufficient” consists of). There is no legitimate argument that no examination whatsoever took place.
Amp,
Before I keep discussing this, it would be helpful to know if you are getting your information from summary reports, whether you’ve only read Ginsburg’s dissent, or whether you’ve read all published opinions.
1) I completely disagree with the TNC link that says the concern about a lawsuit was a bad reason to be hesitant to certify the results of the exam. New Haven, at the time it gave that exam, was already in court over its fire department promotion practices in the 1990s, for which minority plaintiffs sued and won. If I had been the city’s counsel and seen the disparate impact for the particular exam — when many past methods of evaluating candidates for promotion had NOT had such large disparities — I would have been worried as well. When the exam results came out, the black firefighters’ organization said they would sue if the results were certified, and even after this SCOTUS decision, they’re still saying they’ll sue if there’s a certification.
Unless the laws on employment discrimination are radically re-written to limit the ability to bring such cases, these are serious concerns for municipalities and it’s kind of ignorant to sneer at them as “weak.” If TNC doesn’t find the case very gripping, that’s fine (he’s not obligated to write about it), but these are real problems that employers and their counsel are grappling with.
2) It’s odd to claim that New Haven did not put significant time and effort into deciding whether to certify the exam results. They consulted multiple experts; held hearings at which fire fighters could testify before the Civil Service Commission; re-examined the process by which the testing company had formulated the exam; considered alternatives like assessment centers where candidates would be judged based on their performance in simulations of actual on-the-job situations (rather than on their ability to regurgitate rules); and had more testimony and a vote by the CSB.
Whether this was sufficient probably depends on how grave you think it is to reject an exam. If you put a lot of weight on how much money and time Frank Ricci gave to studying for the exam (empathetic!), then you probably think that level of consideration was not enough. If you think that employers routinely have to rethink whether they’re using the right metrics to evaluate employees, then that level of consideration probably seems like enough.
Re: the link farm generally:
I am really disgusted by how the Pop story is being treated at Double X. The writers there have described raising a child without labeling his/her gender based on genitalia as “child abuse.” I have thought since I was a child myself that I would like to raise my children as free of gender norms as possible, but as I grew older I realized how incredibly difficult this would be as everyone around them — family, friends, media, etc. — would try to box them in based on their physical sex. I agree with Pop’s parents that the only way one can do this is for people not to know what that physical sex is. It is sad that even purported liberals and feminists find this so incredibly threatening that they call it abuse. I find it a lot more abusive to make a female-sexed child whose gender identification trends male conform to “girly” norms, yet that happens every day and no one calls Child Protective Services or says the kid should be taken from the parents.
A new link: Unsurprisingly, the WSJ news pages assume that weight is something you both can and should change in order to get work.
ETA: I also recommend the Dallas Fed’s debunking the idea that the CRA is to blame for the housing market’s fall. I put particular credence in this analysis because the Dallas Fed is probably the most conservative of the regional Federal Reserve banks. If they’ve run the regression and not found a causation, it’s probably true.
PG, regarding this post, are they spelling something? I can’t figure it out. I recognize Ginsberg, I think, but are the other folks also famous?
So far as I know the other folks aren’t famous; the picture is from an event at the Ohio State Moritz School of Law. They’re supposed to be spelling Ohio, because what normal people do at football games, nerds do at law review symposia. (And I say “nerds” in great envy; I’ve only heard Ginsburg speak once and it was on the rather boring topic of other Columbia Law alumni who were Supreme Court justices.)
Not a link, but a very true statement I saw on Facebook just now*:
“A huge part of privilege is being able to claim that the other side has the burden of proof.”
* In the context of DADT supporters saying that the opponents of the policy have to prove there won’t be ill effects.
ETA: Is a link: this book sounds like it has some great analysis of how free market economics and “family values” converge. http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=7198