Friday, April 30, 2010

What TIME WON'T TELL: the U.S. corporate media magazine names Malalai Joya one of 100 people "who most affect our world". But here's what TIME WON'T TELL you...


Here's the image TIME magazine DIDN'T use:
[this image is from here]

But maybe that one wasn't clear enough--or maybe it's too clear?

Okay, here's another image of Joya ALSO not used by TIME:
[this image is from here]

But that shows her being ACTIVE and OUTSPOKEN, OPPOSING THE U.S. WAR on Afghanistan. So...

Here's the one TIME did use:
Jonathan Evans / Eyevine

Note the rather glaring difference in stance and the muting of her message. I searched, but I couldn't find a more passive image of Malalai anywhere on the Internet. So they really had to search far and wide for that one.

Malalai Joya is a humanitarian, a human rights activist, a feminist, and a revolutionary. She and her people are not just fighting the Taliban. See, it's not just those woman-hating oppressors--the misogynistic men of the Taliban--who are oppressing women in her country. But don't take my word for it...

From the beginning of her autobiography, linked to right here.
For the thirty years I have been alive, my country has suffered from the constant scourge of war. Most Afghans my age and younger have only known bloodshed, displacement, and occupation. When I was a baby in my mother's arms, the Soviet Union invaded my country. When I was four years old, my family and I were forced to live as refugees in Iran and then Pakistan. Millions of Afghans were killed or exiled, like my family, during the battle-torn 1980s. When the Russians finally left and their puppet regime was overthrown, we faced a vicious civil war between fundamentalist warlords, followed by the rule of the depraved and medieval Taliban.
After the tragic day of September 11, 2001, many in Afghanistan thought that, finally, with the ensuing overthrow of the Taliban, they might finally see some light, some justice and progress. But it was not to be. The Afghan people have been betrayed once again by those who are claiming to to help them. More than seven years after the U.S. invasion, we are still faced with foreign occupation and a U.S.-backed government filled with warlords who are just like the Taliban. Instead of putting these ruthless murderers on trial for war crimes, the United States and its allies placed them in positions of power, where they continue to terrorize ordinary Afghans.

You may be shocked to hear this, because the truth about Afghanistan has been hidden behind a smoke screen of words and images carefully crafted by the United States and its NATO allies and repeated without question by the Western media.

You may have been led to believe that once the Taliban was driven from power, justice returned to my country. Afghan women like me, voting and running for office, have been held up as proof that the U.S. military has brought democracy and women's rights to Afghanistan.

But it is all a lie, dust in the eyes of the world.
-- Malalai Joya, pages 1 and 2, A Woman Among Warlords (2009)
This U.S. military-industrially invested and corporate-sponsored TIME WARNER way of honoring of Malalai Joya may be found *here*. Pay close attention to who they don't implicate in the violence against her people--which, as you know, includes violence against women. I mention this because one of the sleazier U.S. media manipulations and propaganda campaigns that has succeeded among people right to left, is to convince us that the Amerikkkan military needs to be occupying and bombing Afhanistan to support WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS. Last time I checked, and this news wasn't in TIME magazine either, KILLING WOMEN wasn't a form of supporting their human rights.

Does TIME require its reporters and writers to really know much about the people they honor, such as by, maybe, taking in the information on the first two pages of her autobiography? I get the sense that, yes, Hirsi Ali DID read her book, and can only ask her to reconsider what she knows to be true: the U.S. is many things to Afghanistan, but "an ally" isn't one of them. Watch how Kirsi Ali negotiates around her position about the U.S., as if the problem is all in her mind. As if, somehow, she's got it all wrong about who is causing the Afghan women and men around her to die young--life expectancy is to age 45. As if maybe she doesn't get that the terror the girls and boys in her country feel when U.S. bombs blow up their homes and families is really the U.S. being a good friend to those in need. If only she could see that! Read on...

The 2010 TIME 100

In our annual TIME 100 issue we name the people who most affect our world

Malalai Joya

To be a woman growing up in Afghanistan under the Taliban and to survive is in itself a major feat. To be so lucky as to become literate in a place where girls are shrouded and denied even fresh air is close to a miracle. To start underground schools and educate girls under the noses of turbaned, self-appointed defenders of virtue and forbidders of vice is truly extraordinary.

But to get a seat in parliament and refuse to be silent in the face of the Taliban and warlord zealots shows true fiber. When Malalai Joya did this, her opponents responded in the usual way: expulsion from parliament, warnings, intimidation and attempts to cut her life short. She has survived all of it.

Malalai, 31, is a leader. I hope in time she comes to see the U.S. and NATO forces in her country as her allies. She must use her notoriety, her demonstrated wit and her resilience to get the troops on her side instead of out of her country. The road to freedom is long and arduous and needs every hand.

Hirsi Ali, author of Infidel, has a book, Nomad, out this month

*          *          *

Now, if TIME magazine wishes to REALLY honor her and all her very hard work, let them put on their cover a call to President Obama to withdraw all troops and work with nations around the world, not just the rich ones, to bring to an international war crimes trial ALL the warlords ruling her country--including those who are fully backed by the U.S. And include on THAT cover the "warlord zealots" named George W. Bush and Barack Obama, named as such.

I wonder: when will that be happening? Any TIME soon?

The U.S. media is like a self-righteous arrogant angry white man in a car in NYC traffic: he'll curse out everyone around him, and think he's never in the wrong.We're very comfortable calling the Taliban woman-oppressors, because they are. But wait... we're their oppressors too! Uh-oh. What to say about that? Let's try nothing, and, god forbid, she actually get those words out, about the U.S. "occupying" Afghanistan in a not-so-helpful way, rest assured, she'll be shut down and shut off. You can witness this happen below.

Below you can see for yourself just how much "freedom of the press" we really have here, on this land of the free! Is this a country where our press can speak out against its leaders in non-bickery Republicratic ways? No. Well then, can we at least let someone from a country we're bombing speak out about what she knows even better than President Obama and his generals? No, we can't have that kind of freedom here. So we don't. But Sandra Bullock secretly adopted a baby boy of color! THAT'S something you're going to hear all about--primarily from a white supremacist perspective.

TIME WARNER and other mega-media have the freedom to speak in favor of what their stockholders want them to say in order to drive up stock prices. That means, in practical terms, there's a lot that can't be said. We are not likely to be hearing a lot more in TIME or out of TIME, from Malalai Joya on U.S. patriarchal and racist corporate imperialism any time soon.

About this we can be sure: women of color do not own U.S. mass media. They just occasionally get honorably mentioned for doing things the U.S. press has no intention of reporting honestly about. Here's more proof.

From this website, antiwar.com, about CNN's interview with Malalai Joya. CNN, you know, is owned by TIME WARNER. All that follows to close this post is from antiwar.com. And with what follows, I say "Your honor, I rest my case."

Malalai Joya and the Tale of 2 CNNs
Eric Garris, October 28, 2009
“The Bravest Woman in Afghanistan,” Malalai Joya did two CNN interviews on Thursday. Joya is an elected member of the Afghanistan parliament who has been suspended for “insulting fellow members of parliament” in a television interview. She is articulate and firm in her position that the Western occupation is feeding the violence.

The first interview was broadcast on CNN (US). In the middle of the interview, as Joya made clear she opposed US occupation, interviewer Heidi Collins said “occupation would certainly be your word, a lot of people would take great issue with you calling the US presence in your country an ‘occupation’.” Joya went on to defend her position as Collins’ interrupted snidely. As Joya tried to respond to Collins, she was cut off.



The second interview took place on CNN International. Joya’s anti-occupation position was highlighted up front and the interviewer was polite and respectful.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

What if The Tea Party was Black-Led and Black-Majority?

 [image is from here]

To those who deny the racism of the Tea Party, all you need to do is imagine that the Black to white ratio of the loose-knit group, admittedly of several different streams of political thought and ideology, were reversed.

First up, this piece by white anti-racism activist, Tim Wise:


“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black”

by Tim Wise

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making?

Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Game Over.

[end of Tim Wise's writing]

*          *          *

The last section of this post contains the recent sample study that was done of the Tea Party by CBS News and The New York Times, from *here*. But first, I'm going to rewrite parts of it [THIS IS FICTION, FOLKS] and tell me what you think the U.S. government reaction would be with the changes I make.

They're Black. They're all ages. And they're angry.

Democracy Now and the Black Press USA surveyed 1,580 adults, including 881 self-identified Tea Party supporters, to get a snapshot of the Tea Party movement. There is a lot of information to unpack; let's begin with the demographics.

Eighteen percent of Americans identify as Tea Party supporters. The vast majority of them -- 89 percent -- are Black. Just one percent is white.

They tend to be all ages: Three in four are 25 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 45 plus. They are also more likely to be women (59 percent) than men (41 percent).

More than one in three (36 percent) hails from the South, far more than any other region. Twenty-five percent come from the West, 22 percent from the Midwest, and 18 percent from the northeast. 

More than half (54 percent) identify as Democrats, and another 41 percent say they are independents. Just five percent call themselves Republicans, compared to 31 percent of adults nationwide.

Nearly three in four describe themselves as liberal, and 39 percent call themselves very liberal. Sixty percent say they always or usually vote Democratic. Forty percent say the United States needs a third party, while 52 percent say it does not.

They are more likely than American adults overall to attend religious services weekly (38 percent do so) and to call themselves evangelical (39 percent). Sixty-one percent are Protestant, and another 22 percent are Muslim.

More than half -- 58 percent -- keep a gun in the household.

More than three in four Tea Party supporters (78 percent) have never attended a rally or donated to a group; most have also not visited a Tea Party Web site.

For the purposes of the poll, those who have attended a rally or donated to a group have been deemed Tea Party "activists." Four percent of Americans fall into this category.

Tea Party activists tend to be even angrier, more pessimistic about the country and more negative about white leadership than other Americans who identify as part of the Tea Party movement.

What They Believe

Fifty-three percent of Tea Party supporters describe themselves as "angry" about the way things are going in Washington, compared to 19 percent of Americans overall who say they are angry.

Asked what they are most angry about, the top four answers among Tea Party supporters who identify as angry were the lack of health care (16 percent), the government not representing the people (14 percent), government military spending (11 percent) and unemployment and the economy (8 percent).

More than nine in ten (92 percent) say America is has been on the wrong track for the last ten or more years, while just six percent say the country is headed in the right direction. Fifty-nine percent of Americans overall say the country is on the wrong track.

Eighty-eight percent disapproved of George W. Bush's performance on the job, compared to 60 percent of Americans overall. While half of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's job performance, just seven percent of Tea Party supporters say he did a good job.

Asked to volunteer what they didn't like about Mr. Bush, the top answer, offered by 19 percent of Tea Party supporters, was that they just don't like him. Eleven percent said he turned the country more toward a highly corporately controlled and oppressive capitalism that is concentrating the wealth among very corrupt leaders of financial institutions and other systems that are deeply racist, ten percent cited his flagrant disregard of health care for poor working people, and nine percent said he was dishonest.

Seventy-seven percent describe Mr. Bush as "very conservative," compared to 31 percent of Americans overall. Fifty-six percent say that president's policies favor the rich, compared to 27 percent of Americans overall.

Sixty-four percent believe that the former president decreased taxes for the most wealthy Americans. Thirty-four percent of the general public says the president has raised taxes on the most wealthy Americans.

While most Americans (58 percent) say the president understands their needs and problems, just 2.4 percent of Tea Party supporters agree. Just one in five say the former president shared the values of most Americans.

Only one percent of Tea Party supporters approved of the job Congress is doing, compared to 17 percent of Americans overall.

Twenty-four percent of Tea Party supporters say it is sometimes justified to take violent action against the government. That compares to 16 percent of Americans overall who say violence against the government is sometimes justified.
 
Sixty-three percent say they get the majority of their political and current events news on television from the Network News Channels, compared to 23 percent of Americans overall. Forty-seven percent say television is their main source of Tea Party information, the top source; another 24 percent say they get Tea Party information from the internet.

Nearly half say the main goal of the movement is to male the federal government responsive to and accountable to the people, far outdistancing any other consideration. Just seven percent say the goal of the movement is to elect Tea Party candidates.

An overwhelming majority of Tea Party supporters, 84 percent, say the views of the Tea Party movement do not reflect the views of most Americans. Americans overall agree: Just 25 percent say the Tea Party movement reflects their beliefs, while 36 percent say it does not.

Gross Corporate Capitalism, Fascistic Conservatism, and Tea Party Leaders
Ninety-two percent of Tea Party supporters believe President Bush's policies were moving the country toward fascism and a stronger and more virulent form of white supremacy. Fifty-two percent of Americans overall share that belief.

Asked what fascistic conservatism and corporate capitalism means, roughly half of Tea Party supporters said corporate ownership and control of government against the needs of the people, far more than any other answer. Eleven percent cited taking away civil rights and eliminating fought for freedoms, and eight percent said it means the concentration of wealth increasingly into the hands of the top few percent of the country's rich.

Thirty percent of Tea Party supporters believe Mr. Bush was born on another planet, despite some evidence to the contrary. Another 29 percent say they don't know. Twenty percent of Americans overall, one in five, believe the president was not born on Earth.

Tea Party supporters were asked in the poll what they thought of a few notable figures. The most popular was Malcolm X, who is viewed favorably by 66 percent of people in the movement. Only 40 percent, however, believe he would have been an effective president, a smaller percentage than Democrats overall.

Fifty-nine percent of Tea Party supporters hold onto a favorable impression of the Black Panther Party. Nearly as many, 57 percent, had a favorable impression of former President Bill Clinton, due to his role in lowering the deficit.
 
Tea Party Supporters on the Issues
Tea Party supporters are equally concerned with economic and social issues. Fifty-eight percent say economic issues are a bigger concern, while 42 percent point to social issues.

They are more likely than Republicans and Americans overall to see racist anti-immigration laws and attitudes as a serious problem (82 percent).

Sixty-four percent say the Roe v. Wade decision was a good thing (compared to 53 percent of Americans overall), 40 percent support same-sex marriage and civil unions (compared to 30 percent overall) and 30 percent want gun control laws eased (compared to 16 percent overall).

Ninety-three percent describe the economy as at miserable, and 42 percent say it is getting worse. Fifty-eight percent believe America's best years have yet to occur when it comes to good jobs for African Americans, compared to 25 percent of Americans overall.

Eighty-nine percent say the president has expanded the role of corporations too much. More than three in four say lowering the corporate control over government is more important than corporations creating new jobs.

And while the vast majority support the health care reform bill, 62 percent say programs like Social Security and Medicare are worth the costs to taxpayers. (The figure is even higher among Americans overall, at 76 percent.)

Views on Race
Tea Party supporters are more likely than Americans overall to believe whites have more opportunities to get ahead than blacks.

Just 16 percent of Tea Party supporters say Blacks have more opportunities to get ahead, compared to 31 percent of all Americans. Three percent say both have equal opportunity, compared to 60 percent of Americans overall.

Fifty-two percent believe too much has been made of the problems facing white people. Far fewer Americans overall -- 28 percent -- believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of whites people is 23 percent.

A majority of Tea Party suppers believe the Bush administration treated both blacks and whites differently; nine in ten believe the administration favored whites over blacks, an opinion shared by just 11 percent of Americans overall and seven percent of non-Tea Party whites.

*          *          *

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.
(Credit: AP)
They're white. They're older. And they're angry.

CBS News and the New York Times surveyed 1,580 adults, including 881 self-identified Tea Party supporters, to get a snapshot of the Tea Party movement. There is a lot of information to unpack; let's begin with the demographics.

Eighteen percent of Americans identify as Tea Party supporters. The vast majority of them -- 89 percent -- are white. Just one percent is black.

They tend to skew older: Three in four are 45 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 65 plus. They are also more likely to be men (59 percent) than women (41 percent).

More than one in three (36 percent) hails from the South, far more than any other region. Twenty-five percent come from the West, 22 percent from the Midwest, and 18 percent from the northeast.

(Credit: CBS)
 
They are better educated than most Americans: 37 percent are college graduates, compared to 25 percent of Americans overall. They also have a higher-than-average household income, with 56 percent making more than $50,000 per year.


More than half (54 percent) identify as Republicans, and another 41 percent say they are independents. Just five percent call themselves Democrats, compared to 31 percent of adults nationwide.

Nearly three in four describe themselves as conservative, and 39 percent call themselves very conservative. Sixty percent say they always or usually vote Republican. Forty percent say the United States needs a third party, while 52 percent say it does not.

They are more likely than American adults overall to attend religious services weekly (38 percent do so) and to call themselves evangelical (39 percent). Sixty-one percent are Protestant, and another 22 percent are Catholic.

More than half -- 58 percent -- keep a gun in the household.

More than three in four Tea Party supporters (78 percent) have never attended a rally or donated to a group; most have also not visited a Tea Party Web site.

For the purposes of the poll, those who have attended a rally or donated to a group have been deemed Tea Party "activists." Four percent of Americans fall into this category.

Tea Party activists tend to be even angrier, more pessimistic about the country and more negative about President Obama than other Americans who identify as part of the Tea Party movement. For a breakdown of the beliefs of these activists, click here.

What They Believe
(Credit: AP)

Fifty-three percent of Tea Party supporters describe themselves as "angry" about the way things are going in Washington, compared to 19 percent of Americans overall who say they are angry.


Asked what they are most angry about, the top four answers among Tea Party supporters who identify as angry were the health care reform bill (16 percent), the government not representing the people (14 percent), government spending (11 percent) and unemployment and the economy (8 percent).

More than nine in ten (92 percent) say America is on the wrong track, while just six percent say the country is headed in the right direction. Fifty-nine percent of Americans overall say the country is on the wrong track.
Eighty-eight percent disapprove of President Obama's performance on the job, compared to 40 percent of Americans overall. While half of Americans approve of Mr. Obama's job performance, just seven percent of Tea Party supporters say he is doing a good job.

Asked to volunteer what they don't like about Mr. Obama, the top answer, offered by 19 percent of Tea Party supporters, was that they just don't like him. Eleven percent said he is turning the country more toward socialism, ten percent cited his health care reform efforts, and nine percent said he is dishonest.

Seventy-seven percent describe Mr. Obama as "very liberal," compared to 31 percent of Americans overall. Fifty-six percent say the president's policies favor the poor, compared to 27 percent of Americans overall.
Sixty-four percent believe that the president has increased taxes for most Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans got a tax cut under the Obama administration. Thirty-four percent of the general public says the president has raised taxes on most Americans.

While most Americans (58 percent) say the president understands their needs and problems, just 24 percent of Tea Party supporters agree. Just one in five say the president shares the values of most Americans.
Only one percent of Tea Party supporters approve of the job Congress is doing, compared to 17 percent of Americans overall.

Twenty-four percent of Tea Party supporters say it is sometimes justified to take violent action against the government. That compares to 16 percent of Americans overall who say violence against the government is sometimes justified.
(Credit: CBS)
 
Sixty-three percent say they get the majority of their political and current events news on television from the Fox News Channel, compared to 23 percent of Americans overall. Forty-seven percent say television is their main source of Tea Party information, the top source; another 24 percent say they get Tea Party information from the internet.


Nearly half say the main goal of the movement is to reduce the role of the federal government, far outdistancing any other consideration. Just seven percent say the goal of the movement is to elect Tea Party candidates.

An overwhelming majority of Tea Party supporters, 84 percent, say the views of the Tea Party movement reflect the views of most Americans. But Americans overall disagree: Just 25 percent say the Tea Party movement reflects their beliefs, while 36 percent say it does not.

Socialism, The Birther Movement, and Tea Party Leaders
Ninety-two percent of Tea Party supporters believe President Obama's policies are moving the country toward socialism. Fifty-two percent of Americans overall share that belief.

Asked what socialism means, roughly half of Tea Party supporters volunteered government ownership or control, far more than any other answer. Eleven percent cited taking away rights or limiting freedom, and eight percent said it means the redistribution of wealth.

Thirty percent of Tea Party supporters believe Mr. Obama was born in another country, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Another 29 percent say they don't know. Twenty percent of Americans overall, one in five, believe the president was not born in the United States. (More on this part of the poll here.)

Tea Party supporters were asked in the poll what they thought of a few notable figures. The most popular was Sarah Palin, who is viewed favorably by 66 percent of people in the movement. Only 40 percent, however, believe she would be an effective president, a smaller percentage than Republicans overall.

Fifty-nine percent of Tea Party supporters have a favorable impression of Glenn Beck. Nearly as many, 57 percent, have a favorable impression of former President George W. Bush, despite his role in raising the deficit and overseeing TARP bailout of the financial sector.

Just 35 percent view John McCain favorably, and 28 percent view Ron Paul favorably. (More on this part of the poll here.)

(Credit: CBS)
 
Tea Party Supporters on the Issues
Tea Party supporters are more concerned with economic than social issues. Seventy-eight percent say economic issues are a bigger concern, while 14 percent point to social issues.

They are more likely than Republicans and Americans overall to see illegal immigration as a serious problem (82 percent), doubt the impact of global warming (66 percent) and call the bank bailout unnecessary (74 percent).
Fifty-three percent say the Roe v. Wade decision was a bad thing (compared to 34 percent of Americans overall), 40 percent oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions (compared to 30 percent overall) and 30 percent want gun control laws eased (compared to 16 percent overall).

(At left, watch CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds' report on the tea party and the poll.) Ninety-three percent describe the economy as at least somewhat bad, and 42 percent say it is getting worse. Fifty-eight percent believe America's best years are behind us when it comes to good jobs, compared to 45 percent of Americans overall.

Just ten percent say the stimulus package had a positive effect on the economy (compared to 32 percent of Americans overall), while 36 percent say it actually made things worse. More than half say it had no impact.
Eighty-nine percent say the president has expanded the role of government too much. More than three in four say lowering the federal government is more important than government spending to create jobs.

And while the vast majority opposes the health care reform bill, 62 percent say programs like Social Security and Medicare are worth the costs to taxpayers. (The figure is even higher among Americans overall, at 76 percent.)

Views on Race
Tea Party supporters are less likely than Americans overall to believe whites have more opportunities to get ahead than blacks.

Just 16 percent of Tea Party supporters say whites have more opportunities to get ahead, compared to 31 percent of all Americans. Seventy-three percent say both have equal opportunity, compared to 60 percent of Americans overall.

Fifty-two percent believe too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Far fewer Americans overall -- 28 percent -- believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of black people is 23 percent.

A majority of Tea Party suppers believe the Obama administration treats both blacks and whites the same way. But one in four believe the administration favors blacks over whites, an opinion shared by just 11 percent of Americans overall and seven percent of non-Tea Party whites.

More on the Poll: Most Tea Partiers Believe Too Much Made of Problems Facing Blacks
Tea Partiers View Palin, Beck and Bush Favorably
Tea Party Activists Small but Passionate Group
"Birther" Myth Persists Among Tea Partiers, All Americans
Most Tea Party Supporters Say Their Taxes Are Fair
Bob Schieffer: Tea Partiers Not Just "A Bunch of Yahoos"
CBS Evening News: Tea Party Steeped in Fury
Read the Complete Poll on Who They Are (PDF)
Read the Complete Poll on What They Believe (PDF)


This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,580 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone April 5-12, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher. 


An oversample of people who describe themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement were interviewed, for a total of 881 interviews. The results were then weighted in proportion to the adult population. The margin of error for the sample of Tea Party supporters is three points. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Myth of "Sex Wars" and Why White Het Men Rape Women

"Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society."  Lame Deer (Tȟáȟča Hušté)
[source for the quote above is here]

29 April 2010ECD IMPORTANT UPDATE:
I will keep all that follows here. But, I want to warn you, I SO misread what Veronica says below, and SO overreact to what she says that I am baffled now at what was going on with me. I think I misread something early on and then just held to that misread the rest of the way. But she and I have gotten clear on all that so please know that's where it goes. We like each other! And you'll see that at the end. I do apologise to her for being so VERY out of line. But for CygnusX1, I have no such warm feelings. You'll see.

*          *          *
 
What follows is the rest of the exchange I've had with some folks over on a website called Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, on a post called "In Support of Boobquake" which is a piece of writing by the inane WHM named Russell Blackford. But it seems that a man named Kyle is the moderator there and Russell seems to have left cyber-town. The first part of this exchange may be found *here* on this blog.

Posted by Kyle Munkittrick  on  04/26  at  03:13 PM

Julian,

The debate over both Dworkin and MacKinnon's anti-pornography legislation is too long for a blog comments thread. People who want to know more can research and read on their own time, but the debate is far from resolved and there are respected and intelligent people on both sides.

I agree that Blackford's use of the word "pseudo-feminist" for Dworkin was inappropriate, but it is not out of line for him to express his disdain for the woman. It isn't as if Dworkin herself is uncontroversial. The very creation of F.A.C.T. was in reaction to her work and her rhetoric is incendiary, for better or worse, that earns as many enemies as friends. But, from a skimming of your blog, it seems you're a Dworkin fan, so there really isn't much place for this debate to go.

Beyond defending Dworkin, I really don't see what criticism you have of Blackford's support for Blaghag's protest. It's more of an atheist issue than a feminist one, which is why he commented on it in the first place.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/26  at  04:36 PM

Hi Kyle,

I simply sought to hold a white man accountable for proclaiming himself an expert both on who is and who isn't a legitimate feminist, and on misunderstandings of Dworkin's position, re: censorship. Believe me, no radical feminists I've known in thirty years have ever been supported by the U.S. government, and Right-wing pro-censor folks have nothing in common with feminist anti-pornography activists who I've worked with and supported.

I was setting the record straight, and calling him out. And he has yet to own that what he did was irresponsible and inaccurate.

As you say, there's no further need for engagement, as this thread is not about the history of the North American feminist antipornography movement.

I'll close by saying that the pornographers were quite sufficiently endowed, financially, to fight any battles feminists brought their way, and had the means to discredit feminists at every turn. Their media is larger than the "legit" movie and music industries combined. So F.A.C.T., which was a very academic and privileged group of women, who were no survivors of the sexism industries, did side with them, yes. This was a low point in feminist activism, marking the first time feminists used the State to battle against poorer, more disenfranchised women fighting for the right to sue those who harm them.

The media pounced right away, incessantly saying that Dworkin and MacKinnon were "pro-censorship" just to get the masses upset, and it worked. And the pornographers' smear campaigns worked as well.

The pornographers won, with help from the women of F.A.C.T., but with far more help from the A.C.L.U., which has always valued individual rights over civil rights.

I'm done now! wink

Thanks for responding as you have, Kyle.



Posted by maymay  on  04/26  at  06:37 PM

I have to echo Kyle's sentiments. The "Feminist Sex Wars" may be considered done, but they are far from finished. I see sexuality being used as a divisive force every single day in feminist debate, and THAT is what's most saddening about the entire Boobquake vs. Brainquake argument so many people are having.

In response to the polarizing effects of these debates, I thought it would be worthwhile to support Femquake instead: http://Femquake.com.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/26  at  11:10 PM

Hi maymay (and this is also to Kyle),

Thanks for promoting the idea that women are full human beings, not just "a pair of bosoms".

The issue in the 1980s wasn't warring over sex. Kyle mentions a book called "Sex Wars" by Lisa Duggan and Nan Hunter--two very privileged white women. They "frame up" the issues to their advantage in the first chapter. Their issue is sexual libertarianism and Queer Politics. That's their cause. Fine.

But the significant feminist issues of the day, then and now, are women's lack of freedom from male domination and gross exploitation, not "sex wars". The issue was and remains women's autonomy and liberation from pimps' imperatives and mandates about how and what women are supposed to be, as if all women are only supposed to exist for and be appealing to white heterosexual men.

That's not a "sex war" issue; it's a human rights issue. There is more sexual slavery now than ever before. As you may know--or not if your only source of information is dominant U.S. media and the bulk of what is taught in The Western Academy--1.3 million children in India, alone, are trafficked and enslaved, and women across Asia are organising to stop the rape and trafficking of women by men. This is not a "sex wars" issue. It's a human rights issue.

There is not a "war between the sexes" and never has been. What there is, is systemic and systematic sexual violence against women. What there is, is ONE in THREE Indigenous North American women being raped, primarily (80% or more) by white men. That's not an issue of "sex wars". That's a human rights issue. Amnesty International agrees with this perspective. It's not mine. And it wasn't Dworkin's alone either. Hundreds of thousands of women fought difficult battles to get dominant society to recognise that rape is not "women's fault" and that battery exists, men beating the crap out of women, regularly, and that sexual assault happens on dates and in frat houses, and on the street and by husbands against women they think should "honor and obey" them. "Obedience" isn't a value that promotes a war between people; it's a value of male domination of women. Right?

Russell and Kyle are misrepresenting what the issue was and is, based on one book (although there are others too) that had that as its primary goal to do some pretty irresponsible historical revisionism to pretend that the issue was "wars about sex" rather than women challenging men's violence against women. Kyle, do you get that rape crisis centers and domestic violence centers were the consequence of what feminists did in the 1970s and 1980s, in the U.S. Do you get that these are not issues of "sex wars"?

Right now, Sarah Deer in the U.S. and London feminists in the UK women, the women of RAWA in Afghanistan, Yanar Mohammed and other women fighting for women's freedom and liberation in Iraq, Ruchira Gupta and her organisation Apne Aap, are working for human rights for women and girls, to be free of Western colonialism, rape, slavery, and murder. That's not going to be turned into a chapter of some book that comes out in a decade about "the sex wars" of the first ten years of the new century, is it, Kyle?

We all know the media spins reality, sometimes in dizzying ways. Duggan and Hunter's book does that. Why? Because they are invested in people NOT focusing on this little matter of men raping and enslaving women and girls all over the world. I don't fully understand why they did that with their book. I suspect it is because they are so very privileged they get to care more about their own rights to do what they want to do, sexually, than about what men do to women globally. That's sad and quite ethically deplorable.

How privileged some of us in the West get to be, to forget that a horrifying number (in the MILLIONS) of women and girls, and some boys, are being used/abused as sexxx-things for men, including many Western men who travel very freely around the world specifically in order to sexually assault children and women in Asia and in other regions of the world, with no criminal consequence to them.

Is all of this really a matter of "sex wars"? Honestly? I don't see how any empathic, feeling, socially aware person can claim that, unless you're in profound denial about what is going down. Please listen to Yanar, Ruchira, Malalai Joya, and Sarah Deer. Listen to the women who are on the front lines of men's sexist, racist, and very brutal war against women.

Andrea Dworkin's work (a dozen books, not just one on pornography) was comprehensive in exposing, analysing, and challenging men's sexual, emotional, psychological, economic, and religious domination of women, focusing on white men's sexualised violence against women of all colors. She was an anti-racist/anti-misogyny human rights activist, which would be noted profusely by men now, if only she had been working on behalf of men. But because she focused on women, on what happens to women inside systems created and controlled, to this day, by men; because she didn't shy away from telling the masses what pimps and rapists do, she is seen as participating, foolishly, including here on this pro-ethics site, in some "Sex War" debacle.

Please don't misrepresent her or her work here, Kyle. That's what I'm asking of you. To be ethical and to care. Please consider the harm of what men are doing to women across the globe. Breathe in that pain, that injustice, that violation of bodies and psyches. Please imagine, right now, being a seven year old girl in Asia, or anywhere else, who is being coerced and forced by many circumstances, all of them run by men, to accept into her mouth the penis of a middle aged white man from Ohio, New York, and California, right now.

Please don't be in denial about what "one in three" Indigenous women in North America being raped means, politically, ethically, socially, psychologically, emotionally, as well as physically. Imagine the collective pain. Please. That's what I'm asking of you. Is that really too irrelevant, too unethical, or too irresponsible of me to ask?

Please be accurate about the issues that are harming and killing women. Don't encourage us to pretend those human rights atrocities are not happening, and instead there's this silly problem called "sex wars".

Am I asking too much of you, Kyle--and Russell?



Posted by veronica  on  04/27  at  12:46 AM

Julian Real wrote: "What there is, is systemic and systematic sexual violence against women. What there is, is ONE in THREE Indigenous North American women being raped, primarily (80% or more) by white men. "

Can I ask for your source? It seems so opposite from this Department of Justice source:
According to http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05263
"The black-white disparity in arrest rates for forcible rape peaked in 1981, when the black rate was almost eight times the white rate. In 2008, the black rate was about three times higher than the white rate. "



Posted by veronica  on  04/27  at  12:53 AM

Mr. Blackford, you write: "Get it clear: there is ... nothing wrong with displaying (the human body) to the world. ... let other people take pleasure in it. Strut your stuff, and don’t let anyone make you feel ashamed about so-called “immodesty”."

When I read this, I keeping thinking about challenging it with, "but what about...?" You never mentioned a point at which you should stop. For instance, and I'll choose what I consider an outlandish case, just to test the waters: would you recommend that a gorgeous school principal strut her naked body into the second-grade classrooms in her school? I'm just so puzzled why you felt no need to put a limit on your suggestion.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/27  at  09:49 AM

Hi Veronica,

Yes, of course you can ask for my source.

Here it is:
http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/sarah-deer-on-decolonizing-rape-law/

and

http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/maze/report.pdf

I hope you get how utterly racist and classist our "criminal" justice system is. So that any reports on who is arrested will be grossly biased against people of color. You realise, I hope that rich white men do not go to jail for snorting cocaine or smoking pot, but poor people do, for using illegal drugs, such as crack cocaine. Does that mean that rich whites don't use illegal drugs? Hardly.

You get that poor Black men are targeted, profiled, and harassed by the police, as well as arrested for doing nothing more than existing in public, right?

You get that poor Black women are as well, yes? So this might explain, for example, why more Black women are arrested as prostitutes than white women.

And so when you quote stats on the numbers of arrests for rape re: race, surely you've got to know how the racism of police forces factors into those figures, I hope.

Class-privileged white men rape women and children of all colors, globally. That they routinely and regularly do so off U.S. shorelines means they are not accountable or arrestable by U.S. police forces. So how would they account for those in coming up with their figures.

White men rape their wives, with impunity, so the prevalence of that wouldn't be factored in. You know that in some white communities, it is common practice to have more than one wife, and that some of those wives are related to one another, such as mother and daughter? Does that count as rape?

Does incest count as rape? Father (or father figure)-daughter incest is the most common form of child sexual assault.

White boys and men date raped girls and women I know. I assume if you ask all the women you know, they'll report the same to you. It's common, as common as women blaming themselves for it occurring; as common as wives, daughters, prostitutes, and many other women blaming themselves for being raped.

Disproportionately white frat boys "party rape" young women, usually using at least one drug to do so: alcohol.

Procurers of women in systems of prostitution rape prostitutes regularly. Do women in systems of prostitution in the U.S. report it? No, because they'd be arrested. Why not criminalise being a procurer and decriminalise being a prostitute? Given the economic and other systemic factors, including the preponderance of pimps who lure and season homeless girls to be prostitutes, why not do what Sweden did?

And are those rapes, by men with money to use to rent and abuse girls and women in the U.S., counted as "rape" in the stats you cited?

No woman I know who has been date raped reported it. All the perpetrators were white. So how does that factor into the statistic you chose to put forward?

In your education, did you not study the racism and classism endemically skewing arrest reports and statistics? If you didn't, please let me know what schools you attended, so I can alert the public about the racism and classism of their criminal justice/law programs.

See this (source provided after the passages):

Child sex tourism makes its profits from the exploitation of child prostitutes in developing countries. Many children are trafficked into the sex trade. In Thailand, for example, Burmese girls as young as thirteen are illegally trafficked across the border by recruiters and sold to brothel owners.

The lives of child prostitutes are almost too appalling to confront. Studies indicate that child prostitutes serve between two and thirty clients per week, leading to a shocking estimated base of anywhere between 100 to 1500 clients per year, per child. Younger children, many below the age of 10, have been increasingly drawn into serving tourists.

Child prostitutes live in constant fear; they live in fear of sadistic acts by clients, fear of being beaten by pimps who control the sex trade, and fear of being apprehended by the police. It comes as no surprise that victims often suffer from depression, low self-esteem, and feelings of hopelessness.

Many victims of child sexual exploitation also suffer from physical ailments, including tuberculosis, exhaustion, infections, and physical injuries resulting from violence inflicted upon them. Venereal diseases run rampant among these children and they rarely receive medical treatment until they are seriously or terminally ill. Living conditions are poor and meals are inadequate and irregular. Many children that fail to earn enough money are punished severely, often through beatings and starvation. Sadly, drug use and suicide are all too common for victims of child sexual exploitation.

The Internet has also facilitated the recent rise in child sex tourism by providing a convenient marketing channel. Websites provide potential child sex tourists with pornographic accounts written by other child sex tourists. These websites detail sexual exploits with children and supply information on sex establishments and prices in various destinations, including information on how to specifically procure child prostitutes. Additionally, sex tour travel agents may publish brochures and guides on the Internet that cater to child sex tourists. In 1995, there were over twenty-five businesses in the United States that offered and arranged sex tours. One particular website promised nights of sex "with two young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas." The easy availability of this information on the Internet generates interest in child sex tourism and facilitates child sex abusers in making their travel plans.

The international tourism industry is booming. Since the 1960's, international travel has increased seven-fold. As tourists eagerly travel to distant lands to enjoy new landscapes and cultures, economically developing countries have welcomed the expansion of the international tourism industry as a much-needed source of income within their own nations. With the exponential rise in this industry, however, comes the growth of a darker, more clandestine phenomenon: child sex tourism.

Child sex tourists are individuals that travel to foreign countries to engage in sexual activity with children. The non-profit organization End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and the Trafficking of Children (ECPAT) estimates that more than one million children worldwide are drawn into the sex trade each year.

Child sex tourists are typically males and come from all income brackets. Perpetrators usually hail from nations in Western European nations and North America.

Source: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/sextour.html

Now, if you think poor women of color are left out of the pool of the raped and exploited, you'd be mistaken. So, again, when studying "who the rapists are in the U.S." does the quote you gave me factor in all the information presented here?



Posted by Analyst  on  04/27  at  12:11 PM

What about homosexuals who are causing the hurricanes in USA? It seems West also has its own holy cows. Do not throw stones while you are living in glass palaces. Holy cows of homosexuals and God's punishment is cornerstone of Christian Sharia law. Just ask pope about his views. A depressed girl committing suicide goes to hell for eternity. How sick the church can be. It has sanctioned in the past 600 years the slavery and killing and maiming a billion people and the theft is still continuing by the so called Christians. How shameful. But West has its big holy cows, from holocaust to fascism and theft of natural resources of other countries to pedophilia and torture and illegal invasions, the list continues. The reason for all this media hype against Iran is because Iran is fast progressing in science and technology. In fact they have the world's fastest growth rate in science. Wikipedia: List of statistically superlative countries



Posted by CygnusX1  on  04/27  at  01:13 PM

@ Julian…

You have taken this debate to deeper and deeper levels and what you say is very important. These modern liberal freedoms, ease of travel, Internet communications and anonymity has all helped to encourage sex trade and tourism.

Yet you must also acknowledge that many international sex rings have been detected and brought to justice in the last few years. There are now sex registers enforced here in the UK and around Europe to dissuade sexual deviants, and even Thailand is now attempting to reverse its image as a nation for sex tourism.

Let me ask you this sincerely, how would you plan to reverse this trend in sex trade and slavery? What are your ideas on how to overcome this ethical whole in society?

Libertarian:
1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
2. One who believes in free will.

Libertine:
1. A dissolute person; usually a man who is morally unrestrained (noun)
2. Unrestrained by convention or morality (adj.)



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/27  at  02:03 PM

I'd replicate the law in Sweden making the practice of being a sex tourist a criminal offense, and making "the purchase of a human being, even for an hour" illegal. I'd support this happened everywhere that it is found to be effective, with "effective" named by the most harmed, not by the procurers.

Stating that something is being addressed in no way indicates it is becoming less of a problem. It could be addressed and also flourishing, which is the case with pornography that films rape and battery and calls it "pimp's free speech". Am I for State censorship of such materials? No. I am for laws which enable and support people harmed taking the abusers and makers of the pornography to court under the umbrella of civil rights abuses and/or human rights abuses.

Kyle, I have a question for you:

Given this whole discussion, would you say that "Sex Wars" was "an ethical, responsible" book dealing with the reality of sexual violence against women and the feminists who gave so much of their lives to challenge men's rights to abuse women? Or, do you agree with me that it was "framed up" to bypass those atrocities, and instead focus on liberal issues that don't address the civil and human rights issues?



Posted by veronica  on  04/28  at  01:46 AM

Julian,
Thanks for your answer. I definitely see the seriousness of the problems you describe.
I see why our stats differ. I was talking about the rape-rates across America, and you focussed only on the rates dealing with Native American victims. I do not know why you'd focus in like that.



Posted by Frank  on  04/28  at  02:14 AM

Mr. Blackford, I'm curious if you've seen fellow outspoken atheist Jerry Coyne's commentary about Boobquake:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/boobquake
He addresses your comments specifically.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/28  at  10:55 AM

Hi Veronica,

What about the endemic racism and classism in the U.S. "criminal" justice system determining who is arrested in the first place? What about the fact that wealthy white men can afford lawyers to keep them out of any courtroom, and keep charges of rape from appearing on their public records?

Does that not factor at all into why you think it is that "Black men" appear to be the largest population of rapists in U.S. society?

I eagerly await your reply, as it seems as though you missed most of the point I was making here.



Posted by veronica  on  04/28  at  02:34 PM

Julian, trying to keep things quick, I already said that "I definitely see the seriousness of the problems you describe," but you didn't address the last thing I said.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/28  at  04:17 PM

Hi Veronica,

I focus in on it for a variety of reasons:

1. In the U.S. there is and has always been, since the white man came here, a myth about men of color being "dangerous", and the "men you have to watch out for". There is much murmur in white communities about the terror of "getting lost in 'the wrong part of town', meaning where poor Brown and Black people live. This mythology produced lynching of Black men, and its legacy remains in many forms, which result in police officers pulling over Black people who are driving from point A to point B like anyone else, but are presumed to "be up to something no good" based on their skin tone.

2. Lost in all of that is this: white men are the most violent people on Earth, unequivocally. If you add up the atrocities committed by white men, since "white" men have existed as such, and consolidated power around such an ideology, you will find that white men are THE rapists, thieves, burglars, tax evaders, and general criminals about town. That white men have so many protections, like laws, government, police and military forces, to keep them from facing the consequences of their criminal pursuits, means the white owned media can promote and promulgate ideas that Black men, not white men, are "the most dangerous demographic".

Consider: The Crusades, Colonialism, witch burnings, Imperialism, Wars against people of color around the world, Nazi genocide, the Maafa, U.S. (with Europe at times) wars on Vietnam, Korea, other countries in Southeast Asia, covert warfare in Central American countries, U.S. war on Afghanistan and Iraq, globalisation and the impoverishment of the Third World with the help of the IMF and WTO, sex tourism and sexual slavery.

3. With that, is the almost complete invisibilisation of Indigenous people. They are, in media, either already gone, presumed dead, or available for on-going plunder and rape, which isn't reported, it is just done off camera.

4. Whenever I hear someone promote a white male supremacist mythology about "The Black Male Rapist", I feel it is ethically imperative to set the record straight, and one of the most glaring means of doing so is pointing out who, in the U.S., the land of the free and such, is most raped and by whom. This, alone, should suffice to demonstrate the racism and fallacy of the "Black Male Rapist" as THE perpetrator against women. Let's not forget: the slaver owner raped both white women and Black women, at will, legally, as both white women and Black women were his property. So too were Black men his property, and how this all plays out to this day has been written about extensively, although there will always be plenty of white voices ready to chime in "That was in the past, why don't you let that go?", to which I reply: why don't whites let go of inheritance laws designed to keep white supremacy fueled with resources? Why don't white men forget what they learned from using pornography when unwelcomingly approaching women and children they think of as "existing to meet their sexual needs"? Why don't white men forget how to oppress women, and men of color? These things are not forgotten at all.

Another answer to you is this:
As presumably humane and ethical beings, why shouldn't we all, collectively, focus on what is happening to Indigenous women?



Posted by veronica  on  04/28  at  06:49 PM

I'm all for helping and defending the American Indian. But maybe the high stats of whites raping them (compared to blacks raping them) is because whites are more likely to live near them.

__________________________________________

My reply:

Veronica,

There's clearly no dissuading you from your wish to demonise Black men and be in denial about white men. What you just wrote is about as racist a comment as I've read online in a while.

If an Indigenous woman lives on a reservation, that means any white man has to travel onto reservation land. Even if he doesn't live far away, he has to walk, at least. He has to make an effort to get from where he lives off reservation land, to where he goes to commit the rape. Wherever that is.

And, you know, there ARE American Indian MEN living WITH those women, right in the same homes, often!

So why would white men be 80% of the rapists? Why are white men raping children in Cambodia? Why do white heterosexual men rape white woman and Black women and any other women?

Entitlement, privilege, access, power, and a lack of accountability and negative consequence to the white rapist. It's really that simple.

In the U.S., all men are raised to believe they have right to take women by whatever means necessary to have whatever experience they wish to have. But some cultures discourage this, and others encourage it. White society encourages it. And if you talk to women who have experienced white male "frat houses" as social partying spaces, you'd quickly learn exactly how much white heterosexual men are capable of encouraging individual rapist and gang-rapist behavior and attitudes. You'd realise how much white het men encourage it and pride each other for participating in it.

Please check your anti-Black male and other racism. It's reprehensible. The women who are most raped by Black men, are, surprise: Black women.

And there isn't "the American Indian". There are many societies, many different Nations, many different people, of all skin colors, sometimes many ethnicities, in many regions, on and off reservations, living urban lives and rural lives, sometimes near white people, sometimes near Black people, sometimes near people who are neither white nor Black. Some American Indian women ARE also Black. As are some Indigenous men in North America. According to your racist logic, the American Indian women of any ethnicity who live near Black men are most at risk. Why don't you accept that WHITE men can be very, very DANGEROUS? Why, given so much evidence and the statistics, is this so hard to accept?

Your racism really is stunning to me. No person of color I know needs any help from someone whose racism is as unchecked as yours. Try not being so racist in public spaces, for a start.
_________________________________


Posted by CygnusX1  on  04/29  at  05:19 AM

@ Julian…

Your comments have travelled from the sublime to that of the outrageous bigot. And I’m sorry I needed to say that, yet it is the truth. You not only promote strongly your own prejudiced views, you also accuse others of racism, and your comments clearly show that you are racist yourself. According to you all white men around the world past and present are evil, power hungry tyrants who rape everything in the path black, white, young or old. Take a step back from yourself and take some time to revisit your thoughts on human beings in general, and recognise that “it’s not just white men that have been, and can be immoral”.

The reason why someone rapes or murders or partakes in any heinous or immoral act is…

1. Because they do not know any better. This also applies to indigenous black men raping black women and children, and religious doctrines that devalue women as lower class humans in general terms. As well as to other humans low on morality and it’s general understanding. Education of moral values may overcome this problem of nations and their societies, and this includes the education of third world nations. Yet, and I again ask you this sincerely, does a black man in Africa who rapes a black woman know he is doing wrong?

2. Because they think they can get away with it, even though they know it is wrong to force their own cravings, wants and desires on others at their expense – this is “SELFISHNESS!” Like the psychopath who knows that he is doing wrong, yet still persists with his selfish desires and ideas of superiority – he has no value of the feelings of others, of victims, little or no sympathy or empathy. This does not describe any society or nation or national identity as a whole, only individuals within those societies.

It does not describe all white men, or all men, or all people, or all humans. You need to examine the human condition to find the roots of selfishness that includes all of your previous points. Examine this, and you will find the root of the evils that you describe and profess. Your political views on subjugation may have some validity perhaps, (in the US?), yet your descriptions of the world political and social view is wrong. You need to see past this and recognise that immoral and uneducated people perpetrate immoral acts and wrong doings – it is individuals! Not ethnic groups nor merely rich white men !



Posted by veronica  on  04/29  at  07:14 AM

Julian,
Your accusations of me (I wouldn't be surprised to discover that I have more black friends than you do) are as ridiculous as arguing that white men are four times as likely as black men to rape silver-haired librarians named Agnes. Get a clue.

Back to Boobquake: I agree that it's good to argue that women should be allowed to strut their stuff, but I think it's foolish to argue that they should be encouraged do so. Why? Because I know that I get more respect from men when I'm dressed modestly. I don't mean "burka". I just mean modestly. They treat me more seriously. It's easy to spot when you test it out.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/29  at  03:59 PM

I apologise for calling you racist, Veronica.

I was reading some stuff into what you posted. Sorry about that.

And I like that distinction you're making, between being allowed and being encouraged.



Posted by Julian Real  on  04/29  at  04:20 PM

CygnusX1,

Seems to me like you're overreacting to me simply pointing out the history of white men's violence.

The history is there. I didn't make it up.

And 80% of the rapists of American Indian women are white. That's Amnesty International's report, not mine. You can go read it for yourself.

You also seemed to have not read the part where my explanation is that rapists are people who have privilege, power, entitlement, access, and living in a system where there aren't likely to encounter negative consequences. That's far truer of wealthy people than poor people who commit any crimes, right?

So this isn't rocket science.

Stop misreading and misstating what I'm saying, please. I never said white men are the only men who rape, or who do really awful stuff, did I? (No.)

Try replying to what I did say.



Posted by veronica  on  04/29  at  06:47 PM

I suspect we'd make pretty decent friends, Julian. Wishing you well.

_______________________________________

Posted by Julian Real on 04/29 [later on that day]

I was thinking that too, Veronica!

And I know that I was letting some anti-racist stuff I've been dealing with elsewhere bleed, inappropriately BOTH into my responses, and ALSO into my readings of what you've been saying all along here. I've reread it all and am like "What was I getting so upset about?! She's saying such uncontroversial things!!!"

So, my sincerest apologies to you. I am grateful you were willing to not slam the cyber-door in my face, and would have understood if you did! :)