Remembering the Dead

I think today of friends and foes I will not see again.

We have strange and peculiar ways of honouring our dead; we do so by creating a three day holiday so that people can roast weenies and go to the beach. I want to appreciate the spirit of this, and indeed have often said myself that when I die, I would like the event to be commemorated with a big party, but somehow I doubt that the people I spotted on the beach yesterday were remembering their dead. They were just taking advantage of the respite offered by a holiday.

People do not like being reminded of death and grief. They want death to be tidy and clean, a day of mourning and then a cheerful return to work. They do not like it when people want to remember their dead, want to talk about them, honour them, commemorate them. People do not like tears, they do not like processing of grief in public spaces, they do not like to be reminded that someone has died and that person was loved. Social attitudes, or a deep fear of death cultivated by those social attitudes, by the sanitation and isolation of death?

They are especially uncomfortable with being reminded about deaths associated with war. Deaths of people who died in service.

Last week marked the 1,000th US casualty in Afghanistan. His name was Corporal Jacob C. Leicht. He was a Marine. He was 24. He was from Texas.

It is easy to abstract the dead, or to use them as political tools to make a point. It is more difficult to remember that they were human beings, that each had a story, that each had loved ones and family, that each had a name and a rank. Left behind a bedroom or a pet or a job. That these were all real people who lived real lives and did real things. They are not symbols, they are not objects, they are not abstractions.

Memorial Day arose as Decoration Day, from the aftermath of the brutality of the Civil War. After a country divided was reunited, the survivors were left to pick up the pieces and marked the end of the conflict every year by visiting graves to clean and decorate them. This is a tradition that still endures in some regions of the United States, and if I go to Rose Memorial later, I will find flags and flowers on the graves in the military section of the cemetery, probably organised by the same people who put flags up downtown.

Our dead have died on battlefields, in field hospitals, in isolation and desperation at home.

The Washington Post maintains a database of US casualties. Sometimes their stories are brief, with a bare minimum of information. Others are longer, with much more detail, an array of links to provide even more context. Sometimes I see the face of someone I know there. Sometimes it is more remarkable for the faces that are not there; suicides at home, for example, are not necessarily considered casualties, depending on who is doing the considering. I browse through to read the stories and to think about the people behind the numbers.

We keep the dead alive, in a sense, by remembering them. Even if we didn’t know them personally, we can learn about who they were and what they did. We can read tributes to them from the people who did know them and humanise them, put faces and stories and memories to the names. We can visit the graves of people buried far from home to pull weeds and right tombstones, just as people do for our dead somewhere else.

Some people have criticised the scheduling of Memorial Day, arguing that it is cheapened as a holiday by being shifted to create a three day weekend. Scheduling the remembering of the dead for convenience, as it were. But, for people who have dead to remember, who do want to remember their dead, the three day weekend creates an opportunity that might otherwise be lost, a chance to meet up with each other. A chance to travel that might not otherwise be possible.

We cannot make people honour the dead, we cannot force people to remember those who are not here anymore. All we can do is remember our own dead, and hope that circumstances will not change this year for those who have no dead to remember.

I remember, today, those who have died in service to the United States. I remember those who have died fighting with us, and those who  have died fighting against us, and those who have died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the civilians who did not sign up to serve and committed no crime other than existing.

Today, I have no stomach for weenies.

31 May, 2010 – 10:43 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in reflections |

Jarred Lemons

John Vidal at the Guardian: Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP‘s Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

Related reading: My piece at FWD, Crude Violations.

Poets for Living Waters: Call for Work: Gulf Coast Poems (via EKSwitaj)

Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the Gulf Oil Disaster of April 20, 2010, one of the most profound man-made ecological catastrophes in history.

Snarky’s Machine at I Fry Mine In Butter: This Is Your Receipt for Your Husband and This Is My Receipt for Your Receipt: Brazil

While there’s nothing funny about living in a society featuring all that control, bland food and repetitiveness, one of the conceits that amuses me involves all the characters enjoying the same access to Orwellian discourse and analysis as the audience.

theelusiven at Jane Doe, J.D.: Activist Crush of the Day: Teal Sherer

If The Guild can manage to be disability-inclusive and accessible on a shoestring, even more of Ryan Murphy’s excuse about it being ~so hard~ to find performers, actors and dancers with disabilities just melted away into the ether.

Tasha Fierce at Red Vinyl Shoes: The Perils of Being a Female Tech Geek

And when I had to collaborate with men, I always got talked down to. It’s like they just can’t help themselves. Don’t even mention the fact I was a black woman doing techie stuff. Their heads were spinning.

@BPGlobalPR at The Guardian: Comment is free: A crash course in PR from the folks at @BPGlobalPR

You see, big corporations often make a lot of irresponsible decisions because for the most part, they are fuelled by greed. Our job is to step in and engage the public while villains hide out and look for legal loopholes so they can make money again.

The Editors at Esquire: How America’s Stance on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the Death Penalty Stacks Up Against the World

And a look at how America’s no-gays-in-the-military/pro-capital punishment position stacks up against the rest of the world reveals some surprising bedfellows — we’re in full agreement with Iran, China, and North Korea on these two fronts.

31 May, 2010 – 10:18 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in interesting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Reassessing Kurt

I’m having a protracted email exchange with a reader, and we’re talking about a lot of things, but most particularly Kurt, and I’m really rethinking and reevaluating his character, in response both to this conversation and other conversations I’ve had about Kurt. The thing for me with Glee, as I recently mentioned, is that the show makes me so fucking angry that it is hard to evaluate characters out of context to do them justice, which is what I am really trying to do with Kurt.

And, honestly, I have been a little bit afraid to write about my rethinking of Kurt (which has been going on for several weeks now), because just as people attack me for criticising Glee, people also like to attack critics of shows when they give those shows credit for doing things right. I feel like people are expecting me to be a one note righteous brand of rage when it comes to Glee, and I have been playing into that, and I just can’t do that any more.

Yes, there are things about this show that infuriate me. The depiction of race and disability on this show makes me rage. And there is no way I would recommend Glee to someone. But, at the same time? The show actually does deserve some credit where credit is due for depictions, and I am tired of pretending like this isn’t true. So get ready for some righteous truth re:Kurt. If you came for the Glee hate, hopefully you can stay for the honest discussion about depictions of gay teens.

I still stick by the assertion that Glee has problems with vacillating tone, and that often the show is too damn subtle and hard to read; the commentary embedded in the show (and it is there, even as the show misses the mark by a mile on a lot of issues and is very unsubtle about a lot of the -isms it perpetuates) flies right over the heads of viewers. It’s trying to do something and falling just a little bit short, and I don’t know how to fix that although I suspect that evening out the highly inconsistent tone would be a big help. As would stopping with the hipster -isms that are intended to be oh-so-clever-and-funny; there has to be a way to engage with these social issues without making them cheap targets of humour.

But with Kurt, some interesting stuff is going on. I am not saying that I am completely pleased with his depiction or that there are not valid grounds for critique in how he is handled, because there are, and I will continue to make some of those critiques, but there is more going on with his character than with a lot of other characters on the show. Like I said in my post on Thursday, he is a character who can be read in multiple ways that appear to conflict, but don’t, really. Some people think he’s ‘too gay,’ which is bullshit, and they should be sent to go stand in the corner, but the reading that he’s a character who reinforces some problematic stereotypes is, I think valid. However, equally valid is that he’s a character who is honest and true to life.

I’m thinking about this particularly in the context of his dynamic with Finn. To my horror, I see a lot of people going ‘ew Kurt just can’t leave Finn alone’ and making other statements that make my heart ache. Making horrible statements about gay men and teens and justifying Finn’s abusive behaviour towards Kurt. This is not to say that there are not valid critiques of this storyline, because there are, like the point that by having Kurt pine after Finn all season, the show has desexed Kurt.

The thing is, well, I’ve been a high school student. I suspect most of us have. And when I was in high school, I couldn’t just turn my sexual attraction off. If I liked someone, whether or not that person was attracted to me, whether or not that person’s sexual orientation included attraction to people like me, I liked that person. And I could try to not be all up in that person’s grille, but it was hard, especially when we were thrown together by circumstance. And that’s what I see happening with Kurt. He can’t help that he’s attracted to Finn. He can’t help but hope that maybe Finn will come around. I have been there.

And I can’t help but note that the same dynamic between straight characters wouldn’t attract nearly so much attention (remember when Mercedes was going after Kurt?). So, one part of me is like ‘yes, Glee, this is good, you are depicting something honestly and you are forcing viewers to think about their assumptions when it comes to sexual attraction.’ But the other part of me is thinking ‘yes, this is honest, and it is true, but it’s also reinforcing stereotypes about gay men being unable to control themselves and forcing themselves on people.’ That’s not Glee’s fault, that’s society’s fault, and I think that’s the whole issue with Kurt’s character.

And the show undermines its own argument by having Mercedes effortlessly switch off her attraction for Kurt as soon as she realises he is gay. Glee seems all mixed up most of the time, and it makes it hard to distinguish the points that the show is trying to make; is sexual attraction something that can be turned on and off, or isn’t it? It sometimes seems like it can’t make up its mind, and my reader points out that this may be the result of network interference, with Fox being unwilling to rock the boat and jeopardise its ratings darling.

Unlike the other stereotyped characters, Kurt is an honest character. He is true to some lived experiences. But because of social attitudes about gay teens and gay men, this honesty is weaponised against him—at the same time that he is a true character, he’s also a stereotyped character. I think, genuinely, that Glee is trying to present his character in a way that challenges viewers. It is, and, seriously people, I never thought I would say this about Glee, but it really is trying to subvert a stereotype by presenting a stereotype in this case.

Is it working?  I don’t know. And I don’t know how to challenge viewers, short of leading discussion sections after each episode. ‘Gentle viewers, why do you think you react so violently to Kurt’s attraction to Finn?’ ‘Gentle viewers, do you see parallels between Kurt and real life people like Johnny Weir?’ ‘Gentle viewers, what do you think about the differing depictions of sexual attraction on this show?’

Maybe if the other stereotypes weren’t so very painful, and if characters like Artie and Tina and Mercedes were more real, what the show is trying to do with Kurt (and trying but failing to do with other characters) would be easier to read and understand. Both Kurt and Artie are stereotypes; the difference is that Kurt is a stereotype based on some realities (and, I suspect, the experiences of the creator), while Artie is a stereotype based on nondisabled perceptions of people with disabilities.

And that is where the difference lies. I think that Glee might actually succeed with Kurt, especially if things next season go as has been suggested/spoiled/implied. And this is one of the things that frustrates me most about the show, is that I can see the potential, what can happen when the show really tries. Now, if the show could only get some PWDs and nonwhite folks on the writing team to do the same for the other characters.

Originally published in a slightly different form on my Tumblr, but it turned so epic that I decided to post it here as well. Many thanks are due to the numerous people who had extended conversations about Kurt with me, both pro and con.

30 May, 2010 – 10:41 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in LGBQT, television | Tagged , , |

I Don’t Do This For Fun

Sometimes I ponder why I do this; why I write at this ain’t livin’ and FWD/Forward, even though I don’t receive compensation for the writing I do at either site1. I think it’s a question that a lot of bloggers who engage in social justice writing ask themselves periodically. Why do we do this? Why do we write about social justice issues, even though we often encounter incredible pushback?

Blogging is viewed by some as a form of activism, and that’s definitely a part of why I do this. I know that I have reached people through my writing, and that matters to me. It matters a lot to know that people have experienced shifts in their ways of thinking as a direct result of reading something I’ve written. Writing also allows me to develop and articulate my ideas more effectively. It’s forced me to explore my areas of privilege, to consider issues from new angles, to interact and engage with issues and ideas that I might not otherwise touch.

One reason I definitely don’t do this is for fun.

This isn’t fun for me.

And I think that’s a common impression that people have of social justice bloggers; people refer to our ‘little’ sites and the work we do in a sort of snide, sneering way which suggests that it’s is a hobby. Something we do in our spare time. Something we do to entertain ourselves. What we do is not valued as work, at all. And that allows people to continue devaluing us and the work that we do, over and over.

Activism has always involved uncompensated work. The payoff, the goal, is to change minds. To shape ideas. To be involved in changing the world around us and to make a difference. Both for ourselves now, and for future generations. The work of people engaged in activism for centuries has allowed me to reach this point and I hope that my work in turn allows people in the future to reach an even more advanced point, to live in a better world, a place where basic human rights are universally acknowledged and accepted.

One thing this is not, though, is fun. If I wanted to have fun, there are a lot of other things I could write about. I could maintain a fiction blog, for example, and work on serialised fiction. That would be fun. It would allow me to develop as a writer and to share ideas and to network with people and, yes, to have fun. I could write about hobbies, and network with people who also enjoy those hobbies. That would be fun. I could maintain, say, a knitting website. But I don’t. Because I am not writing for fun. I am writing to survive.

The idea that blogging for social justice activists is ‘fun,’ that it’s a ‘hobby,’ is widely entrenched. For some reason, writing books about social justice issues isn’t treated this way, which really exemplifies, I think, the devaluation of blogging as a communications medium. Many people do not view blogging as activism. Or they view it as a minor form of activism even though social justice activists all over the world sometimes risk everything to do this work. I’m relatively privileged when it comes to that; the primary risk I incur is to my personal health and at this point I’m accustomed to running on a very high stress level, to experiencing symptoms like vomiting and nosebleeds and headaches and a myriad of other stress-related things because of my blogging 2. My life is not in danger for writing, though. Neither is my immigration status. Neither is my job.

This is not fun.

I cannot say that enough times. This is work. It’s hard work and it’s often unrewarded. The changes we make in hearts and minds are often not visible to us. This is not a cry for comments and links. Both are nice and both are important, but they are nominal rewards. This simply an acknowledgment of a fact. The changes we make are incremental. Change happens over time. It may take decades to see results.

Writing about social justice in this environment is not terribly sustainable. It’s a lot of physical and emotional work and very few people manage to turn it into a job3. For most of us, it’s a second shift. It’s the thing we try to fit into our crowded schedules after we’ve made the money we need to survive. Some of us have jobs in social justice, and our blogging is an expansion of our work. Others of us work in other areas, and may be struggling to advance our paid careers and find work we love while also writing.

It’s tremendously draining. And a lot of the drainage, as it were, happens in places people don’t see. It, too, is incremental. I, for example, am repeatedly and constantly misgendered. It’s a thousand tiny cuts. It’s not that one incident makes me throw up my hands and gnash my teeth in fury, it’s that it happens by bits and pieces, every day. That adds up, just as erasure of other identities adds up. Just as nasty trollish comments add up. And the end result is usually that people eventually leave. Sometimes quietly, sometimes noisily.

Either way, they leave. They may take their activism to other spaces or they may give up entirely because they are so frustrated and burned out.

It’s worth pondering why people think that this is fun, and I think that a lot of it comes down to the fact that people don’t understand that when you are living in a marginalised body; when you are disabled, or queer, or trans*, or a person of colour, this work is your life. This is not something you pick up and examine when you feel like, it is something that you are living. My activism is a way of asserting my right to exist. It is not fun because this is my life.

A lot of people who dismiss or write off blogging are people holding multiple privileges. They are white and able and cis, for example. They regard the writing done by people like me as a public service performed for their benefit. It’s not. It’s a desperate attempt to survive.

  1. Although the writing I do here does sometimes lead to paid work, so indirectly I am compensated, although not at a rate which even begins to compensate me for the hours of work I put in. ↩
  2. Does that surprise you? Would it surprise you to learn that many social justice activists who write online actually experience physical symptoms of stress? Maybe that will make you think twice before attacking social justice activists online, before writing off something which causes actual physical harm as a ‘blogwar’ or as harmless Internet antics. ↩
  3. Most of those who do are people in positions of privilege, I would note; they are usually white, usually cis, usually able, usually straight. ↩
29 May, 2010 – 10:27 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in disability, gender, LGBQT, race, size, social justice | Tagged |

Don’t Infringe On Me

Content note: I use ‘me’ and ‘my’ in this post, but there are a lot of social justice writers who feel the same. I could just as easily say, for example, Snarky’s Machine and Tasha Fierce’s. Cara and Chally’s. Etc. These are just some examples of people who have had problems with copyright infringement, not a complete list; I am not speaking on their behalf, but simply pointing out that this post is about more than me and my work, even though those are the pronouns I’m using in it.

I feel completely ridiculous having to write a post about this, but it’s a problem, and it’s one that doesn’t seem to be going away, so I’d like to get this out here so that there can be no possible confusion:

Do not infringe my copyright.

This site has a copyright notice. It’s displayed at the bottom of every page and it’s in the sidebar. I think that makes it abundantly clear that all of the material on this site is copyrighted by me. Just like all the material on FWD/Forward is copyright by its respective authors. And just like the material on most social justice sites is copyrighted. This is hardly earthshattering news.

Copyright infringement is a huge problem on the Internet and it’s an infuriating one. I cannot tell you how much of my time is eaten up by dealing with infringements on my copyrights and I am tired of it. I’ve been tired of it for a very long time. So are a lot of other social justice bloggers. I’ve gotten to the point where I send a DMCA takedown notice without even bothering to attempt to contact the infringer, because I do not have the time or energy to ask people, often the same people, to not violate my copyright.

This is not complicated, people. It should not be difficult to respect copyright, especially when a site carries copyright notices and especially if a site owner has contacted you personally before about infringing on copyright. It’s never ok, no matter who you are, and no matter what the cause. Period.

What constitutes copyright infringement?

Well, there’s actually a bit of a debate about this. As a general rule, reprinting more than 50% of a post would be considered infringement in most cases. Whether or not there is a link back to the source. Let me say this again: If you reprint more than 50% of anything on this website, you are infringing my copyright. That is illegal. No matter who you are, no matter whether or not there is a backlink to the source, no matter what site you are reproducing it on, it is an infringement of my copyright. I would personally prefer that people reprint less than 50% of my work, choosing two or three paragraphs for excerpt.

Why should you not infringe?

Well, there are a lot of reasons aside from the fact that it is illegal.

In my case, and in the case of some other social justice writers, I am a writer. I count on paid work to make my living. My work here and at FWD is not paid, but it does indirectly lead to paid work for me, because people read it, and they like it, and they contact me to commission more work from me or to ask permission to reprint in a paid venue. When you infringe my copyright, you are actively hurting me and my livelihood. Given that some of the worst repeat offenders in terms of copyright infringement are sites that are supposedly organised to promote social justice causes…well. I find it odd that ‘feminists’ think that it’s ok to do this, let’s leave it at that, ok?

Every time my work is reprinted in another venue without permission, it doesn’t just hurt me moneywise. It hurts my reputation. And it directly benefits the site that is posting my material. Other sites profit by reprinting my work. Both in the literal sense of getting ad revenue from things they post, and in the abstract sense that they gain reputation and credibility by posting high quality work. A casual browser may not recognise that the work wasn’t written by a contributor to that site, let alone that it infringes on copyright, and that casual browser will also not end up at my site and read more of my work.

When you reprint my work without permission? It’s not a compliment. It’s not flattery. It is directly hurting me. I lose every time you do that and yes I am talking to you.

Infringement also takes work out of context and in that sense, it is a form of social control. Infringement of work by queer folks, nonwhite people, people with disabilities, and other people in marginalised groups is an ongoing problem that is especially harmful when it is being perpetrated by the mainstream. This doesn’t mean that it would be ok for, say, another disabled writer to repost something of mine on disability without permission, but the dynamic in that case would be very different. Appropriation in general of the work of people in marginalised classes is a major ongoing social justice issue that is currently being very poorly addressed. Copyright infringement contributes to and perpetuates that problem.

I think it’s terrific that people read good work and want to share it. That’s why I have a link roundup on the weekdays. Like FWD does. Like Racialicious does. Like numerous other websites do. Link roundups are put together both for the benefit of readers who might enjoy seeing stuff they might not otherwise spot, and for the benefit of the people being linked; I like to send traffic to people I like, and I appreciate the traffic other people send me.

Note that link roundups include a fair use excerpt and a link. Allowing people who want to read that material to click the link, visit the site in question, and read the material in situ. For sites like mine that do not allow comments, link roundups also provide a valuable space for discussion about the work being linked to. As do standalone posts with links to pieces that people think are particularly important and would like to discuss in their spaces.

Link roundups, standalone posts with fair use excerpts, these are good things. They benefit the social justice community as a whole in addition to the original author by promoting the exchange of ideas and information and holding discussions in safe spaces. I benefit directly from link roundups because I get introduced to people I wouldn’t otherwise be reading, and that’s awesome.

Copyright infringement is a bad and harmful thing, and it needs to stop. I have no idea why sites that repeatedly infringe content are not being ostracised by the community, because what they do is unacceptable. It would be very easy to convert such sites to host fair use excerpts, links, and discussions, yet none of them seem to be inclined to do so. In no small part, this is because not nearly enough people are telling them to stop it.

My writing about the copyright infringement problem is not going to make it go away, but I do hope that it adds to the discussion, and that, as a community, maybe we can find a way to resolve this problem.

What can you, personally, do? Well, if you are republishing material in full without permission, stop it. I don’t care why you were doing it and whether or not you knew it wasn’t ok (seriously, though, how could you think it was ok to republish material from sites with copyright notices). Stop. It would also be tremendously beneficial if you would go through old posts and convert them to fair use excerpts although I realise this takes time.

If you are out and about on the Internet and you see something you suspect is infringing, say something. Contact the original author of the piece to alert ou to the fact that republishing is happening and provide a link. That person will appreciate it, trust me. And, leave a comment on the infringing material asking why copyrighted material is being reproduced without permission. Worst case scenario, the work was reprinted with permission (the original author explicitly granted permission and no note was made or the material was published under a Creative Commons License and you didn’t realise it), and a clarification will be added to the post to make it clear that it’s being printed with permission.

And, if you want to reproduce copyrighted material? Ask. Many social justice writers are just fine with being reprinted and would be delighted to oblige.

If you’re a social justice writer and don’t mind your work being reprinted? Stick a notice at the bottom to indicate this. Get people in the habit of thinking about copyright and permissions by explicitly stating that it’s ok to reproduce your work, and under which circumstances reproduction is ok. Perhaps this will remind people that when they don’t see such a notice, or when a site explicitly has a copyright notice, they shouldn’t reprint material from it without permission.

28 May, 2010 – 10:37 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in announcements, technology | Tagged , , , |

Gliding Goats

Cara at The Curvature: Man Reported Police Sexual Assault Against His Girlfriend, Now Faces Deportation

And as thanks for that, for being one of the better residents that U.S. society could hope for, we’ve decided that he’s not worthy of being on “our” land anymore.

Camilla Mortenson at Eugene Weekly: Jump!

Turns out if you get a little adrenaline into my horse Flash and me, we’ll jump just about anything.

David Taffet at Dallas Voice: ExxonMobil votes down gay protections

Each year since Exxon and Mobil merged, a proposal has come before the shareholders to add sexual orientation to the company’s nondiscrimination policy. And the percentage of shareholders voting in favor of the proposal has increased each year — until this one.

N. K. Jemisin: Don’t Put My Book in the African American Section.

I hate the “African American Fiction” section. HATE. IT. I hate that it exists. I hate that it was ever deemed necessary. I hate why it was deemed necessary, and I don’t agree that it is.

Racebending: Paramount Pictures–Diversity in the 21st Century?

We were curious about how Paramount would line up, particularly since Paramount promised the Asian American community diversity statistics in November 2009 but never delivered.

Mustafa Qadri at Guardian: Comment is free: Pakistan’s hijras deserve acceptance

There is no more maligned group of citizens in our country than those from its transgender community.

28 May, 2010 – 10:14 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in interesting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Social Justice Matters: Overcrowded Prisons and Their Consequences

Here in California, prison overcrowding has been in the news rather a lot lately, ever since the decision to mandate the early release of thousands of prisoners to bring the prison population down. Even after this mandate, California’s prison population will still be at over 100% of capacity. But overcrowding isn’t just a problem in California’s prisons. It is an issue across the United States and has been since the 1970s, when prison populations started skyrocketing.

The treatment of prisoners is a human rights issue. Prison overcrowding directly contributes to inhumane conditions which no person should be kept in, no matter what crimes that person has committed. And overcrowding is the result of social attitudes, political policy, and direct actions on the part of people like voters. This means that we can all be involved in playing a role in changing the way we handle corrections in the United States and acting to reduce prison overcrowding.

There are a number of contributing factors involved in prison overcrowding. One problem is mandatory sentencing laws, especially for drug convictions, and laws like the three strikes law in California. These laws remove any leeway in sentencing, forcing judges to sentence people to prison terms even when the circumstances of the case might actually indicate that other measures would be more appropriate. Mandatory sentencing is an especially big problem when you consider the race and class disparities which are rife throughout the justice system in the United States.

To put it bluntly, people of colour and people of lower social classes are more likely to find themselves on trial for crimes they did not commit. They are less likely to have access to adequate legal representation. And when the trial is over and they are convicted, mandatory sentencing laws mean that they must go to jail, even if a judge thinks that rehabilitation, conditional release, and other measures would be more appropriate. Innocent people who lack privilege will end up in prison. They do every day.

At the same time that mandatory sentencing laws are being passed, laws criminalising an increasing number of behaviours are also being passed. The result is that not only are judges forced to send people to prison in cases where it might not be appropriate, but they are forced to do so more of the time because there are more activities which come with mandatory sentences than ever before. This country’s response to gang violence and drugs has been, thus far, to criminalise. Criminalisation fails to address these issues in any meaningful way, and it leads to overcrowding in our prisons.

Overcrowding puts prisoners at significant risk. People living in crowded conditions are more likely to get sick, stay sick, and pass diseases on to others. They are more likely to experience mental health problems, particularly stress-related mental illnesses. They are more likely to develop aggression and frustration. Being forced into crowded conditions with other prisoners results in riots, abuse, and assault. The prison system struggles to keep up with disciplinary problems when it has minimal staff and outdated facilities. This often results in brutal abuse at the hands of guards and other prison personnel.

People with disabilities, trans* folks, and people of colour are especially vulnerable in prisons. Hierarchies exist in prison just as they do in the outside world, and people living in marginalised bodies rapidly become targets for abuse. Rates of prison rape and assault are extremely high and they are especially high for minorities. Prisons fail to meet the needs of vulnerable members of the prison population; trans women are imprisoned with men, people with cognitive disabilities are housed with the general population, and people of colour are slotted wherever they fit, with no regard to racial tensions. It’s no coincidence that race riots have exploded in several California prisons and that the response is either total racial segregation or a ‘colour blind’ approach in which prisons completely ignore racial differences as though this will magically make them go away.

Overcrowding also limits access to resources. This includes health care for prisoners. Prisoners have died due to lack of health access because a nurse or doctor is not available and it’s considered ‘unsafe’ to transfer a prisoner for medical care. Considering that rates of hepatitis, HIV, and numerous other chronic conditions are high in prisons, lack of access to routine health care is a serious issue. Lack of access to medications or irregular access to medications puts prisoners with chronic illnesses at extreme risk.

But it’s not just about physical health care. Prisoners don’t have access to exercise facilities, which, if nothing else, would provide them with mechanisms for working off stress and aggression. They do not have access to education, to mental health care, to rehabilitation, to drug counseling, to vocational training. Prisoners are literally warehoused as though they are objects, not people. Upon release, they have no skills, no education, and no support network. This has direct consequences for society; it’s hard to address recidivism when prisoners aren’t provided with any tools which they might be able to use once they are released.

Prisoners are human beings. This is something which people sometimes seem to forget, even people with liberal politics who are often accused of being bleeding hearts or softies. Treating prisoners like objects, like inconveniences, like things which can be shuffled around, is a grave human rights violation. And it’s a horrific disservice.

As a society, we say that some people must be punished for their crimes with incarceration. As a society, we can’t even be bothered to confirm that we are incarcerating the right people, let alone providing people in prison with basic rights. The right to not be raped. The right to sufficient nutrition and health care. The right to not be abused. We, as a society, have the responsibility to care for the people we say we are imprisoning for our protection. The fact that we are not doing that reflects extremely poorly on us.

27 May, 2010 – 10:43 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in politics | Tagged , |

Robotic Aspens

Everett Maroon at I Fry Mine In Butter: All Gleed Out

It’s occurred to my partner and me that there are a couple of concepts on Glee headed on a collision course: a “new” kind of masculinity that pretends at being more emotionally available, and old-school expectations for social positioning, especially around the margins of culture.

Yes I linked to this already this morning but I want to make sure you see it.

RMJ at Bitch Magazine: TelevIsms: Spoiler alert! Lost is Heteronormative!

Lost’s vision of love is from a very straight, very traditional, very Christian point of view.

gwen at Sociological Images: More Sexualized Violence in Fashion (content warning)

Anyone who pays much attention to the fashion world will have noticed fashion photographers have an ongoing obsession with images of women looking dead.

Travis R. Wright at Metro Times: Banksy bombs Detroit

Whereas Banksy typically, in other cities, elicits retorts from ignorant municipal types calling his work simple vagrancy, in Detroit he was damn good news, even if he fervently, inadvertently divided the arts community.

Brianna Snyder at New Haven Advocate: Anonymity & the Internet: No Comment

Commenting is less considered a reader right these days, and more and more a privilege.

Mick Dumke at Chicago Reader: Transparency’s a Big Joke

Though the FOIA is designed to help all citizens access public records, it’s a critical tool for reporters, a way of asking questions about government operations with the weight of state law behind them.

27 May, 2010 – 10:08 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in interesting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Glee: Theatricality

So, remember how, writing about Glee last week, I discussed the fact that the show is straddling a strange divide between feeling filled with stiff, awkward, Teachable Moments, and the over the top camp that the show is getting so much attention for? And how I said that really wasn’t working for me, on a lot of levels? Vascillating between tones is a tough line to walk and Glee has not been doing it well in my opinion, although apparently a lot of notable critics disagree.

This week. Was not the solution. Glee has apparently decided to take a serious turn and it’s not working out at all well. Here’s the thing. There are lots of saccharine teen dramas that are filled with lots of Learning Experiences and occasional light humour. Those shows have a place, they are a genre. It’s not something that I am personally interested in, but it’s a genre, and I respect it. Then you have your biting social commentary embedded in sarcasm, which is what Glee is trying to do and failing at.

The two do not mix well. Oil and water, people. If Glee thinks that it can get away with extremely problematic and troped characterisations because it’s including Learning Experiences, it is wrong. It is very, very wrong. Indeed, a show that is presenting itself as oh so very socially progressive will be held to a high standard, because it is opening itself up to scrutiny.

Glee has had a number of Very Special Episodes, which plays into the show’s metamythology; it wants to present itself as something that is resisting stereotypes, breaking ground, teaching people things. Thus, it has to single out the minorities on the show and use them as teaching objects. Glee apparently missed the class about how you can show, not tell.

‘Theatricality’ was all about how it’s ok to be yourself, and it was also a Very Special Gay Episode, and I will be honest, I cringed throughout. It just felt embarrassing. It was so earnest and serious and stagey, all at the same time. I wanted to hide under a blanket or something.

Let’s explore the highly problematic narrative of shuffling Kurt off with the girls, yet again. ‘The girls in the glee club pay tribute to Lady Gaga,’ says the synopsis, and that tells you a lot about how people view Kurt. People. Gay men are not women. I really cannot say enough that I view this is a reiteration of a very old stereotype and it’s also a very neat neutering of Kurt. He’s made as nonthreatening as possible by the fact that he hangs out with the women and sings in a tenor, and note that he was not given a conscious choice in this episode. It was assumed that of course Kurt would prefer to perform with the girls. And, you know, there absolutely are gay men like Kurt. There are gay teens who feel more comfortable hanging out with girls. There are gay teens who love musicals and dressing up. All of these things are undeniably true, and I want to support the creation of a world where all of these things are safe to do, where gay teens can be themselves.

The problem with Kurt is not the character, it’s what the character represents. The problem is that he doesn’t seem break any new ground for gay characters on television, no matter how hard Glee tries to wrap it up in claims that you can just ‘be yourself.’  The problem is that I don’t really see how Kurt’s characterisation advances the cause of out gay teens. Are there any homophobic bigots sitting at home watching Glee and thinking ‘gee, I should stop picking on that poor gay kid’? Probably not.

He’s a caricature of the television gay male. Sure, it’s a stereotype rooted in a reality, for some gay men. But this, or the deeply repressed closeted gay man, is the only gay representation we see. That’s not balanced. That’s not resisting stereotypes and dominant narratives. I think it’s dangerous to criticise a gay character for being flamboyant in a way that argues that gay men shouldn’t be flamboyant, but I also think it’s valid to criticise characterisations like Kurt’s because of what they represent.

I would like it if we had progressed enough, as a society, that characters like Kurt felt natural and organic because there was such a broad spectrum of gay representation on television that it didn’t feel like a reiteration of a stereotype, but an affirmation of an identity. I would also love it if we didn’t automatically assume that characters like Kurt are gay. Since neither of those things are going to happen in the near future, I think we need to ask how characters like Kurt can be a presented in a way that doesn’t reinforce stereotypes. So far, I feel like Kurt’s characterisation has been harmful, although I know that people disagree. I’m just not sure what readers are supposed to be taking away from his character. That all people who act like Kurt are gay? That all gay men act like Kurt? Because the message I am taking away is certainly not ‘it’s ok to be gay, and to be like Kurt’ considering the fact that Kurt is surrounded by harmful, inaccurate, and infuriating stereotypes.

I think there’s a takeaway there. The other characters poison me on Kurt, making it really hard for me to view his character objectively, or as a standalone. Conversely, so far most of the people I’ve seen talking about how Kurt is such a terrific character are fans of the show and like the other characterisations. I think that shows how difficult it is for us, as viewers, to separate out the elements of a show. One could also ask if they should be separated, or if the show should be viewed as a whole.

Sure, one could argue that he’s a representation of how difficult it is to be out and gay in very conservative communities. And one could argue that it would be empowering for gay teens in those communities to see Kurt, just like I might have benefited from seeing trans* teens when I was Kurt’s age. And maybe if Kurt’s character wasn’t wrapped up in the identity of a show that claims to be teaching viewers something, that’s exactly how I would read him. Maybe I would really like his character if he was being allowed to be just a character, instead of The Token Gay Character Who Is Here To Teach Us.

I’m not a gay teen, so I can’t speak to whether or not Kurt’s character is empowering for those viewers. If he is, that’s not something I really want to take away from them, but I’m wondering if there would be a way to strike a balance that provided viewers in general with a great gay character while also showing gay teens that they are not alone. Like, maybe giving Kurt a boyfriend who is radically different from Kurt (and isn’t closeted and tragic), to provide us with a more balanced representation of gay identities?

For those who do view Kurt’s depiction as positive but agree that other depictions are problematic (and I think that this is very much a case where there is no right and wrong, and there are many ways to interpret his character): Why is it that the gay character is the only one that the show can do reasonably well? What does that say about the creators of Glee?

This show is so fucking hypocritical, it makes me scream. It wants to  be given cookies for Teaching Us Things but what is it teaching us? The episode led with an intro reminding us that if you are a wheelchair user, being a dancer is not a dream you can realise. Later in the episode, viewers were indirectly lectured on using the R-word, in the same scene that involved a lecture on the F-word. While comparing both to the N-word.

Let me repeat myself here, in case this is not clear: Glee depicts incredibly problematic and heavily criticised characterisations of disability, and it wants to be patted on the back for reminding viewers that, hey, you shouldn’t use that bad word. Anna wrote recently at FWD about why talking about language isn’t enough, and Glee has clearly bought into the idea that if it identifies the ‘bad word’ and pledges not to say it, it has accomplished the goal. And is now an ally. No. The R-word isn’t the problem. The social attitudes are the problem. And guess what Glee is doing? It is reinforcing those social attitudes. It is saying that disability is a horrible miserable fate, that people with disabilities primarily have a role as object lessons and teachers, not human beings, and it wants to be applauded for telling viewers not to use the R-word?

In a scene where it is basically implied that the R-word is the new N-word? That the F-word is the new N-word? Fucking no. Homophobia is not the new Black. Ableism is not the new Black. Homophobia is homophobia. Ableism is ableism. Racism is racism. And bad words are symptoms of problematic social attitudes. They themselves are not the problem. Appropriation of other oppressions is not the solution to resisting oppression.

Calling someone a faggot isn’t bad because it’s like using the N-word. These are two separate issues, and I do not appreciate seeing them conflated.

And, as Everett Maroon pointed out, this scene with Kurt’s father was marked by aggression and violence (comments recommended). It’s a theme that runs throughout the series, with the expression of masculinity often taking the form of  violence, that contrasts all the more starkly with Kurt’s femme presentation. Go read the rest of his post, instead of reading me repeating it to you, ok?

In comments on Everett’s post, several folks brought up the racialisation of homophobia on Glee and particularly in this episode, in the context of a larger discussion about how the show claims to be transgressive when really all it does is appropriate and stereotype the experiences of marginalised groups, and do it badly, to boot. On Twitter, mike_le pointed out: ‘The homophobic football player on the last #Glee episode’s had more lines than any other black male on the show so far. Kinda a bummer.’

I think that actually tells you a lot about this show.

27 May, 2010 – 9:05 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in television | Tagged , , |

This is Sexual Assault: The Importance of Calling Things by Their Proper Names

Content warning: This post includes, as you may imagine from the title, discussions of rape and sexual assault, and parts of it are graphic.

One of the many obstacles faced in combating rape and sexual assault is that people are often reluctant to name these acts. While this may seem like a primarily academic concern, it is in fact a very serious problem. If someone cannot identify an act as rape or sexual assault, it means that this person isn’t inclined to report a crime, because in this person’s belief, no crime occurred. This means that the perpetrator goes unpunished and in all likelihood is going to be doing it again at some point in the future.

This is not the fault of the victim/survivor. At all. It is the fault of society. Because we live in a society in which people are strongly discouraged from referring to these things by their proper names. Euphemisms abound for rape and sexual assault to avoid actually having to say these words. It goes beyond mere reluctance and squeamishness; we are actively told not to name the things that happen to us. And because we are not allowed to name them, it is as though they never happened.

Not just in the eyes of the law, but in our own minds. If we can’t say ‘I was sexually assaulted,’ that must means that the sexual assault didn’t happen. Being unable to acknowledge and examine these events can result in profound psychological distress for victims/survivors. Suppressing these memories to avoid the potential of having to name the unnameable can be, quite frankly, dangerously unhealthy. Because eventually these things will surface and they may do so in a highly explosive way.

Unwanted sexual contact is sexual assault. It is not flirting. It is not ‘hitting on’ people. It is not ‘joking around.’ It is sexual assault. When someone is groped on a crowded subway train, touched in a way which is unwanted and feels uncomfortable by a relative, when someone is forced to perform oral sex on a partner, this is sexual assault. Notice some things that these events have in common: They all involve unwanted sexual contact.

It doesn’t matter who the perpetrator or instigator is. It can be a stranger, a relative, a ‘friend,’ a romantic partner. What matters is not the relationship between assailant and subject, but the nature of the contact. If someone is making you do something you do not want to do or someone is doing something to you which you do not want, and that something is sexual, you are experiencing sexual assault. And when it is over, you have been sexually assaulted.

You have not been flirted with or hit on or teased or joked around with.

Yet, I see countless examples in the media, in advice columns, even in conversations with people, in which acts of sexual assault are not named and not identified as such. Sometimes it’s an attempt to dismiss a claim of sexual assault or to trivialise something that happened to someone. Sometimes it’s genuine ignorance of the fact that unwanted sexual contact is sexual assault.

And it’s all a reinforcement of rape culture. Rape culture tells us, for example, that people in romantic relationships are always available for sexual activity with their partners. This means that romantic partners and spouses cannot commit sexual assault and rape, because consent is assumed. Every time someone repeats this idea, it is reinforced. Every time someone says that a partner did something which was unwanted and someone responds ‘oh well, I’m sure it was just playing around,’ it is a reminder that our society does not recognize sexual assault which happens within the context of romantic relationships.

It’s important to call things by their proper names, to tell it like it is, to name things. Not least because this is the only way to deconstruct harmful social attitudes and norms; people must know that society defines unwanted sexual contact as sexual assault so that people who commit sexual assault are aware that they will be called to account for it. So that law enforcement know to take sexual assault seriously. So that lawyers and judges and doctors and all of the people involved in the system which is supposed to identify sex crimes and prosecute them are aware that society wants sex crimes addressed.

Individuals must be able to name their experiences and to have their experiences validated. Yes, it’s great when a crisis counselor or friend or family member names what happened and provides support. This is critically important. But when the victim/survivor enters the outside world and is continually reminded that the rest of society doesn’t believe that what happened is sexual assault, it is, to say the least, disheartening. And it can mean that someone who wants to report something decides not to. That someone who wants to warn someone about a sexual predator says nothing. That someone who wants to speak out about sexual assault is afraid to do so because the consequences of doing so inevitably start with being informed that something ‘wasn’t really’ sexual assault.

How many times do you have to read media articles saying ‘had sex with,’ instead of ‘raped’ before you start believing that? How many times do you have to see perpetrators placed in a passive position with the framing of an article to start absorbing the sinister implications that go along with that?

Naming things can be frightening. Identifying things can be intimidating. But it is the first step in addressing rape and sexual assault, in combating rape culture. Until we can all get on the same page about what sexual assault is, until we can get the media to start reporting things with more appropriate language, until we can provide people with the tools they need to describe what happened to them, we cannot hope to put a nail in rape culture’s coffin.

26 May, 2010 – 10:50 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in social justice | Tagged , , , |