The white South’s last defeat

... is the title of an article by Michael Lind on Salon. Some of it really rings true to me, and I thought I would do some quoting and commentary of my own.

The article is accompanied by a photo of the confederate battle flag in front of the State Capitol here in South Carolina. (sigh) Every time I go to Columbia (I think the last time was for Occupy Columbia), I see someone taking a picture of that damn flag, and it's pretty embarrassing.

Some excerpts from the article:

The white Southern narrative — at least in the dominant Southern conservative version — is one of defeat after defeat. First the attempt of white Southerners to create a new nation in which they can be the majority was defeated by the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Doomed to be a perpetual minority in a continental American nation-state, white Southerners managed for a century to create their own state-within-a-state, in which they could collectively lord it over the other major group in the region, African-Americans. But Southern apartheid was shattered by the second defeat, the Civil Rights revolution, which like the Civil War and Reconstruction was symbolized by the dispatching of federal troops to the South. The American patriotism of the white Southerner is therefore deeply problematic. Some opt for jingoistic hyper-Americanism (the lady protesteth too much, methinks) while a shrinking but significant minority prefer the Stars and Bars to the Stars and Stripes.

The other great national narrative holds that the U.S. is a nation of immigration, a “new nation,” a melting pot made up of immigrants from many lands. While the melting pot story involves a good deal of idealization, it is based on demographic fact in the large areas of the North where old-stock Anglo-Americans are commingled with German-Americans, Polish-Americans and Irish-Americans, along with more recent immigrant diasporas from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

But even before the recent wave of immigration from sources other than Europe, the melting pot never included most of the white South. From the early 19th century until the late 20th, the South attracted relatively few immigrants.

Many, many Americans in the Midwest (where I am from) descend from German and Irish immigrants. This is likely one reason they are more tolerant of immigration in general.

Lind includes THIS FASCINATING MAP (reproduced at left, you can click to enlarge), pointing out that much of the south simply regards its ancestry as "American" (which I guess ought to be spelled "Amurrican"). That truly does speak volumes.

However, I would also point out the huge swaths of purple on that map, which are the majority-African-American counties. That might give you some idea of how old-school white people feel "surrounded" in the South (underscoring the facts in my post about how white-flight brought down the economy). It is my contention that MOST whites would feel that way, and it is notable that there is no such similar swath of purple anywhere else in the country. Although yankee whites feel superior to southerners in race-matters, that is because they are safely in the majority. When African-American populations reach a certain critical mass (my estimate is about 25-30%), then racial animosities manifest in the North as well as the South.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved down South was that there are lots of rural African-Americans here, as well as city-dwellers, something nearly unheard of in the North. In the North, various white threats to "move out to the country" are racist code; dog-whistling for 'escaping' from blacks. In the South, such comments simply mean that you are moving to the country so you can grow tomatoes and raise chickens; no dog-whistling intended. Here in the South, there is no place whites can go (other than the richest enclaves) to 'escape' from black people. Would white yankees be as tolerant, in the same circumstances? Since most currently choose to live in segregated enclaves, far more segregated than the neighborhoods of most southerners .... I hardly think so.

This is the major reason white southerners don't like racial finger-pointing from yankees who live in all-white neighborhoods. I do not live in a white neighborhood, and I understand the sentiment.*

Back to Lind:

As difficult as it may be, outsiders should try to imagine the world as viewed by conservative white Southerners, who think they are the real Americans — that is, old-stock British-Americans — and the adherents of the true religion, evangelical Protestantism. In this perspective, the rest of the country was taken over by invading hordes of Germans, Irish and other European tribes in the first half of the 19th century, leaving the South, largely unaffected by European immigration, as the last besieged pocket of old-stock British-Americans, sharing parts of their territory with subjugated and segregated African-Americans.

This local British-American ethno-racial hegemony in the South was eroded somewhat by the migration of Northeasterners and Midwesterners to the Sun Belt following World War II and the advent of air-conditioning. And now, predominantly nonwhite immigration from Latin America and Asia threatens to make white Southerners of British Protestant descent a minority in their own region. Texas and Florida are already majority-minority states. It is only a matter of time before the same is true of every state in the South. Southern whites will go from being a minority in the nation as a whole to a minority in the South itself.

If Southern culture had a tradition of assimilating immigrants, then cultural “Southernness” could be detached from any particular ethnicity or race. One could be an assimilated Chinese-American good old boy or a Mexican-American redneck. To some degree, that is happening. And Southern whites and Southern blacks have always shared many elements of a common regional culture.

Indeed, one thing I find especially charming is young Asians with deeply-southern accents (little Asian children saying "Hey yall!" is too adorable for words) or young Mexicans at the White Horse Road Flea Market warning their brothers and sisters, "Its fixin to rain!" sounding as thoroughly southern as any other native South Carolinians. After all, they have been born here, and it was inevitable. There is a great deal of intermarriage among young white southerners and the new arrivals, and adorable kids of indeterminate race/ethnicity hollering "yall" has been the result. (And places like the White Horse Road Flea Market and the immensely-popular Anderson Jockey Lot is where we all come together.) I am one of the Midwesterners who moved here (in 1987) after the advent of air-conditioning (even though I often regard myself as a 'repatriated southerner'--since my mother's family was southern).

But the Old South ain't buying. Lind is right about that much:

[It] is difficult, if not impossible, for many white Southerners to disentangle regional culture (Southern) from race (white) and ethnicity (British Protestant). The historical memory of white Southerners is not of ethnic coexistence and melting-pot pluralism but of ethnic homogeneity and racial privilege. Small wonder that going from the status of local Herrenvolk to local minority in only a generation or two is causing much of the white South to freak out.

The demographic demise of the white South is going to be traumatic for the nation as a whole. A century ago, when European immigration made old-stock Yankee Protestants a minority in much of the Northeast and Midwest, one response was hysterical Anglo-American nativism. In a 1921 essay in Good Housekeeping titled “Whose Country Is This?,” then Vice President Calvin Coolidge, an old-stock Yankee from Vermont, explained: “Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides.” Patrician Yankees promoted immigration restriction to prevent “inferior” European races from further contaminating America.

And now we come to another fascinating map provided by Lind, also reproduced at left (again, click to enlarge): Evangelical Protestants, rates of adherence per 1000 population. It largely speaks for itself.

I was particularly curious about those bright red hot spots of Evangelical religious activity, which are mostly in rural areas. Snooping around (with the invaluable aid of Google Maps), I discovered some of these bright red spots are on (or near) the home-bases of various influential mega-churches: Morristown First Baptist (Morristown, TN); Heartland Worship (Paducah, KY); Victory Family Life Worship Center (Hugo and Durant, OK), Altus First Baptist (Altus, OK), First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls (Texas), Harrisburg Baptist and The Orchard (both in Tupelo, MS). That bright red square in Montana jumped right out at me also--possibly a Christian militia stronghold? Likewise, the spot in Idaho is very close to Ruby Ridge.

As we see, most of the orange swaths are in the South, and many of these spots also correlate to various mega-churches.

Lind again:

Just as white Southerners today are gerrymandering congressional districts and contemplating gerrymandering the Electoral College to compensate for their dwindling numbers, so the outnumbered Yankees of the North sought to dilute the political influence of European “ethnics” in the early 1900s. When the 1920 census revealed that largely European urbanites outnumbered mostly old-stock Anglo-American rural voters, Congress failed to reapportion itself for a decade, because of the determination of small-town Anglo-Americans to minimize the power of “white ethnics.”

The startling difference at this historical juncture is that they will not admit what they are doing. They will deny that this has anything to do with their whiteness, although they will proudly cop to evangelical religion as a major motivation (deny Christ at your peril!).

I have to admit, this denial of their xenophobia is what I find so confusing, as someone who lives here and argues with these folks rather frequently. The racists and bigots of yore came right out and told you what they were thinking; they were not ashamed. Modern-day southerners categorically deny that their gerrymandering and various attempts to prevent minority voting (etc) has anything at all to do with race or ethnicity ... and they actually appear to believe their own lies. They tell you it is about IDEOLOGY. They refuse to believe that their ideology or politics is backward or racist, and consider such a statement anti-southern.

This is why I continually remind everyone of the purple swaths on that map: whites are not the only southerners. I refuse to let them forget it.

Lind winds up:

By the 1970s, the social divisions among old-stock Anglo-Americans and the “white ethnics” had faded to the point that most white Americans in the North had ancestors from several Western European nationalities. Similarly, the trans-racial melting pot in the U.S. will probably blur or erase many of today’s racial differences by the middle of the 21st century.

But the old-stock Yankees in the Northeast and Midwest did not accept their diminished status in their own regions without decades of hysteria and aggression and political gerrymandering. The third and final defeat of the white South, its demographic defeat, is likely to be equally prolonged and turbulent. Fasten your seat belts.

Yup.

A few days before the 2012 election, I was shopping at the Fresh Market (a gourmet store) and blundered into the men's restroom. (there is only one toilet per restroom) A well-dressed, mellow old southern white man was drying his hands, leisurely, and looked up at me, bemused. He wasn't bothered.

"Ohhhh--" I burbled, embarassed. "I am so sorry! I wasn't paying attention!" He laughed, and then so did I. "You got me, dead to rights!" I held up my hands, as if under arrest. He laughed heartily.

"Welp, in a coupla days," he drawled in his low-country accent (a speech pattern strongly associated with 'old money' in these parts) "somebody else in Washington, Deee Ceee is gonna be held dead to rights too!" he cackled delightedly. In case I didn't know what he meant, he punctuated his comment with, "Benghazi!" --which he pronounced Benn Gozzeh.

I was stunned, but I smiled and nodded politely. I hardly knew what to say, so I said nothing. Mr Low-Country departed the restroom, chuckling happily at Obama's imminent demise.

I was stunned because: 1) He really did believe with his whole heart that Obama was going to lose, like most of the Fox News fans, and 2) he had no doubt that if he was talking to a white woman over 50, that I must agree with him. I mean, I was a reasonable person who apologized for entering the wrong-gender toilet, wasn't I? OF COURSE I was no hooligan, and I must therefore be a Republican.

It did not seem to occur to him that he might be talking to someone who would not agree with him. I think this is because he had met so few people who did not.

This is the South that is currently perishing. Not fast enough for me, but probably too fast for Mr Low-Country.

I have thought of him many times since the election. And I wonder how he dealt with the shock.






~*~

*I was once self-righteously preached at by a prominent blogger, that she made People of Color her role models about racial matters (I had foolishly remarked that I looked up to my mother as a political role model). When I checked the demographics of the Midwestern town this blogger lived in, I was stunned: It was 98.5% white. Who the hell are these role models she is talking about?

I realized then, that she was talking about, you know, Oprah Winfrey and bell hooks and various bloggers at Racialicious, not people she actually lived next to or associated with in real life.

This was a major wake-up call for me, contrasting the political-correctness of what various hip, so-called 'progressive' white bloggers SAY and how they actually live and what they actually do. When I bring these matters up (of neighborhoods and personal associations), it is understood that I am somehow saying something dirty or uncool--the idea that they should practice what they preach seems foreign to them. Am I suggesting they stop living in all-white neighborhoods?

Why yes, I am.

Tim Scott replacing Jim DeMint in Senate

At left: The man of the hour.









I am off to WOLT-FM to plug our new venture on (yow) live radio. While I'm busy, Vogue model and sometime SC governor Nikki Haley will be appointing our next Senator, filling the empty (but still annoying) shoes of nightmarish Teabagger Jim DeMint.

The Associated Press has confirmed that Congressman Tim Scott is the man, which I already figured. Haley blathered at length about bringing minorities into the GOP at the Republican National Convention this past summer, and if she appointed another white man, she would look like the hypocritical opportunist she really is... and we can't have that. Scott will be the first black Senator in South Carolina's history and Haley will get lots of favorable press as a result, which is crucial for her modeling career.

From USA Today:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will tap Rep. Tim Scott to replace outgoing GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, making Scott the first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction.

The Associated Press has confirmed the Scott appointment, which will be formally announced by Haley at a news conference Monday at the statehouse in South Carolina.

DeMint, an influential conservative and Tea Party favorite, will resign in January to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. His replacement will serve until a special election is held in 2014.

"This is historic for all of the South," said David Woodard, a political scientist at Clemson University. Tim Scott is "conservative and he's Republican. ... What African Americans need are capitalism and conservative values, and Tim Scott is a great vehicle for that. He represents a generation that is interested in entrepreneurship, conservative principles and volunteerism."

Scott, 47, was elected in 2010 to represent a U.S. House district in the Charleston area. A former member of the South Carolina state Legislature, Scott quickly became a favorite of House Speaker John Boehner and GOP officials in Washington and served in a leadership position for the 2010 freshman class.

He has a compelling life story, according to his biography in the Almanac of American Politics. Scott and his siblings were raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse's assistant. By his own account, Scott was on the brink of flunking out of high school when the owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise took him under his wing. He later earned a partial football scholarship to college, and ran an insurance company and owned part of a real-estate agency before entering politics.

State law gives Haley sole authority to appoint a replacement for DeMint, who was first elected in 2004 and is leaving before his second term ends in 2016. The appointment holds major political weight for Haley, who has low approval ratings and is up for re-election in 2014.

Haley reportedly had been considering five candidates: Congressmen Scott and Trey Gowdy, both elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010; former state first lady Jenny Sanford; former attorney general Henry McMaster; and Catherine Templeton, head of the state Department of Health Environmental Control.

The appointment sets in motion a series of events, which will make 2014 a busy year for Palmetto State politics. Both Haley and Graham, the state's senior U.S. senator, are on the ballot in 2014.

Woodard noted that Scott is popular and well-liked and has the support of his fellow members of Congress from South Carolina, which would give him an edge if he runs statewide for the Senate seat, as expected. The five GOP House members from South Carolina are very close, and they stuck together during a high-profile vote last year against Boehner's bill to reduce the deficit.

There have only been six blacks who have served in the U.S. Senate, according to the Senate website. They are Hiram Revels of Mississippi, who served in 1870, Blanche Bruce of Mississippi from 1875 to 1881, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts from 1967 to 1979, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois from 1993 to 1999, Barack Obama of Illinois from 2005 until he resigned in 2008 after his presidential election, and Roland Burris, who was appointed to replace Obama and served until November 2010.

At least it wasn't Trey Gowdy! (I try to think positively about these things, you know?)

Stay tuned, sports fans.

Haley Watch: The Governor's star turn

As reported yesterday, our fashionable governor took the podium at the Republican National Convention last night, camera-ready for her big close-up, and the reviews are in.

How'd she do?

For those of you lucky enough to miss it, SC Governor Nikki Haley read Barack Obama the riot act:

Haley then accused the Obama administration of launching an all-out assault on her state.

"The hardest part of my job continues to be this federal government, this administration and this president," Haley said, going on to say that "Obama will do everything he can to stand in your way," even if you play by the rules.

According to Haley, her state had attempted to implement "one of the most innovative illegal immigration laws in the country," bring jobs to South Carolina through a deal with Boeing and enact a voter ID measure, only to have the Obama administration bring lawsuits against them.

The Justice Department has sued South Carolina over its immigration law and voter ID measure over concerns that the legislation put the state in violation of various civil and voting rights acts. Obama's National Labor Relations Board eventually dismissed a union lawsuit against Boeing, which Haley suggested was a response to the state getting "loud."

Haley got a standing ovation for her support of voter ID laws, saying that it was a natural step when identifications were required to pass through airport security or purchase Sudafed from a drug store.

Really?

And here we thought it was just her overall incompetence that made her...totally incompetent. Instead, she blames her incompetence on the president. Good work if you can get it, and this song-and-dance has obviously taken Nikki all the way to the podium in Tampa.

Actually, the "hardest part of her job" appears to be the job itself, which she seems patently unable to do. As the Charleston City Paper correctly pointed out, she can't even talk to the South Carolina press, and prefers to model clothing for Vogue magazine instead:

Nikki Haley has refused to speak with members of the press, both those of the state's two largest and most influential dailies, the Post and Courier and The State, as well as the state's two alt-weeklies, The Free Times and the Charleston City Paper. On one occasion, Haley even ran away from reporter Renee Dudley.

How is this habitual scampering away from reporters, the fault of President Obama?

Hard-core conservatives like Will Folks, however, weren't having any. He ably picked apart the fine points of Nikki's speech. Folks gives away his Ron Paul-partisanship, when pointing out that:

[The] fight over Boeing was clouded by the fact that the company relies extensively on billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies doled out from both the state and federal governments.

Aside: It's a sad day when it's up to libertarians to do the job of (snort) "liberals," pointing out how working-class taxpayers regularly foot the bills for big business. This might be why Democrats do so poorly around here. It's usually been up to the Paulites to highlight CORPORATE welfare, while the rank-and-file Repubs natter on about "government handouts." I still remember our counter-demonstration at the local Republican debate, when Ron Paul supporters were the only ones to applaud one protester's sign, "Drug testing for corporate welfare recipients!" They loved it, as Will Folks would probably love it. The regular Republicans rolled their eyes and ignored us. (Same as they do with corporate welfare.)

Nikki Haley initially marketed herself as a Tea Party Republican, all ready to challenge the status quo, and she has instead rolled her eyes and ignored the malcontents, just like the rest of the big-money Repubs. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. One hopes the Tea Party-affiliated Republicans in this state will not sit back and simply allow her to shit all over them, in her breakneck-climb to the cover of Newsweek, her fashion spread in Vogue, and the Conservative Book Club bestseller's lists.

At left: Governor Haley's photo from The New York Times Magazine. (Since she is afraid to talk to the South Carolina press, we have to go to national media to find pictures of her.)




The Charleston Post and Courier reports:

Haley’s star status has been on display here for days. Monday morning, she won a standing ovation from Florida’s GOP delegation. Georgetown County GOP Chair Jim Jerow, who is at his first convention, was there and noted Haley “is growing in her job.”

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who had the biggest moment at the GOP convention four years ago, said Haley’s speech would be a good honor for the state and for her as an individual.

He said she needed to make the home team proud, please the “chattering class” in the media and make a personal connection. “I think she’s going to do really good,” he predicted.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., agreed with Graham’s prediction. “She’s going to showcase the state well. She always does,” he said. “It’s got to help her. I’m focused on how it helps us as a party. She’s going to be the face of the party.”

World-class stupidity as the "face of the party"! Well, they didn't mind hosting Dubya for eight years, so this isn't too surprising.

Growing in her job? WHAT, pray tell, does that mean? Sounds like an internship, rather than an elected office.

NPR says it's all about being a minority female. They are pushing her out front because they feel they have no choice:

It's become a perennial problem for Republicans, but not one that the party yet knows how to solve.

Recent polls show GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney taking a drubbing among minority groups, badly trailing President Obama among Hispanics, Asians and single women.

One recent poll showed Romney's support among African-Americans at 0 (yes, zero) percent.

In a sense, this is nothing new. As long ago as 2001, Rich Bond, a former head of the Republican National Committee, told The Washington Post: "We've taken white guys about as far as that group can go. We are in need of diversity, women, Latino, African-American, Asian."

What has changed is that minority voters now make up a large and growing share of the electorate. Between 1992 and 2008, the non-Anglo portion of the electorate doubled, to 26 percent from 13 percent, as measured by exit polls.

According to a recent National Journal analysis, Romney will need the percentage of white voters to remain at 74 percent nationwide — and he'll have to take 61 percent of that white vote — in order to win.

"This year or 2016 will be the last time Republicans can do as well as they've done in recent decades with [just] a strong showing among white voters," says Henry Olsen, vice president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "At some point in the not so distant future, Republicans have to start doing better among minorities or they will not win elections."

One way the party is hoping to speak to minority voters is by having minority officeholders speak to them. The GOP's convention lineup this week is loaded with high-profile minorities, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (Thursday), former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Wednesday) and Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Brian Sandoval of Nevada (who spoke Tuesday) and Susana Martinez of New Mexico (Wednesday).

Haley claims to be all about bringing minorities and women into the Republican Party. Um, since when?

Well, since she was elected and they gave her the script, of course:

"It's offensive to me as a woman and as a minority that Democrats can go and say, 'That party hates you,' and can get away with that," Haley told an editorial board from Gannett and USA Today on Tuesday.

Haley suggested that her party offers a welcoming home to many minority voters and is a good fit for them on issues such as the economy and jobs.

The "We Built It" theme of the Republican Convention, actually tramples all over minority people, who built most of the South, where the convention is. It tramples all over the maids and janitors who are cleaning up all the balloons and streamers and vodka-puke that the Republicans leave behind. Ann Romney's maids and assistants, the overworked-seamstresses who sew Nikki Haley's designer wardrobe, the lighting technicians and the retail/fast-food grunts and the hotel clerks and secretaries, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE who keep everything going. And they/we built it too.

And if you persist in NOT seeing this, Republicans, you will fail.

Your cartoon-convention, scrambling to find minorities and women to put on stage and on camera, is just that, a cartoon.

Haley Watch: Governor Nikki's "book"

Her book has the properly Republican title: "Can't is not an option"--supposedly something her mother said. The subtitle is "My American Story" (just in case you thought it was from somewhere else).

George Will once referred to such omnipresent politician-accounts as "one of those word-salads you write 'with' someone"--and that seems to be an accurate description of Haley's little Horatio Alger tale. Unfortunately, the ghostwriter is not named, which might be a good thing for the ghostwriter; we do not want to hold an innocent party accountable for the soon-to-be-published bullshit.

What amazes me is, she hasn't even been in office two whole years... and a book already?!?

Will Folks (the governor's ex-boyfriend) is now making jokes that her first appearance in the upstate will be at the amusingly-named (under the circumstances) local bookstore Fiction Addiction. (tickets required!) Of course, Folks will NOT be left out of the biography; Nikki's busy PR team successfully spun his accusations as a vicious attempt to keep this fabulously wonderful, plucky nonwhite lady OUT of office, that white male meanie! (As I have stated before, I believe Folks' account.)

My question is, does it not matter that she is totally incompetent and gave away the Port of Charleston? Apparently not. Obviously, her fresh, attractive appearance and high-profile status as South Carolina's first nonwhite woman governor, easily eclipses whether she actually does a decent job or not. (Or whether she is corrupt, as even several Republicans have concluded she is.)

And by the way, Haley recently lied (again) about her daughter winning a pageant. Truth-telling is most assuredly not her long suit.

I warned yall not to vote for her. (sigh)

Ron Paul in Greenville

At left: Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul today in Greenville.



What does it mean that so many working class people packed into a drafty, cold, wet airplane hangar to listen to a rather unremarkable-looking 76-year-old doctor talk mostly about his interpretation of the Constitution?

And they hollered, screamed, and stomped appreciatively?

I dunno, but as usual, I am impressed. I met about a half-dozen or more people I knew, too. I can confidently tell you that I could never say the same about any other Republican candidate... and possibly even the Democrats, at this stage of the game.

The Ron Paul folks (see below) are real people and I like them. They are friendly, and not a single one said anything nasty about the Obama bumper stickers I have not gotten around to scrubbing off my car. One sign on the back of a pick-up, pointedly read: DEMOCRATS-YOU CAN VOTE IN PRIMARY! (You certainly don't see signs at other candidate's rallies, openly asking for votes from 'the other side'.) Just like the last time, I enjoyed the event.

Until someone can explain away Ron Paul's populism, I can't dismiss it. On my radio show tomorrow, I will be addressing the race-baiting politics of the South Carolina primary, which have notably been from Newt Gingrich, not Ron Paul. I will be talking about why Ron Paul is considered by many to be the most progressive choice at this point.

One out of four young African-American males is in prison (the percentage may even be higher here in South Carolina), largely due to the failed and expensive drug war. The sorrowful end-results of the drug war have decimated black communities, and left heartache, gangs and poverty in their wake. (Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs coke-fiends have all of their bills and legal fees paid for by OUR money.) Of all candidates, left and right, only Ron Paul calls for a total end to this barbarism.

And it must be underscored, this is a radical and anti-racist position.

However, I must be honest... I am disappointed the Paul campaign here in South Carolina has radically downplayed the good doctor's anti-drug war positions. Recent Greenville News articles did not mention Ron Paul's controversial positions a single time, even though it certainly was news the last time he debated here! Ordinarily, I would attribute this to the usual shoddy job by the Greenville News, and yet, I noticed the info table at the rally today featured position papers about the Patriot Act, Civil Liberties in general, and virtually everything else but the drug war specifically. Hmm. Why not? (The mainstream media keeps repeating that Paul has 'widespread youth support'--surely they know his opposition to the drug war is a big reason why?) Is this because they believe their best chances are with conservatives here in the Palmetto State?

I think Ron Paul's anti-drug-war politics are a big draw with Independents, liberals and other civil-libertarians, and in fact, I am disappointed the Paul campaign didn't target minority communities with political ads seeking crossover voters and support. (Or would that compromise support among conservatives?)

If the guy with the pickup truck gets it, surely the people running the campaign, can too?

~*~

I saw my old comrade, the venerable Ted Christian, who ran for congress against Bob Inglis in 2008. He informed me he would be voting for Ron Paul "from now on."

I offered that Dr Paul was 76 now and probably would not run for president again.

"I don't care, I will keep on voting for him after he's dead," he said. He then informed me that the van outside with "Ron Paul 2012" on it, was his.

Not at all surprised.


Below, some photos of the rally, starting off with Ted's van--and that's Ted and me in the last photo. As always, you can click to enlarge.

ALERT: New photo ID law makes it harder to vote in SC than anywhere in the USA

At left: Delores Freelon has lost the right to vote in the next election because she can't meet requirements of SC's new photo ID law in time. 178,000 South Carolinians without state-issued photo IDs will have their voting rights rescinded under the new law.

You can listen to Delores' story here.

Thanks to Becci Robbins and the South Carolina Progressive Network for the information in this post. (And if you'd like Facebook updates from SCPRONET, click here).

Excerpted from SC Prog Blog (link above):

The National Conference of State Legislatures has identified seven states as having the most restrictive photo ID requirements for voting: Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee and South Carolina. All require voters to show a photo ID, but states vary in what kind and how hard it is to get.

» In Georgia, if voters are already registered, they automatically get a new photo ID voter registration card.

» In Kansas, voters can use a driver’s license from out of state, any accredited college ID, or government-issued public assistance cards. Voters over 65 may show expired ID.

» In Texas, you can get ID to vote with your concealed weapons permit, your boating license, insurance policy or beautician’s license. Or you can vote a provisional ballot if you will incur fees in order to vote. Voters over 70 are exempt.

» In Indiana, those without a photo ID get their provisional vote counted by claiming the fees to get the required documents were a burden.

» In Wisconsin, voters can use any state driver’s license, Social Security card or student ID.

» In Tennessee, a driver’s license from any state allows you to vote.

» In South Carolina, voters must produce a birth certificate to get the state-issued photo ID required to vote. No exceptions. (If you vote a provisional ballot, that won’t count unless you present your state-issued photo ID within three days.)

Numbers are hard to project, but it is clear that some of the 178,000 registered South Carolina voters who don’t have their papers in order will not be able to vote in the next election.

Even though there are no cases of the kind of fraud this law is purported to prevent, our cash-strapped state will spend at least the $700,000 supporters say it will cost to implement. Opponents say it will cost two to three times that much to educate poll workers and the public about the new law.

...

The governor has said you can’t put a price on the sanctity of the vote.

She should tell that to Delores Freelon, a Columbia resident and registered voter who won’t be able to vote in the next election because she has a Louisiana driver’s license and can’t get her birth certificate from California in time. What about the sanctity of her vote? What about Ms. Kennedy in Sumter, whose birth certificate lists her first name as Baby Girl, meaning she’ll have to go to court to get her papers straight in order to get a photo ID? Or Larrie Butler, who was born at home in Calhoun County in 1926 and is being told he needs records from an elementary school that no longer exists in order to establish a birth certificate?

Stories like these are coming in from around the state. The SC Progressive Network, which for 15 years has been advocating for voting rights, is fielding calls from people with questions about the new law or having problems meeting the ID requirements.

The lucky ones will still get to vote, but only after jumping through hoops and paying fees at various state agencies. Some will have to amend their birth certificates by going to court, at considerable cost. People without a car, a computer or short on money are simply out of luck. The disenfranchised will be primarily seniors and the poor. Many of them will be people of color who have voted all their lives.

...

This quiet whittling away of the vote is no accident. It is, in fact, the point. It’s the pattern being repeated in GOP-controlled legislatures across the country.

In South Carolina, we have a brief chance to challenge this law. Because of our state’s history of disenfranchising people of color, ours is one of seven states that must get pre-clearance from the US Dept. of Justice (DOJ) before new voting laws can go into effect. Once the state attorney general files the case, DOJ has up to 60 days to consider whether the law suppresses the minority vote.

The SC Progressive Network is gathering statements to forward to DOJ documenting voters’ experiences. We need volunteers around the state to help find citizens who will have a hard time meeting the new voting requirements. If you want to help, call the Network at 803-808-3384 or see scpronet.com for details.

SC Progressive Network
PO Box 8325 • Columbia, SC 29202
803-808-3384
email: network@scpronet.com

If you can help in any way, we would all appreciate it!

Part Two: How white flight brought down the economy

PART TWO of my series, How did the American Left lose the working classes?




I drove down to Woodruff Road and decided to check out the Goodwill Store. (As my regular readers know, I love snooping around in the Goodwill.)

Although I had seen a plethora of DeMint and Haley bumper stickers on my drive down, it is notable I saw none in the Goodwill parking lot. I saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, of whom I am very fond. I saw her about five times, even more than usual.

Keeping this series of posts in mind, I counted. Three white people in the whole place. All three whites were at least over 40; one was a quite-ancient, wise-appearing old man perusing the used book-bin, carefully inspecting the tossed-aside Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum thrillers. The other two had grandchildren in tow and seemed to be shopping for them, too.

The signs are now in Spanish and English, and several announcements were made in Spanish. (The music was a neutral oldies radio station, although I imagine that will also change in the future.) I was instantly reminded of the thrift store I went to in suburban Atlanta last year (see my souvenir photo above), in which I was the only white person in the whole store, the signs only in Spanish. And this was in Newt Gingrich's old district, where some of the houses start at half-a-million dollars (or did, before the economy tanked). Where do these folks live? -- I wondered. And then I realized, they live in one of the many apartment complexes dotting Cobb County, just as I live in a similar one here in Greenville County. They work for the people who live in the half-million-dollar homes, just as I also do.

After my visit to the suburban-Atlanta thrift store, we went over to the Barnes and Noble. I was immediately struck by the fact that these businesses were not very far apart in terms of mileage, but are light-years apart in terms of culture and economics. The Barnes and Noble was practically an all-white enclave, only a few miles from the thrift store, an all-Latino enclave.

And today, after leaving the Goodwill, I drove only a mile or so to Whole Foods.

Again, the shock of leaving a heavily-Latino enclave, driving a short distance, and entering an all-white one.

Why are we segregating ourselves?

I know for a fact (see link above) that poor (and some middle-class and bohemian-type) white people love digging through second-hand cast-offs as much as I do. I have been visiting yard sales and thrift stores my whole life, and white people have always been very well-represented.

So, what's going on?

~*~

Today, I saw workers replacing the carpet in another apartment unit in my building. Latino men, speaking Spanish and hammering nails, waved to me as I left. Latino men take care of the grounds, too. (When we moved here, the grounds crew were all black men, and the fellows laying the carpet were also black.)

Me and Mr Daisy often joke we will be the last white people left in the complex. Our apartment faces the woods and golf course, as I have written before, and we like living in this little pocket of quiet that we have been lucky to find in such a busy area. Whenever we seriously consider moving, we are never satisfied with houses that are RIGHT ON THE STREET; we have gotten rather spoiled living back here in our private little spot facing the woods, away from traffic and other suburban hoopla. Even though we are only about two blocks from I-85, we hear the occasional siren or Harley-Davidson, but not much else.

When we moved here, the population of the apartment complex seemed to mirror that of South Carolina at large, which was fine with us. (One of the main reasons we moved here was that the schools were supposed to be the best, in a county where the schools historically have left quite a lot to be desired.) I'd say it was about 25-30% African-American; the state of SC is about 1/3 African-American in total.

But we have stayed, and the other white people haven't. Where'd they go? We looked around one day, and saw that the vast majority of our neighbors were black or immigrants (Asian and Latino). The white people who remain are usually older (like us), or very young and newly employed at nearby Michelin or BMW (the Asian engineers walk to Michelin from here; while the whites all drive). We hardly see any white families with children; I was stunned to see ONLY children of color getting off the school bus in front of the apartment gate recently.

Okay, where are the white people? What's going on?

They bought houses, they got divorced, they moved away, etc. But don't People of Color do all of those things, too?

We are self-segregating.

And here it is: self-segregating costs money.

As I have intently studied the local real estate market, houses-for-sale, condos-for-rent, etc etc etc, the truth hit me with considerable force:

I can tell WHO lives in a neighborhood by the price.

Whiteness runs about $200-300 a month. That is the price of whiteness. The same-size apartment in a heavily-minority apartment complex is about $200-300 LESS than in an all-white or mostly-white complex. In terms of real estate: the same-size house, in more or less the same condition, might run you as much as $50,000 more in a mostly-white neighborhood than in a black neighborhood. Fact.

Me and Mr Daisy joke that the popular real estate expression "Location, Location, Location" is code for "White location."

How much did this whole Wall Street foreclosure-crisis have to do with white flight? Are we allowed to talk about that?

Why WERE people living so far beyond their means, anyway? When we hear the Fox News stories (beware the source), we are given to understand that it's them clueless minorities who couldn't do the math and understand that their mortgage was too high. (((shakes head dismissively in haughty Fox News manner))) Tsk tsk, what do you expect?

But I am officially rewriting that version here:

The mortgage crisis was caused, in large part, by poor white people who were fleeing Mexicans and Blacks in rental properties.

I know this because they moved away from MY apartment complex, bought pricey DeMint-district McMansions, and then went financially belly-up, in short order.

Why should we bail out white people who were running away from The Bad People? I resent doing that, since I didn't run away. Why am I footing the bill for the people who did? (After the Revolution, when I am Minister of Finance, we will be checking up on the REASONS you moved in the first place, before rescuing your mathematically-challenged, now-flat-broke white ass. Ha.)

We have to face the fact that racism is killing the working classes, rendering them/us easily manipulated by real-estate hucksters and Whole Foods and every other damn thing.

And keeping us ALL (of all colors) from joining together to SEE CLEARLY what is going on.

There is a REASON the Tea Party is largely composed of angry white people; they are the ones who did as they were told. They moved away from the Bad People, they moved where they were told to move and bought what they were told to buy... and HEY! They got fucked. How'd THAT happen? No wonder they are damned pissed. But instead of examining the ideology of capitalism (a cornerstone of which is: MUST BUY HOUSE! RENTERS ARE TACKY!), they swallow it whole, and keep on swallowing.

"You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!"--Tony Montana

~*~

The American Left, as we established in Part One, is now itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of the ruling class. It is that segment of the ruling class that is (at best) interested and involved in justice and/or (at worst) wants to FEEL GOOD (even morally superior) about themselves. And a discussion of racism in everyday life, which is what segregation IS, is not something they are eager to have, since it is also part and parcel of the life they lead.

Because affluent liberals have the money to ignore the actual market-price of whiteness I listed above, they don't readily SEE it. To the liberal ruling class, segregation is invisible. It just IS. They want to live in XYZ neighborhood/village/subdivision/condo development because it's a cool place to live and they don't see that as any sort of racist act, and how dare you suggest such a thing. It is simply what they want, the way they want a new car stereo, a new computer, a new car. And a new house. The fact that someone BUILT that house, that computer, that car, is immaterial to them. It's something they must have; their identity depends on it (more about this phenomenon, first addressed by Herbert Marcuse and Christopher Lasch, in future posts).

Thus, segregation is totally invisible to them. Certainly, they don't believe they actively participate in segregation, even if pressed to admit they live in an all-white area. It just happened that way, that's all. Economically, segregation is not something they are forced to think about, so they don't.

And to these white people (to any privileged whites), segregation means: How many People of Color to ALLOW IN. It's already understood that they are coming from an all-white perspective, an all-white neighborhood, an all-white place. They aren't running from anybody. As privileged whites, they are there already. They already occupy the protected place the non-privileged whites are TRYING TO GET TO, the safe place that is sought after and coveted.

And for this reason, the liberal classes did not see the white flight-factor in the economic collapse. If they did, they excused it. But I am of the opinion that none actually realized the impetus for the stampede of cheap mortgages, at the same time anti-immigrant fervor exponentially increased. Because: For privileged whites, immigration is about who to employ as a nanny or yard worker. For non-privileged whites, immigration is about who is going to live next door to you.

Since the American Left ignores their own racial segregation (due to the profusion of leftists from bourgeois backgrounds), they ignore everyone else's, too. They have therefore ignored one of the primary reasons (and one of the primary motivations) for the cheap mortgages.

TO sum up: A bunch of rich industrialists bring in Latinos to work on the cheap. First they bring them in by the thousands...and then, by the millions... all while abdicating responsibility and pretending that these poverty-stricken folks are just hopping fences and swimming the Rio Grande on their own. Then, they find them apartments to live in, right next to white people, while they also employ them (very cheaply) to do upkeep on the grounds and lay carpets. The buildings fill up with spicy, strange odors and Our Lady of Guadalupe on the door; lots of brown-skinned children and women cursing at the kids in Spanish.

Don't be alarmed!--the rich to the rescue again. You don't like these people and their taco-smells? We have a cheap mortgage for YOU! Like magic, you will be transported OUT of that hell-hole, and you will be among people like yourself again.

And yes, the miracle-mortgages were marketed JUST LIKE THAT, only just a tad more respectable.

For years I have received their cheapie direct-mail advertisements for basement-rate mortgages, addressed to everyone in the apartment complex... usually stunning photo-shopped postcards of glimmering white houses that look like they are in Malibu, rather than in the upstate.

These postcards ask, in large dramatic block lettering: TIRED OF APARTMENT LIVING?

Now, why would you be tired of apartment living? Owning your own home makes you far more TIRED than calling up maintenance, let me assure you.

I think they were actually asking something else. Location, location, location.

~*~

To be continued!

Ageism in Blogdonia, part 230856

More azaleas!


Because you can NEVER have enough!




I am finally getting it about age discrimination. (I have a lot of people to thank for this, and they know who they are.)

One of the problems is, it is not something one is accustomed to, like classism, sexism or other brands of discrimination and stereotyping that one grows up with. It is something that settles in later, and you might mistake it for one of the others at first. The whole point about intersectionality is important here; old men have more gravitas and are considered far more interesting and intelligent than old women are. As I scan the blogrolls, I see old men there, not old women.

Old women link old women, young women don't. However, they will sometimes link old men, since the men write for SALON and suchlike. Just like real life, old men still hold on to inherited power that women don't have and are respected and feted for that.

What is truly fascinating is how young people deny the ageism. Even radicals who should "know better" will INSIST that their dismissal and decision to ignore old women has nothing to do with ageism. Ask them where the old women are in their blogrolls, and well, it just happened that way, that's all. I don't think I have to point out that this excuse would never fly if the subject were any other group of deliberately-excluded persons, with the possible exceptions of disabled and fat people... an interesting parallel in and of itself. (This begs the question: Are old, fat, disabled women the lowest form of life in the USA?)

If you should ask why they have excluded old people in their various projects, you are picking a fight. And you will be treated that way.

Of course, I have been writing about this phenomenon for awhile now, and I guess it is my continuing task to do so. I won't let feminist and (supposedly) radical bloggers off the hook over their continuing exclusion, which I have come to see as deliberate, particularly when they are repeatedly informed of their exclusion and simply refuse to acknowledge their culpability and refuse to change. (As we used to say: If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.) I have even toyed with the idea of a list of bloggers who exclude old people in their blogrolls, subject matter, linkage, topics, etc...but it can be exhausting and tiring to go through every single blog they have listed. However, as I hang around long enough, I KNOW who lots of people are already, and I have discovered that for a few bloggers, all I have to do is click on the 3-4 names I don't know, and voila! I have proof of their exclusion.

Every single blogger is under 50.

Or under 40.

Or under 30.

Or even... under 25.

If this is you: you are an ageist and there are no excuses. Just as no radical can get by with all-white, all-male, all-heterosexual assocations, topics and linkage, please be advised that you can't either, and I am making a list and checking it twice.

And if you think old women have nothing interesting to say, be advised you have made your own bed, and when you are old, nobody will listen to you either. And you'll be just fine with that, right?

Right.

~*~

A deeper question is why we are consistently ignored.

Are we less fascinating or less intelligent? Are younger people's issues simply automatically more interesting? Why is that?

I was recently written off in the comments of a blog as just an old drugged-out hippie (so of course, not worth listening to, I am nobody)... and okay, there might be some truth in that... so, is that the reason we are ignored? Too much honesty about the past? Would we be more respected if we had lived as respectable, middle-class mommies who minded our manners? I don't think so, since "mommy-blogs" are considered very low-echelon in Blogdonia, and political women and feminists routinely apologize for talking about mothering-issues: "This is not a mom-blog!" (And so what if it IS?) As stated above, I don't think it is true that all old folks are not respected, since older MEN are carefully listened to (even deferred to), as if they are knowledgeable sages worth hearing out and considering. (Yes, even the drugged-out old hippies, who were seen as being on the front-lines and all like that.)

Certainly, in some cultures, old women are also given this status, but not in the modern-day USA, in which people prefer Botox to Wheaties for breakfast. And Blogdonia appears created in the USA's own image, as Adam was created in God's image. (And if yall have a problem with that formulation, maybe you should change it?)

I think some young women think we are their mothers, since we are usually somebody's mother who is around their own age. Mothers are shit on in this culture while fathers are prized (much attendant sociological hand-wringing about where are the fathers?! More frenetic burble about the importance of OLDER MALE ROLE MODELS!!!!) and it therefore seems quite logical that Blogdonia would continue this righteous tradition.

For instance, whilst contentedly bebopping around the internetz this week, I was admiring THIS post, The Femme Shark Manifesto, which is one of the best things I have ever read. And then...suddenly.... what?! I was bitch-slapped.

A list of cool traits is offered, old women even get mentioned several times (!) and yet smack in the middle:

FEMME IS NOT THE SAME THING AS BEING OUR MOMS

OMG! BEING OUR MOMS! BEING YOUR MOM! Worst thing you could possibly say about someone, I take it. Why?! Well, I guess it's supposed to be obvious, but it's not obvious to ME. But I read this same drive-by statement about "not being your mother" with clockwork regularity. It's injected often, just like in that post, seemingly out of nowhere, almost as an afterthought.

It happens often enough to make me think some of these women have major issues with their mothers. What would Freud say?

Here it is: Do not act out your mother-issues on me or other old women. I am not your mother, is a correct statement--so stop ACTING OUT on me, please. Have the courage to take up your issues with your own mother. Do not displace your mommy-grudge onto women who have nothing to do with your mother, may not have a damn thing in common with your mother, and in fact, who may not even be mothers themselves.

This post was inspired by various bloggers dissing and ignoring old women in the last couple of months; about 25 incidents total. Some of these incidents were directly addressed by me, and some were not, knowing it would not do any good or just cause more acrimony. I tend to hold radicals more accountable than others, assuming (ha!) that they get things quicker when it comes to stereotyping and discrimination. I was wrong. People see exactly what they want to see, and aging is something that happens to other people who are (of course) older, not to them. (Won't they be in for a surprise?)

Someday, calling yourself a GIRL will seem comical, so if that word is a hyphenated part of your political identity, you might want to reconsider.

And as for the Allied Media Conference, as it was with the Women, Action and Media conference, I will be watching the YouTube videos and counting gray heads. If I see, like, three or four (or none), I will notice and comment on your deliberate exclusion.

At the 1979 National Women’s Studies conference, Barbara Smith (of the Combahee River Collective) memorably stated: "Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement."

Well, she left a few people out of that statement (see above), but I get the point. I got it then, too. Some people need to get it NOW, like really get it.

I assume I will revisit this topic hundreds of times, as it seems I already have. So stay tuned, sports fans.

We love Sonia!--and other ruminations on a young presidency

After all the fervid Obama-blogging I did during election season, I deliberately laid off after Inauguration Day. I wanted to give him a 100-day break, like (haha!) everybody else was. Or was supposed to. Or something.

Like I said, haha. Nobody else did. I felt like he got maybe a 48-hour honeymoon period with the press, if that long.

Primarily for this reason, I extended my hands-off policy even longer, pausing only to criticize the president's rather uncharitable attitude towards freeing the weed. I was floored that Obama wasn't getting the "honeymoon" that other presidents have enjoyed (which they have historically used to "coast" for their first year or so). And then I realized, this is different; times are currently quite disastrous and all bets are off.

And then there is the fact that Barack Hussein Obama is habitually examined microscopically in a manner I can recall no other modern president perpetually and constantly inspected...with the exception of the post-Watergate Richard Nixon (who approved a criminal break-in and thus deserved to be closely-inspected). But Obama? Why is everyone so panicked and seemingly afraid he is going to screw the pooch?

Certainly, it seems obvious that the pooch was already royally screwed by Dubya, who seemed utterly free of any similar close inspection. But much of the microscopic-inspection that should have been directed at Dubya, is now directed at the successor who is attempting to clean up his considerable mess.

And so, I have now decided to jump in and reassert my support for the prez, which is not to say he can't do some serious pooch-screwing of his own, and I suppose he will at some point. All politicians do, after all. (Old bumper sticker: To err is human, to really screw things up takes a politician.) But so far, I am not teeth-gnashingly livid over anything he has done. Bill Clinton used to make me livid with his very predictable Bubba-routine, which I found just too close for comfort. (I had a Bubba-boss for part of that time, which made it significantly worse... familiarity breeds contempt!) As a feminist, I also greatly resented the fact that Slick Willie could not keep his hands to himself. (After hearing the story of Kathleen Willey, whom I found very credible, I would not defend Bill Clinton AT ALL.) By contrast, Obama shows no signs of Clintonian excesses, and in fact, comes off as downright ascetic in comparison--with his frequent sports and healthy diet--tobacco appears to be his only vice, which is a relief. (There is some argument about whether he is still smoking; I say, let the man have a vice, people!)

I am pissed off about Obama's whole Afghanistan adventure, however. The left, as a rule, has been far too easy on him about this, as Tom Hayden writes in AlterNet today. Peter Rothberg in THE NATION states that only 0.6% of military-oriented media coverage is about Afghanistan in particular (!) and most of the American public is pro-intervention in the region. (But if there was more detailed media coverage, would that change?) There was a "national day of action on Afghanistan" last Thursday, but MoveOn did not participate, and most people I know were not even aware of it.

Regarding Afghanistan, we need to keep the heat on.

~*~

One thing our new prez has done is... NOMINATE A WOMAN TO THE SUPREME COURT!!!! (((happy dance)))) Yes, this carries serious weight with me, folks. You bet it does!

And Sonia Sotomayor is making the GOP-baddies go crazy... tee hee! Politico reports:

President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court was the latest and most powerful blow in the president’s relentless courtship of Hispanic Americans, whose flight to the Democratic Party was central to his election.

Hispanic leaders across the country, many of whom attended the White House announcement, praised the appointment swiftly and in the strongest terms, and Republican leaders signaled an awareness of the political sensitivities by avoiding any suggestion of disrespect for the first Latina nominee to the nation’s highest court.

“The picture of an African-American president standing next to a Hispanic woman as his first choice for the Supreme Court — that picture is the worst nightmare for the Republican Party,” said Fernand Amandi, a Florida pollster whose firm, Bendixen Associates, surveyed Hispanic voters for Obama’s presidential campaign.

“The numbers, the symbolism and now the acts of the Democratic Party and this Democratic president underline and underscore the very bleak outlook for Republicans, where the…fastest growing demographics in the county are leaving them,” he said, noting that surveys earlier this decade suggested broad hunger among Hispanic voters for a court pick.

Jeanne Cummings reports that the right-wing is mobilizing, but confused and disoriented:

Conservative groups know they want to oppose Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor — but exactly how that campaign will be conducted is a major unanswered question that is splitting the Republican right.

The early fissure among opponents to Sotomayor, the New York federal appeals judge nominated by President Barack Obama on Tuesday, is over whether to push for a filibuster.

“The Republicans have got to take a stand on this one,” said Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a proponent of a filibuster. “If they don’t, they can kiss their chances of ever getting back into power away,” he added.

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, an anti-abortion rights activist, is urging members to block a Senate vote on Sotomayor.

“Do GOP leaders have the courage and integrity to filibuster an activist, pro-Roe[v. Wade] judge?” asked Terry, who argued that Democrats — including then-Sen. Obama — opened the door to such action after threatening to filibuster Justice Samuel Alito’s nomination in 2005.

And Holly gets right to the point over at Feministe:

Sotomayor grew up in the housing projects of the South Bronx, was raised by a single mother after the death of her father, is a diabetic, a Catholic, and is divorced with no children. Obama described her life as an “extraordinary journey,” talking about how she graduated at the top of her class from Princeton and then Yale Law School.

You might be wondering why I rattled off a laundry list of her life experiences, or what you might call identity categories. Two reasons: first, her career has been batted around for years by feuding Democrats and Republicans because she’s a woman of color. Once she made the short list for an Obama nomination, the rumors and sniping started up again. What, she doesn’t have any kids? Not only that, but some people think she’s fat. Or are even spuriously linking her weight to her diabetes.

Get ready for a whole season of this kind of thing as her nomination is challenged.

Also check out Jill's post at Feministe, as well as nojojojo's and Ampersand's posts at Alas, a Blog.

I am just so proud of Obama right now. And wonderful Sonia too, of course!

Censorship and radical feminist transphobia, episode # 89176

One reason I don't "moderate" (censor) comments on my blog, is because I fear the inevitable slippery slope.

First, I'd be moderating for being offensive. Next, I'd be moderating for any disagreement at all. And finally I would be moderating/censoring just for thoughtcrime, i.e. "upsetting" my friends and readers.

Nope, not going there.

Thus, I don't understand the tendency of certain bloggers to zealously moderate/censor comments. I understand guarding against trolling and spam, particularly after witnessing the manner in which some radical bloggers (such as Renee) have been harassed to death by online viciousness. But for regular, relatively small-time bloggers such as your humble narrator? Censorship is primarily used to avoid ideological conflict; a way to stay safe and avoid being questioned about one's beliefs.

And some of us actually grow and learn through the working out and witnessing of such conflicts. For this reason, I love contentious, argumentative blogs, where all sides of questions are aired and examined.

Whenever I use the word CENSORSHIP, people get very exercised. It's like pushing a button, and the official Encyclopaedia Britannica definition of CENSORSHIP is duly spit out, on cue. (Honestly, why do people bother going to college, if it doesn't teach them to think for themselves?)

The teleprompter reads: It's not censorship since you can write it on your own blog! It's not censorship unless it's the government! It's not censorship since we have not prevented anyone from speaking! Blah blah blah. This is drivel; of course it is censorship. If I sent my kid to bed so she would not see SEX AND THE CITY, then I censored her television viewing, period. If I edited the scene out of the movie BIG, wherein Tom Hanks touches Elizabeth Perkins' boob in implied foreplay-mode--so my very-young child would not see it--but left the rest of the illegally-videotaped movie intact, this means I CENSORED about 30 seconds of the movie BIG. Yes, lil ole Daisy, unentangled by government, CENSORED something, all on her own! This is the proper usage of the word, people:

cen·sor·ship (sĕn'sər-shĭp')

1) The act, process, or practice of censoring.

If you do not want to be accused of censorship, then by all means, do not censor, which is defined as:

To examine and expurgate.

That's all. No mention of the government or "Get your own damn blog"--none of that. It simply means, TO JUDGE UNWORTHY FOR WHATEVER REASON--AND SUBSEQUENTLY DELETE. That is censorship.

When you protest that no, you do not engage in censorship, when you clearly DO, then you are a coward who does not have the courage of your convictions and who does not take responsibility for your own beliefs, whatever those beliefs are.

Thus, when you "moderate"--you censor. Do not argue otherwise, just because you want to come off as some big tolerant liberal. Please admit what you are doing. I just admitted I didn't want my young daughter to see likable Tom Hanks grab a boob, before she was old enough to understand everything about that scene. Now, you can do likewise and admit that you have occasionally done the same, it will not kill you.

If, however, you are one of those people who LIVES TO CENSOR, then I can see why you might want to avoid the label... obviously, alternate versions of truth--as perceived by others--are things you don't like to wrestle with very often. Much easier to squash these other voices, like dragonflies on a hot southern-summer windshield.

~*~

As you all must have guessed by now, I was just censored, again, and decided to address the subject. I was polite and succinct in my comment, so the only reason I was censored was for disagreeing with the majority.

And see? It would have been lots better if Valerie of Valerie Speaks, had just gone ahead and allowed my polite little dissenting comment... now it is going to be FAR MORE NEGATIVE and MUCH LONGER.

On a thread titled Radical Feminists and Trans Stuff (warning, offensive hate speech from Sam Berg and the usual we-hate-sluts contingent), Heart writes the following:

The conflict ideologically speaking between radical feminists and Queer/postmodern people is really located right here, in the disagreement about what gender is. All sorts of things happen to female persons because we are female: we have been denied the vote, denied citizenship, forced into marriage, forced into prostitution, endured the mutilation of our genitals and reproductive organs, had our feet bound, been raped and sexually enslaved, suffered honor killings, forced to cover ourselves in specific ways, forced to bear children, degraded and debased because we bleed or because we are pregnant, and so on. That’s *gender*. It happens to us because of our sex. This is core to radical feminism because the belief that gender is something mystical, something in the head, something someone is somehow “born with,” something someone just “knows” about herself or himself [1] obscures or erases the horrific realities I’ve described, what the process of gendering a human being does to her (or to him.) To gender a person is to force him or her to conform to a patriarchally designed and coerced stereotype. To gender is to coerce. If we abolish gender and all gender coercion, people grow up free to be whomever they want to be, to express themselves in any conceivable way, wear whatever, do whatever they want to themselves and not be told it is “unfeminine” or “unmasculine” or whatever, not be ostracized, marginalized and so on.

Italics mine, not Heart's.

And here is my censored comment:

Correct.

Therefore, forcing someone to present as one or the other gender, simply because their genitalia is X or Y, is to continue the coercion.

Just to be clear, there is nothing remotely feminist about that position.

And you know, I can't understand how anyone could write that paragraph, and still be in favor of forcing gender on people: If you have X or Y genitalia, you are evilll and wrongggg for not identifying accordingly! (Isn't that the conclusion Heart and Co. have arrived at?)

If one agrees that gender is constricting and negative, why so judgmental and intolerant of the people who won't live according to their assigned birth gender? Doesn't the existence of such people PROVE that gender is fluid, multi-faceted and complex, rather than something very precise, prescribed and inborn (as the patriarchy has historically defined gender)?

Why are you preserving the gender-system right down to the necessity of panty-checks, if you claim you are against it?

And more to the point: your disapproval of trans people and your implication that trans persons are somehow invalid and trying to "deceive"[2]--is basically an unabashed celebration of inborn gender-roles and identity. (And this is in direct contradiction to your stated claims of abolishing gender.)

More from Heart:

No radical feminist I know and respect is personally concerned so far as what someone else might have done to their body or how they identify or, for that matter, what their beliefs about gender might be. All of us want justice for all people.

What are you talking about? Of course you are "personally concerned"--to the point that you believe such women should be refused entry at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (Michfest). You have written in favor of this position hundreds of times, on your own blog, the old Ms message board, countless other blogs, as well as the Michfest board. Hundreds of posts, thousands of words. You have proudly and zealously gone on record as approving of the active exclusion of trans women. How is that "unconcerned"? How is that "wanting justice for all people"?

The acrimony around transgender issues has to do, mostly, with the insistance that woman-only space and lesbian spaces, especially, be respected.

No, the acrimony is due to the fact that that you have decided certain women do not belong in that space, and you will not give equal time to any defense of said women's rights. They do not deserve inclusion, so OUT, OUT DAMNED SPOT. Ejection without trial! You show such proud disrespect, that you will not even listen to trans women or allow them to post on your blog... then you claim to be about "justice"...(!)

You first claim gender is oppressive, and then assert you want the right to continue to oppress people who do not fit into the proper gender categories. When this contradictory position brings about "acrimony"--you decide it isn't for the reasons feminists like me have enumerated, it is instead because you are too PURE AND GOOD for this world (there's that pesky Calvinism of yours creeping in again, Heart). You will not listen to what WE SAY is the problem and the cause of the acrimony, because of course, you know better than we do, right? We are not important enough for you to listen to. We don't count.

I think they call that predestination.

The experience of being subordinated because we are female from the time of our birth results in a lived reality that is not shared by those born male, even if they have transitioned.

No one has ever said the experiences were identical... but that these experiences do illustrate a different kind of oppression. As a cisgendered woman who has admirably fulfilled your gender-role, you have a privileged status. In fact, the way you are definitively proclaiming Who is What, regardless of their self-definition, is part and parcel of that status. You are giving an excellent demonstration of cis privilege: you know what transgendered people are, even BETTER than they know themselves. As men have always claimed to know women better than WE know ourselves. (Since you claim to be this right-on lesbian-feminist, doesn't imitating the worst habits of men bother you at all?)

As female persons subordinated on account of our sex by men and male-created institutions, we are entitled to gather as women for all the reasons all oppressed groups of persons gather. We are entitled to say that our spaces will not be shared by those born male.

As I said, cis privilege: you will decide who is "born male" and what that means, using the traditional patriarchal definitions. People's own perceptions of who they are, their own accounts and process, do not matter to you.

You are continuing to FORCE the definitions of gender; the very same gender that you criticize as oppressive. Suddenly, gender is your friend, when you need it to keep out the riff-raff.

Do you see the contradiction here?

Our gathering as women born female, who have lived as girls and women all of our lives, ought to be respected. A comparatively small number of vocal persons disagrees and has not only refused to respect women’s and lesbian space but has filed lawsuits against lesbian organizations, in some instances causing them to close, boycotted already marginalized lesbian and women performers and artists, launched no holds barred attacks on lesbian and radical feminist journalists, and so on. We are being told we are not entitled to determine how we will and will not strategize our own liberation. We are called “transphobes” and “bigots” in other words because we believe we are entitled to our own spaces, “our” meaning spaces for women born female, lived as girls and women all of our lives. There is a lot of understandable anger and resentment about this among lesbian/radical feminists. That anger isn’t about bigotry or transphobia, it is about justice for women as a people. Because, in fact, women are a people.

There are real transphobes everywhere, zillions of them in the mainstream, many of them, as you’ve noted, in alternative communities as well. Radical feminists are not, for the most part, transphobes and neither are lesbian feminists/lesbian separatists. Defense of our own spaces is not bigotry; it is insisting that we retain the right to strategize our own liberation.

Who is "our"? If you are going to continue to justify your exclusion of certain women, this is counterfeit liberation... it only refers to you and your friends. This is not all women. Certainly, it bears no relationship to radical feminism, but is instead a parody, a joke, by pseudo-feminists who were too busy during the birth of radical feminism to be involved... but like you, came on board much later, after reaping the considerable benefits of acceptable middle-class heterosexuality, as well as religious authority within Christianity.

Aren't you even a little embarrassed to be on the side of the censors, the segregationists, the haters, this time? Do you honestly believe there is nothing to the lawsuits, the boycotts, the challenges? They are just filled with the devil and are out to get you, is that it? These progressive feminist trans women who want to be included are simply trying to co-opt feminism, is that it? Why would they do that? What is the purpose? What's the frequency, Kenneth?

It seems to me, they want to be included, as disabled women once agitated to be included, as LESBIANS (whom you claim to be, something you mystically "just know" you are) have also agitated to be included. This is the same. But for some reason this time, you dig your heels in. THESE WOMEN you will not accept. They are too inferior; you simply will not associate with them.

And I think we can see, more boycotts, more lawsuits, more hell-raising, all are necessary.

Like the last segregationists, they will not give an inch unless they are forced. Bigots rarely learn a thing.

(sigh)

PS: Valerie, see how much LONGER this version is? Two lines would have caused much less fuss!

~*~

[1] How on earth could someone decide they are lesbian while still married to a man? Maybe lesbianism is "something someone just “knows” about herself or himself"?

[2] Heart has written that any trans person who does not disclose their trans-status to a prospective sexual partner, is guilty of rape. It is basically the feminist version of the "trans-panic" defense, used by trans-bashers throughout the land. Most recently, it was used as a legal defense of Allen Andrade, convicted murderer of trans woman Angie Zapata.