Hold up, Hold, the fuck, up lindsay, What the fuck are you talking about?
I am of course referring to this ghastly burkatuter grade evil creature of a paragraph:
Amanda’s insight undercuts ethnocentrism. It’s harder to think of your culture as the measure of all others when you realize that humanity’s most serious problems repeat themselves everywhere under different guises. If you assume that there are commonalities, awareness of an oppressive practice in another culture should lead you to wonder if your own culture might be doing something similar but less obvious to you.
Let us step the fuck back and examine what the fuck it appears Lindsay is accusing Amanda of here:
Accusation the one: the burka piccie undercuts ethnocentricism.
Reality: the burka piccie is just a reheating of the rightwing meme used to justify the afghanistan invasion after Bushchev let Osama escape into pakistan. It was accompanied by no extra analysis, nor where actual afghani or indian women who are forced – one group through physical threats of violence and rape and another through the social coercion that everyone suddenly gets once the activity that women are being coerced into is a freaking burka and not highheels or gagging on cock* – even mentioned, the point was to compare Ann Althouse to Teh Taliban, who might as well be run by a funny little moustachioed austrian for all the substance found behind the various “you’re worse than the Taliban!!!!!11!” wolf cries I’m seeing atm.
That it was only criticism of the initial burka peice that prompted every ghorii from here to calcutta to start going on about how terrible burkas are is just another layer of irony on the whole thing – complete with a liberatarian style missing of the point; “the taliban had women beaten with sticks – see how oppressive several feet of cloth is!” went the cry, in face of a million and one people who A) knew that already, being feminists, and B) objected to the Uncle Leo style hyperbolic comparison between hardcore violent oppression with Ann Althouse’s hatred of boobies.
That the only real reply to all this is to point out that neither Amanda nor Lindsay denounced the holocaust, which everyone must admit was even worse than burkas are, and in turn to denounce both amanda and lindsay as anti-semites of the worst sort.
That this is nonsensical is of course a case of me meeting both Lindsay and Amanda half way with their pitiful excuse for logic on this subject, what with them having long ago left the safe and comfortable lands of sanityville to go to the crazy place where Ann Coulter’s mind resides.
Accusation the two: That the burka piccie shows how many of humanity’s problems repeat themselves in different cultures, and in turn makes it harder to make your home culture the one against which all others are judged.
Reality: If any such empathy was involved, then the burka piccie would have been something a bit more substantial than a cheap snipe at ann althouse’s fear of boobies – it would have been a complex and crosslinked examination of hijab customs in both the west and the developing nations where islam is strongest, with ample comparison between burkas and Dawn Eden/Crazy Clown Ladies for America’s modesty cult and other rightwing memes – with no expense being spared to examine how the gag cult of RandomBird and others is a remarkable hyper-reaction to the modesty cult that oppresses no more or less than burkas really, but exploits the wins feminism has made to liberate women in the west and turns those past successes into more bondage to bind us in.
In short, it would have been a completely different post, and while my experience within and around muslims in the west, and in africa and india too, barely starts to give me the depth of knowledge that might enable me to write such a post, I would do it with the sort of care and tenderness that such a complex and intricate subject deserves.
Or to put it another way; if the word “complex” is used to describe anything but the nonsensical rationalisation that Amanda and Lindsay have been pumping out, I shall laugh until I wet my bra. Lindsay here is of course confusing the reaction to the burka post with the burka post itself, and is at the same time forgetting or wilfully ignoring the fact that if no one had mentioned and pointed out the badness involved in the use of the burka as a cheap symbol of islamic patriarchy then no actually talk about burkas would have occurred in the first place, leaving us with what actually occurred: A middle class white woman using the oppression of muslim women as a cheap gag to get back at Althouse with.
Not to break too fine a Godwin’s law but, what if it had been the holocaust that was used instead for the cheap snipe? Say a black triangle? Would criticism of such an obvious retorical misuse of the holocaust been so readily slapped aside? I doubt it.
All of which invalidates the third accusation, which rather relies on the first two being somehow accurate.
And while some of Lindsay’s commenters bitch and moan about how certain (name no names) feminists’ refusal to be inclusive to this sort of unconcious and offhand islamophobia is of course what is really holding the feminist movement back – unlike the white, middle class heterocentric feminists propensity to be total assbags, which one can only presumes is all to the good – I have to wonder why they’re wasting their time writing and reading mutiple page essays on burkas, when they could be doing something they probably think IS useful, like banning headscarves in french schools (again).
Because if we don’t denounce islamic culture as the “ultimate” form of patriarchal oppression, well that’s as good as letting the terrortalibanists win.
How dare you imply that I’ve swallowed and am now repeating right wing talking points, I know I’m not because I didn’t intend to, and I should bleeding well know eh, what?
* Not that I’m bitter, razafraza…
** For if burkas are so oppressive, how come the women were only beaten when they weren’t able to own the damn things? It’s almost like a totalitarian theocratic state is more oppressive than some cloth garment, but that can’t be so, why Amanda assures me otherwise… And if a Texan english lit professor doesn’t know her knout from her scold’s bridle as far as the oppression of all women everywhere in the world goes, then I posit that no one does.
*** Yes folks, I also didn’t see anything wrong with the piccie at first glance, it was only BfP, BA and other’s critiques of the piccie that got me looking at the thing to see if they were right about it, at which point I realised they were.
This is of course how you’d take any reasoned critique of anything in the bathoblogosphere, as opposed to the apparent methodology used by non-racists who’s apparent reaction to a POC actually saying anything at all is best represented by this sign:
This is of course, the worst sort of racism of them all: treating POC like having a different skin tone means that they have a severe mental disability, and being too afraid of made up stereotypes to actually treat them like “normal” people, and be able to criticise as criticism is needed.
And I don’t care if you don’t do it on a concious level, it’s still fucking racist. Feminism is about women being accepted and treated like people, which includes *gasp* the ones with darker skin tones as well. If you’re focusing on the “C” in “POC” and not the “P”, you’re approaching it all wrong and letting the whole fucking side down in the process.
I apologize that I didn’t jump in and fight on every point. I have a regular, 40 hour a week job. It cuts into my flame war time.
I’ll have you know that your insult at Auguste that implies he’s taking orders from me is completely backwards. He made the picture, I shoved it into a post that I mostly wrote because I was interested in the coded remarks about Jews and Italians on Althouse’s blog. I thought it was interesting that while most of us tend to think that white Americans don’t have the ethnic breakdowns of old in any substantial way, certain WASP-y conservative types are still carrying the torch. They’re like encased in glass or something.
no one asked you to censor, but you do have your own six shooter form of regulating discourse, described on your blog regarding the very blowouts re Alas and Hugo. Those things can be put into action.
I’ll have you know that your insult at Auguste that implies he’s taking orders from me is completely backwards. He made the picture, I shoved it into a post that I mostly wrote because I was interested in the coded remarks about Jews and Italians on Althouse’s blog. I thought it was interesting that while most of us tend to think that white Americans don’t have the ethnic breakdowns of old in any substantial way, certain WASP-y conservative types are still carrying the torch. They’re like encased in glass or something.
Uh, I know it’s been a rough week, but: kidding. I was kidding. I was being sarcastic. Of course I don’t think Auguste is your henchman. I assumed that you would see that as, you know, so ridiculous as to be funny.
So do I and frankly it’s not a flame war . you want to talk about female politics and bridge building and teh like but when peopel disagree iwth you you either pull mea culpas and tehn negate them or call us flamers .
And its not a flame war or more tahn ten seconds of your back, to say ” please be respectful” . It takes teh asmae amount of time it took you to be snide with me.
It’s not a flame unless you think were doing it on purpose to flame which if you responded tot hem on the meatof tehir texts you would see they are not.
Peopel are disappointe BECAUSE they dont think you a racist or they didnt .
It is absurd the amount of latitude that is asked by peopel with half the teh resources and exposure are asked to give.
It also wonderful that even though iVe brought up twelve different things . Still on the picture. Even though R mIldreds post not about teh picture still on the picture.
ANd even though the person with the bulk of the critisims on THIS WHOLE SHEBANGY BANG is BFP.
SHE HAS YET TO BE QUOTED.
Rmildred you were more right than you know.
I know that this may be a bit dangerous, given my history of battles with RMildred and Marc….but I have to bring my nickel’s worth into this.
The problem with the photo, Amanda, wasn’t that it merely appropriated a symbol of a religious faith (however repressive that faith may be) to simply lay smack upon an antifeminist asshat like Ann Althouse. The main issue is that it piles on the heap of issues that WOCs have against White liberal establishment feminists who appropriate their struggles and their issues while speaking down on them as incapable of thinking and acting for themselves. The ensuing debate, coming so soon after the Lieberman blackface pic at firedoglake (and the “respect your betters” smack leveled at Black critics of that tactic), combined with all the holy hell that Black feminists like Nubian got for stating her offense at being talked down to for her skin color), has done more to reenforce the view amongst Black and Brown women that traditional feminists and liberals simply use them as cannon fodder for their own pleasure and privilege. I for one do see what you were getting at with the pic; I just think that the execution and the timing was simply too suspect. Some jokes are pretty funny…except to those who are mocked and ridiculed, even unintentionally.
I’ll pass on the rest of the brohaha for now, since it’s been covered so well by others (namely, B|L and Blackamazon and Nanette, among others).
Anthony
My point re: you is that, because you accused people of asking for cultural relativism, you misunderstood what BfP asked for in her post. She did not call for cultural relativism as if we can make no value judgments. But, you trotted out a conversvative discourse to misrepresent her argument and suss out all those kneejerk anti-pomos who won’t even bother to read her post but glommed on to “cultural relatavism” to have a field day.
Not one word BfP was quoted. Not one single bit of close engagement with what she actually wrote. You give more space to conservatives in a fisking than you did to her words, which stood for themselves and could not be used to support the charge of cultural relativism.
That, Amanda, is failing to understand how you reproduce the racism people are calling for all of us to stop reproducing.
You can go on being “offended” because your fee fees hurt, but it doesn’t wash with me. I think you are perfectly well intelligent. I just don’t think you are demonstrating that you care to understand — by which I mean exhibit “care” “concern” and “sensitivity”.
Not understand in terms of intellectually grasp a sentence. But emotionally make a connection to the argument under consideration. Engaged Fallibilistic Pluralism as I called it at Lindsay’s.
Yes, I censor people who come on spewing hate. I don’t censor for disagreement. I’m certainly not interested in making everyone who comes to my fairly laid back blog submit a comment request submission so I can make sure they’re following proper Marxist protocol when they comment. Most of the time, I let my regulars….be regulars.
Piny, thanks. Sorry, I guess I figured the funny was left at the door on this conversation a long time ago.
It’s not a rough week. My life, all things considered, is the shit.
I don’t think censorship, even so much of Trolly McTurnerson, is necessarily being advocated here. Just your ability to flay people saying stupid things.
I would flay them, but seriously, I have a job.
Um…
Nor will I be morphing into a Marxist theorist any time soon; had I wanted to be one in the past, the urge is thoroughly squelched now.
I’m certainly not interested in making everyone who comes to my fairly laid back blog submit a comment request submission so I can make sure they’re following proper Marxist protocol when they comment.
Just out of curiousity, what is all this red baiting stuff about?
And me without even so much as a Che poster, sigh.
Piny, thanks. Sorry, I guess I figured the funny was left at the door on this conversation a long time ago.
It’s not a rough week. My life, all things considered, is the shit.
No problem. It’s the internets; you can never really tell when someone’s in earnest. I’m glad to hear you’re doing so well.
yes it stems form pic . I apologize for that but her commentary on how WOC are being treated d there as well and unadressed still.
Well, that’s an interesting discussion, but hanging the sole responsibility for it on my neck seems a little odd, to say the least.
which would be true and is why I’m not. As parts of it have been adressed to at various points MArc and everyone else
Eesh there’s too much reading for me her but this summer there was an extended discussion on cultural appropriation on WOC and POC blogs or borrowing non-hegemonic cultural artifacts without regard to history or context. An example is wearing dreads or having a Chinese word tattooed on your arm. Greg Tate called it “Everything but the burden”. People should think twice before wearing dreads or sporting a Chinese tattoo unless they’re also committed to political struggle or understand and respect Chinese culture. Sorry if that didnt make sense.
I wasn’t wearing the burqua and trying to be cool, though. As a general rule, I find “cultural appropriation” to be lame.
Amanda does think of herself as socialist though, so it’s not redbaiting.
cultural appropriation is a lot bigger than lefties trying to be cool. it runs the gamut — everything rom the appropriation of “little brown women” by antipornstitution feminists to advance their arguments in the US to cool hunters on the streets searching for the latest fashion trends among the armies of kids/unpaid laborers who will never be paid a dime for their creative expression.
Yeah I agree but it’s also borrowing without regard to history or context.
As BfP noted, Marc, RAWA doesn’t call for us to sit around criticquing their culture and whipping around burqas as symbols of the worst gender oppression on the planet. It calls for us to get off our asses and do something. They probably don’t want to be used as pawns in feminist blogging war games, either. They want us to remember that when you say fundamentalists (taleban) right out of your mouth comes ” and their foreign masters.”
http://rawa.org/goals.htm The two things are inseparable for women in Afghanistan.
The burqa was slapped into a photo in order to symbolize oppression — the covering of TEH SEX — and uncommented on was the fact that it was right next to Clinton, who hasn’t exactly been a sparkling Savior to the women of Afghanistan or in any brown country, who recently bragged about what an awesome bad ass he would have been had he been in charge. All of it at a luncheon designed to stroke the egos of bloggers so they’d be fawning little fans of Hillary. That’s how you get people on board: you flatter them and then make it hard for them to criticize you because they have been given a piece of the Power Pie.
That was what BfP was talking about. How white feminists’ overweening concern with gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex gender gender sex gender gender sex sex sex
means they ignore the other issue they say they are concerned with — the oppression of women in third world countires, racism, and imperialism and all that jazz — in order to make it ALL about Teh Sex.
If you are concerned about the war, you are as concerned about Hillary coming to power as Condi — and it’d be pretty dificult to ignore Clinton and why those bloggers were invited to that lunch if opposition to the fundies in the US and opposition to the war and imperalist policies were at all on the same plane in your thinking about oppression.
Instead, the only concern was with the conservatives and their role in wars of imperial aggression. Not a word about Hillary’s war mongering pandering at all.
This was all in the thread at Brownfemipower’s and I really shouldn’t have had to repeat it.
So you and the anti-porn nuts think I’m obsessed with sex and that’s bad. Well, I wouldn’t translate that to everyone, it’s just me that’s obsessed with sex. Mostly because I think Teh Dirty=Teh Funny.
So you and the anti-porn nuts think I’m obsessed with sex and that’s bad. Well, I wouldn’t translate that to everyone, it’s just me that’s obsessed with sex. Mostly because I think Teh Dirty=Teh Funny.
Apologies if this is because I can’t tell when someone’s in earnest: not that kind of sex.
There’s a reason why abortion rights are at the center of American feminism. Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Heh.
Well, I skipped class the day they reviewed Marxist Feminism.
Amanda,
I’ve forgotten, do you like both sour cream and onions on your red herriing or…?
Roxanne:
Goshes. Really? Well fuck then. I guess I will stop blogging immediately about the intersections of race, class, and gender and get right to blogging only about sex/gender oppression from the position of a white middle class heterosexual woman. Does this come along with the academic job I was accused of having not too long ago. Because I could really use the cash right now and the fucking health insurance I have hand in nearly 20 years. Thanks so much for showing me the door to the good life: just think like White Mainstream Feminsts. w00t!
I just can’t fucking believe it. What was I thinking. It’s all about abortion. Of course, not about reproductive justice and ensuring that women are free to have children if they so choose. No: keyword is abortion. Get that Reproductive Justice thing right out of your head. What you were you thinking?
I’m off to write all this out 500 times on the blackboard.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
………………………………………
I have no wish to argue over semantics. So take the word “abortion” out of what I wrote above and insert “choice/reproductive rights/ right to choose/ reproductive justice/ reproductive freedom/ something I’m probably leaving out.”
Slightly OT: Why hasn’t anyone jumped Auguste’s shit on all of this? He’s the one who made the picture.
I have no wish to argue over semantics. So take the word “abortion” out of what I wrote above and insert “choice/reproductive rights/ right to choose/ reproductive justice/ reproductive freedom/ something I’m probably leaving out.”
It’s not semantics. In terms of your comment on this blog thread, I have no problem believing that it was semantics. But in terms of the larger discussion, it’s not a quibble over semantics.
Yes, I meant my last comment to apply only to my previous comment.
I’ll note that I try to avoid making it just about abortion when it’s more than abortion that’s on the line for American women.
BEcause when we mention AUguste and ALon LEvy and LIndsey peopel ignore the shit of what we said but at this point its moot.
Roxanne:
context is everything. you wrote:
There’s a reason why abortion rights are at the center of American feminism. Sexual freedom IS freedom. The power over your own body and what you do with it IS freedom.
Abortion and sexual freedom operate along a chain of signfiers each pointing at the other there and looping back to the begining.
Reproductive justice signifies a whole lot more for women of color for whom lack of choice in reproduction isn’t about sex and sexuality, but about genocide and population control aimed directly at women of color in this country. Furthermore, and as a direct consequence, to speak of reproductive justice is to speak of a wealth of other things that wouldn’t see the individual as acting in terms of “what you do with your own body.” As such, having children in defiance of a white supremacist society is a political act aimed at keeping your people alive, with a vivid memory of what has happened historically and what happens every day of your life when it’s easy to pick up a newspaper and read about the existence of groups in this country that would like to wipe you and your kind off the planet.
And, Amanda, from the bottom of a very sincere, gushy Bitch heart: thank you for reocnizing that.
In spite of what you seemed to have concluded, I have always thought a great deal of you, even though I’ve often disagreed. And, whatever you may think, I have never in my life tought anyone was stupid or dumb or of lesser intelligence. When you come from where I come from? When you know so many intelligent people who will never, ever have the chance for a college education. Who are considered dumb because they don’t have one, it is virtually impossible to think of people as dumb or not intelligent. I have blogged about this enough times that, while I can’t expect you to search my archives, just take my word for it: i do not think people are dumb.
On that note: I apologize to you for writing in a way that has made you feel this way.
Abortion and sexual freedom operate along a chain of signfiers each pointing at the other there and looping back to the begining.
Reproductive justice signifies a whole lot more for women of color for whom lack of choice in reproduction isn’t about sex and sexuality, but about genocide and population control aimed directly at women of color in this country. Furthermore, and as a direct consequence, to speak of reproductive justice is to speak of a wealth of other things that wouldn’t see the individual as acting in terms of “what you do with your own body.” As such, having children in defiance of a white supremacist society is a political act aimed at keeping your people alive, with a vivid memory of what has happened historically and what happens every day of your life when it’s easy to pick up a newspaper and read about the existence of groups in this country that would like to wipe you and your kind off the planet.
We’re in agreement here.
Thank you, Bitch.
I think the criticism that reproductive rights is substantially different between women is one that’s been trumped by people playing a shell game around what various men in various communities want. There’s no doubt that there’s fears about genocide raised, and there’s no doubt that those fears are legitimate. But women in general when entrusted with their full rights tend to be quite capable of having the right amount of children to further a cultural/familial line without having so many that the whole thing collapses from insustainability. The controversy is placed outside of the everyday lives of woman of various races and classes.
I’m unfamiliar with what you’re talking about. Could you elaborate or point me at articles to read on the topic?
I’d planned to stay out of this, and I admit to not reading everything on it yet, but I can’t hold it in any longer: I have a question for R. Mildred. If you were going to use The Picture of Jessica in a graphic pointing out that Althouse likes to talk about liberating Afghan women so they can wear what they please without being punished, but conversely wishes to punish Western women for wearing what they please, how would you design such a graphic? I’m drawing a blank. (And yes, I saw your wedding-ring one, but I don’t think that hits that specific issue.)
I apologise if this has already been addressed, but I just can’t seem to take in all the information out there in this debate.
photoshop Ann Althouse into Jessica’s place: be like me!
Philosophizer asked:
“If you were going to use The Picture of Jessica in a graphic pointing out that Althouse likes to talk about liberating Afghan women so they can wear what they please without being punished, but conversely wishes to punish Western women for wearing what they please, how would you design such a graphic?”
I’m not R. Mildred, so I won’t answer for her, but here are my thoughts on it:
I think that the question is the wrong one to ask. The question should be: If I want to make a point about Althouse’s contradictory claims (or hypocrisy, as I think I recall Amanda calling it), where, on the one hand, she talks about liberating Afghan women who are forced to wear the burqa, but on the other hand, she engages in shaming a white women for showing up at a public event with boobs, would designing a picture in which the said white woman is covered in a burqa do more good or harm to the cause of women’s (all women, not only said white woman) emancipation? If you think the answer to this question is ‘more harm’ (which is one of the central point of the critiques raised by BFP and others), then you should abstain. Or find another great idea for a picture. And if there’s no other image that could convey the ‘joke’ that you would like to convey, then, well, you should still abstain. Because ultimatly, you’re doing more harm with that picture than any good you might also be doing with it. Easy no?
It sounds to me as if almost everyone in this discussion understands how the U.S. government (and previous imperialist powers) used the image of foreign male oppression of women to excuse imperialist war. BFP quotes Leila Ahmad as saying:
“The idea that Other men, men in colonized societies or societies beyond the borders of the civilized West, oppressed women was to be used, in the rhetoric of colonialism, to render morally justifiable its project of undermining or eradicating the cultures of colonized peoples.”
We also can see concrete examples of how misguided feminist activists, like the women from the Feminist Majority, have set back progress for feminists in Africa, Bosnia and Afghanistan with their clumsy political activities.
Given these two facts, isn’t it wise to choose different symbols amongst ourselves?
Is it so wrong to say that, because the burqa has become a tool that the neocons have used to justify greedy imperialist intervention, that we need to avoid the complications that arise by using that same tool to make our own points?
Does it really constrain our lives so much to avoid using the burqa as a symbol because its symbolism has been so thoroughly trashed and misused by imperailists adventurers?
What is this thread actually about?
slip.
and: what Veronique said.
Okay. It’s like this. Forget the arcane symbolism of the burqa for a minute, ‘k? Forget sex pos, forget abortion, forget anti-pornsters, forget post-colonial theory, forget all of that. For one minute.
There -is- a common denominator here between the Althouse thing, this blow-up, some of the other things that people are –inexplicably!– pissy about. It’s got unconscious sexism and racism and screaming frothing denial of same and all that other fun shit as PART of it, but actually, that may not even be the bottom line.
It goes like this.
“Doop de doo, whatever can I write about today–oh! Here’s someone i never actually paid any attention to before, but something about what she’s saying -today- kind of vaguely reminds me of me! I think I’ll use it as a trampoline to make a point. Probably one arguing with or making fun of, uh, whatever it is they’re saying here, because conflict is very interesting. uh…blah blah blah GINGER, ‘k, that bit’s sort of taxing and doesn’t have me in it, so I won’t bother reading any further, much less actually taking the trouble to find out who this is and whether what they’re saying has actually been said before or by anyone else or whether there’s a greater context for it that might be (huh?) unfamiliar to me, or even especially whether this person has thoughts and feelings of her very very own….no time for it. -Click.-
Done! Now onto more IMPORTANT shit, like getting into the same wanky argument i’ve been having for years now with that guy across the aisle.
…I hear a faint buzzing sound.
…oh! apparently this person is angry with me! and these other people, they are angry at me also ! well, clearly it’s because my ideas are too threatening or they’re terminally stupid or something. I’ll just explain that to them, nicely-like, and then they’ll go away again. …Goddam, they’re still here. Fuck, now a lot of other people are angry, too. Why me? What did -I- do? Why must everyone be so unkind? Why am I so perpetually misunderstood?…
Okay! Look! This ought to make everything all right again:
I MEAN YOU NO HARM. I AM A GOOD PERSON. THEREFORE, YOU SHOULD NOT BE SO HURT AND ANGRY.
…What is this, ‘It’s not about you’ that you refer to? Who -else- could we POSSIBLY be talking about? You ARE talking to Me, are you not? I don’t see anybody else here…
What d’you MEAN, ‘that’s exactly the problem?” and don’t SHOUT at me! You’re so sensitive! I can’t stand shouting, it hurts me! Why do you want to hurt me?…
Really, must you be so -very- -sensitive,- so SELF-ABSORBED? why don’t you consider the effect of your words on Me? Huh? Well? Ever think of -that,- huh? Ever think about anyone besides yourself? No, I didn’t think so. Adieu.”
(five minutes later)
“Doop de do, oh, say, -that- looks like something i could talk abou–
why are YOU shouting at me?! i haven’t even DONE anything to you yet!! …uh, I didn’t, did I? oh, right, okay, i just wasn’t sure, you sort of reminded me of, uhm, …thingie, i was just arguing with before. Well? What makes YOU so sensitive, hm?…”
“Does it really constrain our lives so much to avoid using the burqa as a symbol because its symbolism has been so thoroughly trashed and misused by imperailists adventurers?”
That’s something that I’ve been wondering about for a while. Why is it that so many people seem to be so bothered by the fact that, hey, using the burqa as a symbol for whatever it was used might not have been the best idea in the entire world? I mean, I’m ready to understand that A&A didn’t see or think about the colonial/imperialist subtext of that picture until it was pointed out to them. Fine. They both apologized (or so) about it. Good. But why is it that so many people are actually trying so hard to defend the use of the burqa as a symbol? You’d think that it is something that these people have an intimate connection with for holding on it as hard as they to. Like it’s something that actually means more than a damm ‘symbol’ for them. Like it does for people like, hmmm, oh ya, the women who wear it.
I mean really, how hard it is for you to let it go? Really? How hard can it be? Just give it back already.
I think it’s fairly well understood that Althouse was making a joke about Clinton’s womanizing and she used Jessica as the blunt instrument to make the joke. If Jessica hadn’t been there, they would have chosen another one of the women there to ask, “I wonder which one he fondled”. Any female could have stood in as the “object”. The “joke” was understood by nearly everyone, as liberal males even made similar comments about Jessica, it was all about making Clenis jokes. When Althouse was called on her sexist remarks, that is when she started dissembling and making it about clothing or the way Jessica was posing. In truth, Jessica as a human being was an afterthought.
That is the way I see this too. The burqa was shorthand and the blunt instrument to make the joke. The human beings who actually wear the burqa are an afterthought.
I will not give Althouse any credit for meaning no harm to Jessica, I doubt if she gives a damn what Jessica thinks or feels. On the other hand I do think that both Auguste and Amanda did not mean any harm. I do think that colonialism is much harder for us to recognize as Americans because we do not hear the voices of the colonized very often to call us out on our b.s. On the other hand it was easy for Althouse to recognize the sexism in her own post because we do have women speaking out against it right here in the USA all the time. We are more conscious of it.
This is why people are trying very hard to explain that using the picture of the burqa as the definition of oppressive is wrong. Because who is forcing women to wear the burqa? Brutal beastly evil muslims. This is how it plays into imperialism, it has been one of the excuses for intervention in Afghanistan. While Afghan women 99% of the time would agree with the burqa being oppressive, they do not want you making the connection that their grandfathers, fathers, uncles, husbands, sons are brutal beastly evil muslims that they must be rescued from.
It’s use in the picture reinforces Ann Althouse; Islamofascists put women in burqas – how would we like it if Christofascists did the same? What we are saying is it is much more complicated than Islamic fundamentalists, it’s also the western colonizers that put women in those burqas by their support of authoritarianism over socialism.
I’d like to think we are all aware enough to know that our government prefers US friendly corrupt autocratic dictatorships to democracy. When the people choose for themselves it is usually not in US interests, it’s better to have a brutal dictator we can buy off to get what we want at the expense of the people. But most Americans do not know this, they think we are benevolent. Most colonized people know better. That’s why colonized people do not want us promoting the evils of their society over the evils of American imperialism. Once you have reduced their men to animals it’s easy to make excuses to go in and kill them all as cover to go in and steal the resources.
Let’s say an IWF type has said at some point in the past said that black men shouldn’t sexually abuse black women. Okay, but now she opposes some bit of sexual regulation that’s supported by many feminists. Sensing hypocrisy, we might then post an image of a black woman who’s been abused by a black man & say that that’s what IWF really wants for all women. And call it a joke.
Even better:
This insight undercuts ethnocentrism, because it’s hard to think of white people as the measure of all others when you realize that what black men do to black women repeats itself among white people under different guises. If you assume that there are commonalities, awareness of how black men treat their womenfolk should lead you to wonder if white people might be doing something similar but less obvious to you.
Amanda does think of herself as socialist though, so it’s not redbaiting.
That doesn’t follow. Most of the redbaiting I’ve ever been subjected to came from leftists, including closet socialists.
The Genny Screamers are on me.
belledame
i really didn’t understand any of that.
“Does it really constrain our lives so much to avoid using the burqa as a symbol because its symbolism has been so thoroughly trashed and misused by imperailists adventurers?”
Ravenmn…
AMEN! Seriously.
If you were going to use The Picture of Jessica in a graphic pointing out that Althouse likes to talk about liberating Afghan women so they can wear what they please without being punished, but conversely wishes to punish Western women for wearing what they please, how would you design such a graphic?
I wouldn’t, I would put my O’reilly hat on, tell her to go back to the america maintained saudi arabia she so gleefully ignores in her talk about afghanistan, and remind her that this is america, where our boobies are not her problem.
In short, I’d do something funny, as opposed to this bastard necromancy spawned joke from hell that everyone is for some reason defending.
Because even when I didn’t realise the serious problems with the “joke”, my initial reaction was “Oh I see what you’ve done there, very good.” rather than actual mirth of any sort. The funniness was proportional to the truthiness you see.
It was only BA and BfP who got me analysising it on a deeper level, at which point the unfunny joke became a source of urksomeness for me, I really expect better of all the bloggers who are defending this crap than they’re bothering to be – and if I didn’t I wouldn’t harp on like this, more white people need to be able to analyse for themselves this crap so that it doesn’t keep happening ffs.