Federal judge puts breaks on controversial parts of Arizona immigration law

This is good news, but lawyers for Gov. Brewer are expected to appeal and this may go the United States Supreme Court:

A federal judge on Friday, weighing in a clash between the federal government and a state over immigration policy, blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law from going into effect.

In a ruling on a law that has rocked politics coast to coast and thrown a spotlight on a border state’s fierce debate over immigration, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court here said that some aspects of the law can go into effect as scheduled on Thursday.

But Judge Bolton took aim at the parts of the law that have generated the most controversy, issuing a preliminary injunction against sections that called for police officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.

Judge Bolton put those sections on hold while she continued to hear the larger issues in the challenges to the law.

“Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced,” she said.

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens,” she wrote. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

Arizona immigration law prompts bigots to come out into the light of day

So I haven't blogged about this yet, but it has been a topic of many conversations in my daily life for a good few days now.

I'm talking about the Arizona immigration law, SB 1070, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer.

The law is the strictest immigration law in the country, and even before it was signed into law, the proposal received heat from critics about its potential impacts. According the The New York Times:

The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.

Well, in further news about why Arizona fails, read here (Arizona legislators try to pass bill that says Obama must prove citizenship), here (Arizona grades experienced teachers on fluency), and here (legislators take issue with ethnic studies programs). Feel free to debate these topics thoughtfully and carefully in comments. I'll be moderating the thread pretty closely.

I have had people debate with me about whether or not this law and its implications are racist. They have all been debates with white people. For example, on May 1 I posted a status on my Facebook account that read: "Do I look 'illegal'?" and quickly I had a white friend of mine respond. I debated with him for a time, and eventually he said, "Also, as cliche as this may be... STEREOTYPES EXIST FOR A REASON!"

To put it briefly, it was his justification for racial profiling. And it disgusted me. He has always held problematic, racist beliefs, but generally he keeps them to himself. It was as if he took this status of mine as an opportunity to let loose all of his hatred.

For this reason, the Arizona law, at the very least, is prompting racist individuals to be loud and proud about their bigotry in a new, heightened manner. As an Hispanic American (born in the states) whose father was born in Mexico, and an individual who is deeply against racism directed at any people, this disturbs me deeply. Go ahead and argue the legality of the law. What can't be denied is that this has prompted a fresh wave of attacks against a group of people based on their legal status as related to their skin color.

And that's called racism.

EDIT 4:17 pm, 5/4/10: via Feministing, "The Far-Right Movement Behind Arizona Copycat Bills"

EDIT 5/5/10: I'm going to put a trigger warning in effect for the comments. I had moderation off and some got through before I was able to get back at my computer. They will stay up because people have responded to them.

Lady Gaga, Racism and Feminism

There's been a fair amount of discussion about the Lady Gaga/Kanye West photo for the special edition of Lady Gaga's new album. You can find the picture through google if you'd like to see it but I don't feel the need to repost it here. I also don't want to restate what a lot of people have been saying already, but I do want to draw your attention to Thea Lim's coverage at Racialicious. The picture is posted at Racialicious also.

Recently I posted a quote from Lady Gaga's interview with the LA Times in which she discusses the difference between men and women in the music business. Thea is right to point out that this article, and notions of Lady Gaga's feminism, got a lot of attention, perhaps unjustly so. She responds saying:

While in my September article I gave a digital eyeroll to Gaga’s assertion that she is “redefining beauty,” I’m willing to reconsider that stance. I can see how Gaga often subverts viewer expectation, enticing us with views of perfect white beauty, but then ensconcing that beauty in the disturbing. She presents her “perfect body,” but covers it in fake blood. She dresses up in sparkly dresses and matching heels, but her shoes are creepily curved into scary bird feet. Juxtaposing images that are comfortable or normative with images that are unsettling or bizarre, Gaga turns the tables on us. Instead of simply refusing to allow voyeurism, she harnesses it, tricking and punishing the heteronormative in us, while rewarding our inner pervert.

And yet, like sooooo many artists who do interesting and progressive work in one area, Gaga totally fails in another. The very visible problems with the King Kong Gaga image suggests that along with some great parts of feminism – being sex-positive, being critical of how the entertainment industry uses women’s bodies – Gaga is also practicising the worst part of feminism: racism.

I think Thea is right on the money and a lot of us have overlooked this aspect of Gaga in exchange for desparately holding onto a subversive female artist. Feminists gets a lot of criticism for our treatment of women of color, where we throw race out the window in exchange for gender unity (or a gender unity that's silently/assumedly centered around white women's experiences).

While I know that we can't get it right all the time, we should at least try to get it right where it counts. The history of women of color being shunted by white feminists is too prominant and too on-going to ignore.

In this case, I held up Lady Gaga as a feminist role model by highlighting her quote. Although I still agree with her statement, I do want to take this opportunity to offer up Thea's sharp critique as a counter point to her image as a feminist. A feminist, yes, but also a feminist who plays into and reinforces racist imagery.

Question of the Day: Dismantling gentrificiation as a white person

Here's a question that's been bugging me for awhile:

How do I, as a middle class, highly educated white person committed to dismantling white privilege, find, move and live into* a multicultural neighborhood without contributing to gentrification?

Any thoughts?



*I choose into deliberately because I want to live into the life of my neighborhood. I want to contribute to the well-being of my neighborhood and actively take part in events and my neighbor's lives.

How do we respond to face-to-face racism/sexism/heterosexism/isms?

While at divinity school, I feel like I've been living in a bubble. An amazing, inclusive, loving, accepting of all genders, races, sexual orientations, abilities, etc bubble. A bubble, however, is fragile. I graduated just last weekend and already, I've come face to face with the realities of life outside acceptance.

My uncle got married this weekend, so I spent a fair amount of time in northern Wisconsin where my extended family lives. One of the guests at his wedding had Nazi tattoos and my cousin confirmed that he was known for being anti-Semitic and racist. This man was the son of the bride's friend, did not say anything offensive to me or any of my family members, and I probably wouldn't have paid as much attention to him if his presence hadn't upset my cousin.

The entire encounter made me question my response to such situations, when we're faced with an unspoken intolerance, an intolerance that need not be brought to life but is understood and implied. How do we reject that? He didn't do anything racist while there (apart from his tattoos and presence), but does that mean we should say something? If there's no action of his and thus no action of ours, are we implicitly condoning his worldview? Also, he's connected to me by random and thin threads; does that tenuous link really make me the right person to question his intolerance?

I'm really don't have answers to any of these questions; most often in situations like this, I begin with questions and end up with even more questions. I don't know how to respond and I'm unsure of the actions I should take to dismantle racism, especially and even more so when it's confronting me face to face.

As I think about the weekend and my failure to live up to my anti-racist ideals, I feel guilty for my lack of action, even in response to his inaction. However, I also think about the ways my own family members exhibited racist and sexist behavior - my grandma calling my childhood doll a "n****r doll," my grandpa talking about "the orientals" and his ideas of how they hunt, my cousin using a slur against one of her teachers, and my grandpa not allowing me to help load the car because once he met woman who packed the trunk differently than he liked. In most of these instances, my sister or I spoke up and pushed back against their comments. When people we loved made statements we disagreed with, we wouldn't let it stand.

While some action is no excuse for inaction, I feel like confronting the people we love is a good start. If we can speak truth to the people around us, we can start to move out of our comfort zones and speak truth to strangers.

The old fall back: blame people of color

Yesterday morning I received the following e-mail with the subject: Come on smile.

They said that a black man would be president of the United States when
pigs fly.....well, 100 days into Obama's administration.........

Swine Flu.

(Swine flew)!!!

I didn't find it funny at all, and was disturbed that the person (a white person) who sent it to me had suggested (in the subject line) that I should find it funny.

This is the response I wrote to the person who sent me this e-mail:

I went back and forth about sending this e-mail, but I think it needs to be sent.
Please note that I do not want to sound hostile, but the concerns I am going to voice may come off as offensive. So I apologize ahead of time.

I guess first of all I think I should explain that since I have been at college, I have learned to be very aware, not only of sexism, but of racism, ageism, ableism, etc. whenever it is thrown around, be it in jokes (like this e-mail seems to be) or in media (music videos, "reality" TV) or in government (pay practices, etc.).

I have come to realize that humor is often not simply "just a joke." It is very often a means of perpetuating the problems that Americans still have not come to terms with, problems we would like to kid ourselves into thinking are in the past.

For example, this "joke" that you send me via e-mail. It proves very much that America is not as "race-blind" as we would like to think it is. The "humor" in this e-mail is based on a longstanding form of racism in which white people blame all the ills of society on people of color (especially black people, who were and often still are characterized as lazy or vicious or rapists or sexually promiscuous). In this case, the connection between the "humor" and the racism is especially clear because there is no real reason to associate America having a black president with the outbreak of swine flu. The fact that this "joke" chose to frame the problem in this way (and that people find it funny enough to forward it so others can read it) illustrates that America is still not free of racism that uses the color of one's skin as justification for blaming them for all of this country's problems, even the ones that cannot be remotely attributed to people based solely on their skin color.

You have sent me similar e-mails in the past, and I have always wondered about your motive. If you disagree with me politically, that's one thing. But sending me things like this just to get under my skin is not really appropriate because of all the other regrettable implications.

Forwarding an e-mail may not seem like a big deal. It probably doesn't feel like you are contributing to a problem at all. But until we all can call out racism, sexism, ageism, etc. when we see it, even in the little ways like in "jokes," we are all doing our part in maintaining an unequal society.

If you feel I have misunderstood your intentions, please e-mail me back.

Amelia

I received a quick response to my e-mail, and the person said they appreciated my response and valued my opinion, but they saw the original e-mail differently than I did. They said that they were originally drawn to the pun and they were not thinking in terms of politics of race. They also apologized for offending me.

They didn't acknowledge that my criticism of the e-mail was legitimate, however, which was additionally troubling. I understand that a lot of times, when I am talking to white people about racism, their white privilege gets in the way of them seeing the point I am trying to make. That's not an excuse for their refusal to call out racism, but it's a true problem that needs to be dealt with. Even I only first began to acknowledge my white privilege when I started to study feminism.

Overall, this was really upsetting to me. Racism, even this kind that is meant to be "funny" is really harmful, and is one of the many ways our society is structured to keep certain people down.

Talk about whitewashing

At my work today, I'm going through stock photography for a personal trainer's website. Her main client base is older people, so I've been keeping an eye out for pictures of older people working out. There's a fair amount of pictures of older people, mostly riding bikes and things like that, however, the lack of people of color is astonishing. The utter whiteness of the whole site is a bit overwhelming.


I've seen two or three pictures of Asian people, but then it's children in karate outfits. I suppose to get stock photography of people of color, you have to go to a special website for that because, you know, POC need their own special interest site where you can get specific pictures of POC. You don't want them on the normal site with pictures of happy athletic white people. It's just not realistic, you know.

The first 8 pictures in search for "black people" were of white women in black dresses. That just pisses me off BEYOND words. And almost all pictures of POC have a prefix of "black" or "Asian." They're not just people... they're Black people and Asian people in ways that the others aren't White people.

No wonder the media has problems depicting POC without ridiculous stereotypes... the stock photography isn't helping.

Radio DJs suck part 2 (except for the feminist ones)

On Kool 108 in the Twin Cities today:

Radio DJ: "It was Barack Obama's birthday yesterday! He had a party and it was BYOB - Bring Your Own Burka! Did you know people still think he's a Muslim? Ha ha!"

Hmmm, maybe people think he's a Muslim because of assholes like you? Just maybe.

Sexual Assault in the Military Only Happens To White Women?

There's an article on CNN's front page today about sexual assault in the military - 41% of all women in the military report sexual assault. If you've been keeping up with some of the larger feminist/progressive blogs, you're probably familiar with the statistics and information already.

Sadly, it's not surprising the picture they have representing the victims is a white woman. I don't mean to trivialize or marginalize the brutality of her rape and subsequent murder, just that often times when something happens to women of color, it goes unnoticed. When the same thing happens to a white woman, law enforcement takes it seriously and kicks into high gear. See: Lacee Peterson, Natalee Hollaway, etc. What about Camille Johnson or Jasmine Kasner? Those are just the first two names I grabbed off of Black and Missing.

If you haven't heard about Pfc. LaVena Johnson, you should have. From their site:

An Army representative initially told LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, that his daughter died of "died of self-inflicted, noncombat injuries," but initially added that it was not a suicide. The subsequent Army investigation reversed this finding and declared LaVena's death a suicide, a finding refuted by the soldier's family. In an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Johnson pointed to indications that his daughter had endured a physical struggle before she died - two loose front teeth, a "busted lip" that had to be reconstructed by the funeral home - suggesting that "someone might have punched her in the mouth."

Her family is trying to get some answers to her death, but they've been virtually ignored. Where's the CNN page for that? When the statistic says that 41% of women in the military report sexual assault (29% report rape), that means ALL women, not just white ones.

Failing at Irony and Alienating Your Allies: The Liberal Dude's Guide to Satire

So I open my blog reader and the Huffington Post. What do I have the pleasure to find?

Oh Christ, who's the genius behind this?

I know this might be rocket science to liberal dudez who think things like rape are funny, but this really tasteless and poor excuse for satire is not inducing anything but my gag reflex. You know you fail at irony when your art work is indecipherable from the message of those you intend to mock. While I was sleeping, someone decided that mocking the Republicans by depicting the Obamas with racist stereotypes was effective and funny. I can imagine a bunch of balding upper-class white dudes giving each other congratulatory back slaps around some editor's desk at The New Yorker, engaging in mutual masturbation inflation of their over large egos as their wit goes to press.

You know what's really funny? Mocking Nazis by walking around in public, in places where there may or may not be Jews, and acting and dressing in such a manner completely identical to Nazis. So what if you offend a few Jews along the way? Your completely nonsensical message must be conveyed in the manner you see fit, even if you offend a demographic that would otherwise be allies. I might be white, but even I know that the picturing of an afro-sporting woman in military fatigues is probably a dig at her deviant blackness and her radical opposition to white culture. Also, if you think drawing racist depictions of prominent political figures is funny, you might be racist.

The purpose of satire is to shock and inflame your opposition. If your illustration could be used as a poster for the far right and you are offending your political allies, then it's about time someone fired you.

Then again, I am not really surprised. Anyone remember this? :

That was a "liberal" blog, the DailyKos, really failing to understand the nuances of irony.

Heads up to white dudez: if you think the appropriate manner to object to bigots on the right is to be a leftist racist, on the name of "humor", kindly get the fuck out of my political party.

(Cross-posted)

Racism in the City

Well, I just got back from watching the Sex and the City movie, and while there are lots of things I could blog about (Samantha = totally feminist ending), I had a major problem with one aspect of the movie.

Jennifer Hudson's character was a "mammy."

Being one of only two characters of color in the film (the other being Charlotte's adopted Chinese child), Hudson was the movie's attempt to be politically correct. However, it was far, far off.

Hudson played Carrie's assistant, Louise. After Carrie has a major life crisis (no spoilers here, I promise), Louise helps her get organized, along with a variety of other tasks, essentially, as Carrie puts it, "saving her life."

Now, when its written out, it sounds okay, but seeing it all on the screen made me very uncomfortable.

In order for one to fit the mammy caricature, she must be:

"nurturing and protective of her white family,
but less caring towards her own children." She is..."self-sacrificing,
white-identified, fat, asexual, good-humored, a loyal cook, housekeeper and
quasi-family member."

Let's test that definition.

1. In the movie, Louise cares for Carrie for several months. When applying for the job, she claims she is qualified for it because she is the oldest of six. When Carrie asked what that was life, she responds, "crowded." Her family is never mentioned again.

2. She is self-sacrificing; the movie implies that she stays with Carrie at work far past normal hours.

3. She is the only person of color (over the age of five) in the movie. I'd say that is fairly white-identified (but, this could be argued against. She is shown at a party where the majority of guests were black, and her significant other is black.)

4. In normal, human terms Hudson is by no means fat. However, her weight has been debated in Hollywood, and she is the most shapely woman who appears in the movie.

5. Louise is not portrayed as asexual, so yay (I guess) there.

6. Humor is one of Louise's defining characteristics.

7. While she is not technically the housekeeper or cook, she is Carrie's assistant, which may be the modern day equivalent of the positions.

8. She is a "quasi-family member" in several ways. She exchanges gifts with Carrie for Christmas, invites Carrie to her wedding, and discusses her heartbreak with her.

So ultimately, Louise fulfills 7 (maybe 6) of the 8 "qualifications" of a mammy caricature. This is unacceptable in our "post-racial" world. What do you think? Is this too much analysis? Or does it have merit? How can Hollywood change these things. I know Sarah Jessica Parker co-produced the movie; would this have happened if a women of color had had more decision making power?

This American Life - The Weiner Circle

I don't know if anyone else is a fan of This American Life, but I love the radio show and I just got around to watching the first season of the television show that was on Showtime (and is premiering it's second season on May 11). If you don't know it, apparently someone on the O.C. described it as "Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are?" and, with a dismissive snort, "Gawd!"

I was watching the final episode of the first season, titled Pandora's Box, and one of the segments was on The Weiner Circle, a hot dog stand in Chicago.

Warning: There is very explicit language in this clip.



It's a restaurant where the servers are deliberately rude to you - but not in a sly in-joke way like some restaurants do it. They stay open late and sell hot dogs to drunks. I'd be rude too. The customers often swear right back. People go there precisely for the atmosphere because it's fun, in a way. However, as the clip shows, often times customer comments goes waaaay beyond fun and becomes offensive.

I have no problem with people swearing at each other, as long as it's done in a fun spirit. However, this fun spirit can get taken advantage of and ruined for everybody because of assholes.

The segment shows two different examples of customer-employee interactions. One's done in fun and one is basically a pack mentality, hate-filled, racism, misogynistic free for all that in any other circumstances would be called out as verbal abuse (not that this isn't). It's as if people go there because they can't say their hateful words anywhere else and be tolerated. This does not, in any way, contribute positively to the issue of the hypersexualization of African-American women at all. So thanks, jerks.

Anyway, check out the clip.

Invisibility

Cross-posted at XXBlaze

A huge topic in Feminism is the claim that minorities and women are invisible in our society. The default "human position" is male. When reading something in which the author is not specified, the average American assumes that the author is male. If the author is female, of color, or homosexual, we praise it as a "fine piece of work by X minority". In short, a white man can publish a book and be praised for his contribution to academia, while a woman, person of color, or any other minority is primarily identified by that minority specification, not their accomplishments. Their contribution is something that belongs to a collective, whereas a white male's work is attributed solely to him, not to his unstated group membership.

Being a Feminist, I abhor when the majority subconsciously classify the words of a "minority" as representative of that minority group. It creates this sort of "otherness" in which we are all hyper-aware of race, gender, and sexual orientation because it seems to be known as the most important facet of one's identity.

However, when this identity is not stated, we simply assume that someone is a straight white male. Perhaps we might think the tone is sufficiently feminine, and then we consider that the author is a woman. Unless a piece of literature specifically alludes to homosexuality, race, or religion, we assume that the author is heterosexual, Christian/Atheist, white, and usually male.

I, just as much as the rest of you, am equally guilty. I subconsciously make distinctions of "otherness" when reading something by a woman, a homosexual, or, for instance, a Muslim. I make insensitive comments even about my own gender unknowingly because I grew up in a society that counts privelege and many different bigotries as a standard part of socialization.

What I really do not like about the mainstream Feminist movement is that it ignores a lot of these intersections of privelege. We do discuss issues that affect all women, but I have noticed that when we discuss relationships we always seem to discuss them in the context of heterosexuality. Among other things, we generally do not touch issues facing South American women or Middle Eastern women, or concentrate on the inequities facing a "stay at home Mom" or a particularly poor woman.

More than anything, however, I notice the assumption of heterosexuality. As a bisexual female, many of the discussions in the context of heterosexuality do not apply to me at all. A huge portion of my identity is not covered by mainstream Feminism, although I do not think it is by design. The pursuit of a feminist relationship between two women is not absent of its pitfalls. Absent, however, from the usual columns on how to craft a feminist relationship is any mention of homosexuality, polyamory, or transgenderism.

I only thought of this recently because of the discussions surrounding Amanda Marcotte's racially offensive illustrations in It's a Jungle Out There. Privilege very often results in a subconscious prioritization of issues. I see that many feminists place women's issues above racial issues and gay rights frequently. It is not appropriate to demonize the privileged, because we all are in our own way, but it is useful to point it out.

I suppose then that this is my two-bits. I would like to see a lot more about gay issues under the Feminist umbrella, not only because both are important to me, but I think that it is instrumentally important that Feminists remain cognizant of all types of priviledge, especially those types we might unknowingly further.

For what it counts, I suppose this is a bizarre sort of post that I write more as a minority than a majority. Considering my educated whiteness, this is a rare state for me. The fact still remains that when I write, I do so knowing that all of my readers assume that I am heterosexual. This is both a blessing and a curse. One day, I hope that my invisibility as someone who is not heterosexual will be obsolete.

Another Post for Fair Pay!

So, on our radio show yesterday, Amelia and I talked a little bit about fair pay, and we started getting into the repercussions for women when they make so much less than men. These repercussions are as varied having to support oneself through prostitution to begin forced to give up a career to raise children at the home.

However these have been discussed in previous posts on this blog. Lindsay mentioned earlier that for every dollar a white man earns, I will earn 77 cents. My Mexican roommate will earn 52 cents and my black friends will earn 62 cents. The Fair Pay Movement really isn't all about the "white man dollar," but about the monetary inequities between white women and women of color. It really speaks to a larger problem within the feminist movement.

As a white feminist and new feminist, I don't feel "qualified" to write about the racial factions of the feminist movement, but I want to dedicate my post, this post for fair pay not only for my missing 23 cents, but for the missing 48 cents of one of my best friends and for the 25 cents that separates us.

We demand fair pay now!

Something needs to be done about Southwest Airlines.

You guys should read what happened to Tamara Nopper when she boarded a Southwest Airlines flight.

“Shortly after sitting down, an older white man sat in the seat next to mine. He then proceeded to spread his legs wide open as if, to quote a wise person I know, “he thought he had balls the size of pumpkins.” In response to the uninvited pressing, I requested room for my legs. The man then proceeded to imperiously point his finger to the floor to emphasize that his feet were within the boundary of his seats. He never addressed the fact that his legs were spread beyond them so as to invade my space and press up against my body. Instead, he said to me, “You’re a big girl.” Talking on my cell phone, I interrupted my conversation to calmly tell the man “Don’t fucking talk to me that way.” With his right hand, the man reached across himself to grab my left arm. With my arm in his grip, he looked me in the eyes through his glasses and replied, “I’m going to slap you in your mouth.” I freed myself from him and then stood up.”

I wish I could say that that was the worst of it. But it’s not.

What’s even sadder is that this is NOT an isolated incident of discrimination from the airline. In the past, several women have been asked to cover up, or kicked off flights because of the way they were dressed.

I’m sorry, Southwest Airlines, but enough is enough is ENOUGH.

I will never fly that airline. I hope you guys won't, either.

Side note: The NYSE symbol for Southwest Airlines Co. is “LUV.” Seriously.

Via. Via.