Flying while transgendered: no match, no flight.

And this, friends and neighbors, is a terrific example of how -systemic- transphobia works. Via Helen of Bird of Paradox:

The fixation that every citizen is a potential terrorist has gained so much ground in recent years that any concerns about implications for international travellers whose documentation might not match their gender presentation have been swept aside.

Now, via The Wall Street Journal Online (link here) I see that the paranoia about “suspected terrorists” has been extended to domestic air travel too:

Airlines this week will begin requiring some people making reservations for domestic flights to submit their dates of birth and genders as part of a screening process aimed at keeping boarding passes out of the hands of suspected terrorists, the Transportation Security Administration said.

[...]

The government’s goal is to vet all passengers on domestic commercial flights by early next year.

Of concern is that the TSA appears to be relying on the judgement of commercial airlines to make these decisions; and these decisions can also be applied to people who aren’t actually flying, but just accompanying a passenger to the boarding gate:

The TSA said it would be up to individual airlines or travel agents to decide how to collect the required information at the time a reservation is made.

[...]

People who receive gate passes, which allow them to proceed into secure areas of airports without boarding passes so they can assist other passengers, also could be required to furnish the additional data.

In other words, if the airline staff don’t like the look of you – or the friend who’s come to wave you off – you may well find that you miss your flight simply because you wore that comfy dress, even though the gender marker in your official documentation dictates that you should have been wearing a collar and tie. It’s absolute nonsense, of course – and trans-misogynistic nonsense, to boot.

...[M]y y point is that being required to provide information about one’s date of birth and gender seems unlikely to deter a committed attacker from hir objective.

It’s hard to see how this measure would have prevented, for instance, the attackers on 9/11 from boarding their planes – and, once again, the people most likely to be adversely affected are trans and gender variant people...

No-match has other implications too, of course, for being hired and fired, for medical care, for being arrested, for any number of situations where "your papers, please:" unless there are specific legal protections for trans folk in place (which there aren't in most states and cities, and even then, what's on the books is not exactly stringently enforced when it comes to civil rights, particularly if you're talking about already-very disenfranchised people), for not presenting or identifying according to your legally identified sex. And if there's a situation where you need to disrobe and your body either doesn't match what the "M" or the "F' on your paper is supposed to represent, or doesn't fully resemble what "M" or "F" is supposed to look like regardless of paperwork, well...you're not supposed to exist, and can be treated accordingly with no recourse.

See, the papers represent more than national citizenship, date of birth, basic stats: it's a way of declaring -personhood-. Which boundaries hold you? What nation, what sex? Are you a citizen of Manland or Womanland? Are you where we think you belong? Are you God forbid attempting to straddle a line that's supposed to be a wall? Are you "real?" Prove to us that you deserve to get on this airplane, work in this job, get that emergency medical care, step on this land, breathe this air. That box you need to check tells us whether you're human or not. Your papers, please.

This is of course not unrelated to the paranoia over "illegal" immigrants, or even American citizens suspected of being such: no papers? Too foreign? Too brown? Wrong time, wrong place? You, too, are a non-citizen, guilty until proven innocent. You're in the wrong box, and we don't have space. You fall in the crevice between the box outlines. Too bad, so sad; just trying to keep the rest of us safe from our formless, nameless terror; we need names, we need faces, and if yours doesn't match any of the acceptable ones, why, we'll stamp it with our fears and lock you away, overtly or covertly. Denied, delayed, detained, deported. De-legitimized. Your papers, please.

This under-the-radar scapegoating is not anything like "hope and change." This is not keeping anyone safe. This is, in fact, killing people. This is wrong, and it needs to stop.

Lily speaks for me.

This one goes out to Virginia Foxx, (please write your Congresscritter and ask for censure);

Miss California aka Won't Someone Please Think Of The Tiaras Children;

and of course the poor, besieged, soggy NOMmers

(p.s. it's NOT FUNNY. NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. NO.)

while we're at it, let's throw in the drool-n-bile-soaked crypto-fascist talk show hosts who're using the swine flu as yet another excuse to whip up foaming anti-immigrant hatred. Oink, baby.


"Please, don't stay in touch."





Pee. ess.

"For the first time in a nationwide survey, more Americans say they support gay marriage (49%) than oppose it (46%), according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll.

That 49% supporting gay marriage, in fact, is a significant jump from 2004, when the Post/ABC poll found just 32% in favor.

Okay, the "Black people cost gay people the right to marry in CA ZOMG" meme needs to stop, NOW.

Go read Pam Spaulding (yes, Virginia, some people are gay AND black AND women, TOO, AT THE SAME TIME) on just a whole shitload of reasons why.

I'm also reposting now, with permission, a letter sent to an email list I'm on.

Dear Friends,

I am writing because I am disturbed by the string of articles, blog entries, and list serve threads that have come out in the last few days suggesting that the high turnout of African American and Latino voters for the presidential election was responsible for the passage of California's proposition 8, which dealt a heavy blow to LGBT families by banning gay marriage.

These articles mistakenly imply that the struggles for civil rights for LGBT people and communities of color are separate or even at odds with each other. They deny the work that LGBT people of color do to combat homophobia and transphobia in their families and communities, often while facing racism within the queer community as well. These articles deny homophobia among white people, and they displace blame away from those who actually have the power to consistently deny others civil and human rights, and instead, charge that when communities that have long been disenfranchised and alienated from political processes begin to participate, that the results with be negative for LGBT people.

I believe all communities need to be held accountable for their homophobia and transphobia. I want to acknowledge the suffering and hardship that the passage of Proposition 8 has caused for LGBT couples and families. But, while the media casts blame on communities of color for the failure of civil rights for LGBT people, it is imperative that we struggle against the logic that tells us that struggles for LGBT civil rights and racial justice are separate, and that we examine our strategies for advancing LGBT civil rights and gay marriage and, in particular, look at places where LGBT communities have failed to align our struggles for civil rights with ongoing struggles for racial justice.

In the months leading up the election, I saw a massive mobilization within the queer spaces in which I spend time in San Francisco to get people to vote no on 8. We live in a state that has one of the highest incarceration rates in a nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Studies have estimated that at any time, 40 percent of black men in their 20's in California are under control of the correctional system. Criminalization affects many LGBT people, in particular, those that may be experiencing addiction or who, lacking familial support, move to expensive cities where they may have a hard time accessing affordable housing and living-wage work. Despite this, I saw little or no public discourse among LGBT people about very important state propositions: 5, 6, and 9, all of which potentially impacted things like funding for prisons, alterations to sentencing for drug crimes, or the trying of minors as adults in this state.

In the last months, we have seen raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) throughout the state and in San Francisco. Many people immigrate here as a result of the US foreign policy of destabilizing foreign economies. Additionally, San Francisco is home to many LGBT immigrants who have come to the country seeking safety and asylum. While my inbox was flooded with emails pertaining to Prop 8, I heard from very few queer people who were seeking to mobilize around the October 31st demonstration to protest ICE raids, or other work pertaining to ICE raids, and San Francisco's establishment as a sanctuary city.

The November ballot contained several important city initiatives that could have affected the livability of our city both for low-income people of color and for many queer people. Proposition K, an initiative to decriminalize prostitution would have helped sex workers in this city to make major strides in their ability to organize for their rights and safety, allowing them to better protect themselves against violence and police harassment. Despite the fact that many, many young LGBT people in this city earn their livings as sex workers and daily face risks to their safety, and that two trans women working as sex workers lost their lives while working in San Francisco in 2007, I saw shockingly little effort among LGBT people to educate themselves on the realities facing sex workers or the background on Proposition K, let alone to spread any word about it.

Similarly, proposition B, which would have mandated that the city set aside part of its budget for affordable housing was defeated by SF voters. In a city with a history of racist schemes of redevelopment and displacement (SOMA in the 60's, Justin Herman's redevelopment of the Fillmore, illegal evictions in the Mission in the 90s, contemporary cuts to county welfare, and most recently, the gentrification of Bayview—to name a few), San Francisco voters have failed to stand up for working families' ability to live affordably in this city—a city with where remaining working class communities of color face major threats of displacement. Despite the fact that white LGBT people often play complicated roles in the gentrification of the city and displacement of communities of color, I saw no media reports released on November 5th scrutinizing the voting trends of white LGBT San Franciscans on Propositions B, N, K, 5, 6, or 9, as juxtaposed to the numerous articles scrutinizing the voting habits of Black and Latino voters on Prop 8. And despite the overwhelmingly negative outcome of several important local and state propositions, outcry among the wider LGBT community seems to have been reserved only for Prop 8.

As a young, queer, person living in San Francisco, I feel very strongly that affordably in this city is vital to the creativity and well being of the LGBT community of San Francisco. As a white person living in the Mission, I have to think and act critically in regards to the complicated role I play in the gentrification of this neighborhood and the larger schemes of displacement within this city. I love my queer life and love living in this city. I get to witness the ways of living and congregating, making new families, new cultures, and envisioning new worlds that are possible living in a city with so many other brilliant and creative queer people. While I would like to lend my support and compassion to the people who lost the right to marry this week, I also question the logic that tells me that my only struggle as an LGBT person centers around my right to marry, rather than my ability to live and create in many other ways within a city I love. Affordable housing is central to the vitality of the LGBT community in San Francisco, to all communities, and while I sign petitions to support marriage as a right, I would like to see LGBT Californians take a serious look at the fact that housing, healthcare, and freedom from incarceration are also civil and human rights.

I would like to see LGBT Californians talk not only about their right to receive their partners' health benefits but about universal healthcare. I would like to hear us talk not just about how many LGBT people's partners cannot receive citizenship rights because of a lack of marriage rights, but connect this to struggles for immigrant rights in this state. I would like to hear LGBT people not only talk about how their families are discriminated against, but think about how many families in California are living in alternative family structures because of the mass incarceration of parents with children.

The passing of Proposition 8 is a sad day and indicative of the work that lies ahead, however, as we heal from these blows, I would like to challenge us to consider how our struggles are bound up with struggles for racial and economic justice, and how our fight for civil rights, and the health of our communities could be strengthened by taking these connections more seriously. Above all, I would like to challenge us to resist racist media schemes that, during our moment of need and a moment of possibility, are attempting to pit LGBT people and supporters against communities of color in California.

I apologize for the hasty construction of this, but time is of the essence. I welcome your thoughts.

In struggle,

Adele Carpenter

This is disgusting.

GOP unearths aunt of Obama's living in U.S. on expired visa.

At this point, never even mind the intent as a last-minute "smear," which as far as Obama's campaign is concerned is probably a dud. Who cares, right? What does this have to do with the price of beans in Peru (presumably going down the toilet along with the rest of the global economy)? Well, for everyone except the rabid base, pretty much nothing at all, as with all the other shit they've been trying to throw at him (terrorist! socialist! elitist snob! twelve foot grey alien!) Which, of itself, move along, nothing to see here, right?

Except for: -this- time, there's also a real other person there, a middle-aged woman who's been quietly living in public housing on an expired visa because her request for asylum was turned down. Who was dragged--illegally, as it turns out--into the limelight by a bunch of opportunistic vultures operating under the delusion that a) significant numbers of U.S. citizens are going to be so outraged at her existence that it'll upset the race somehow b) because clearly, everyone shares their belief that ZOMG TEH ILLEGALS are stealing our precious collective bodily fluids, particularly the quiet law-abiding ones who don't actually have any power or money and are just basically trying to survive as best they can in the face of constant low-grade fear and exploitation and all kinds of other shit, i.e. pretty much most all of 'em. So, what happens to -her- now, hm?

Obama's already doing the "I never knew ye" thing, which, well, not a surprise, but for -fuck's- sake. How long is this kind of bullshit going to go on? Even assuming he -does- win?

Mind you, we -could- just slink back into the comforting miasma of xenophobic hate.

It's not that I don't -get- feelings of pessismism and loathing of one's fellow humans, you understand. Witness for instance this charming and under-reported story of children being gassed at a mosque in Dayton, Ohio., bizarrely entitled "No evidence of hate crime"

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.

The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.

One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.

Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.

"The men didn't say anything to her (before she was sprayed)," Biehl said. "There was nothing left at the scene or anything that makes us believe this is a biased crime."

...Mosque board member Tarek Sabagh said many people within the mosque speculated that the incident was the result of a DVD about Islamic radicalism titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" that was mailed to area homes by its producers and circulated as a paid advertisement with more than 70 newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News.

"We are not linking the two at all," Sabagh said.

Oh, yes, "Obsession."

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/about_synopsis.php

(not hyperlinking)

Obsession - Radical Islam's War Against the West is a new film that will challenge the way you look at the world.

Almost 70 years ago, Europe found itself at war with one of the most sinister figures in modern history: Adolf Hitler. When the last bullet of World War II was fired, over 50 million people were dead, and countless countries were both physically and economically devastated. Hitler’s bloody struggle sought to forge the world anew, in the crucible of Nazi values. How could such a disaster occur? How could the West have overlooked the evil staring it in the face, for so long, before standing forcefully against it?

Today, we find ourselves confronted by a new enemy, also engaged in a violent struggle to transform our world. As we sleep in the comfort of our homes, a new evil rises against us. A new menace is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western Civilization under the yoke of its values. That enemy is Radical Islam.

Using images from Arab TV, rarely seen in the West, Obsession reveals an ‘insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination. With the help of experts, including first-hand accounts from a former PLO terrorist, a Nazi youth commander, and the daughter of a martyred guerilla leader, the film shows, clearly, that the threat is real.

A peaceful religion is being hijacked by a dangerous foe, who seeks to destroy the shared values we stand for. The world should be very concerned.

Yeah, probably. Probably so, at that. Although maybe not for exactly the reasons the authors of this...project think. Oh, they've been mailing it to peoples' homes, unsolicited. 28 million copies so far, apparently. (Oh, and only in the "swing states," curiously enough.) Thousands of which landed in Ohio residents' mailboxes the week before the gassing of the Dayton mosque.

I read the story as reported by the Dayton Daily News, but this was after I had received an email written by a friend of some of the victims of these American terrorists. The matter of fact news report in the Dayton paper didn't come close to conveying the horrific impact of this unthinkable act like the email I had just read, so I asked the email's author for permission to share what they had written. The author was with one of the families from the mosque -- a mother and two of the small children who were in the room that was gassed -- the day after the attack occurred.

"She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there.

"The paramedic said the young one was in shock, and gave her oxygen to help her breathe. The child couldn't stop sobbing.

"This didn't happen in some far away place -- but right here in Dayton, and to my friends. Many of the Iraqi refugees were praying together at the Mosque Friday evening. People that I know and love...

The presidential campaign edition of the Obsession DVD, produced and currently being distributed by the Clarion Fund, carries the endorsement of the chair of the counter-terrorism department of the U.S. Naval War College, using the name and authority of an official U.S. military institution not only to validate an attack the religion of Islam, but to influence a political campaign. For these reasons, this endorsement has been included in MRFF's second lawsuit against the Department of Defense, which was filed on September 25 in the Federal District Court in Kansas.

My opinion as an individual and thoroughly appalled human being:

John McCain has a moral obligation to publicly censure the Clarion Fund; to denounce the inflammatory, anti-Muslim message of Obsession; and to do everything in his power to stop any further campaign activities by his supporters that have the potential to incite violence.

Which I'm sure he will, any day now, 'coz, you know, we're all about taking the elevated, bipartisan, non-hatin' tone these next few weeks.

And, it's perfectly understandable that people are reluctant to classify the mosque attack as a hate crime, or connect it in any way to a boogity-boogity-THE ISLAMOFASCIST HORDES ARE COMING FOR YA movie sent to a tenth of the U.S. population, including right there in the town where it happened. Or that the Islam-baiting is anything other than a perfectly rational response to extremist zealots who've already targeted us once, after all (which, we have none of our own, extremist zealots that is, or anyway those are worser, always), and has nothing to do with good ol'fashioned Fear And Hatred Of The Other, Especially When The Other Is "Swarthy" And Have Funny Names And Are Supposed To Be Doing Menial Tasks For Us Instead Of Being All Uppity And Shit.

Of course.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a racially motivated terrorist attack on September 15, 1963 by members of a Ku Klux Klan group in Birmingham, Alabama in the United States. The bombing of the African-American church resulted in the deaths of four girls.

- Wikipedia

I can’t remember a time when I really didn’t know about this story. About four girls whose lives were taken from them because of the color of their skin at a place of community, a place where above all they should have been safe. In short they lost their lives because of hatred a hate so strong that no where and no one is safe.

...Last night as I read the accounts of the gassing at the mosque in Dayton Ohio, last Friday, my mind continued to flash on the pictures of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

It is disturbing to read how Dayton Police could not think this was a hate crime. As if the perpetrators walked up to any random building, lighted, filled with people, with cars in the parking lot, then sprayed something in the windows was a normal occurrence. No, not targeted at a group for their beliefs, they merely mistook the irritant gas sprayed for a can of Glade Air Freshener...

And speaking of chilling fascist portents: hey, yeah, Europe, let's single out a nationless ethnic group for fingerprinting, wicked idea.

From the EU Observer via Debi Crow:

Italy's plan to fingerprint Roma people has received a green light from the European Commission, with Brussels' experts suggesting that the controversial measures are not discriminatory or in breach of EU standards.

A commission spokesman told journalists on Thursday (4 September) that the practice proposed by Italian authorities earlier this year is only aimed at identifying persons "who cannot be identified in any other way" and excludes the collection of "data relating to ethnic origin or the religion of people."

The centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi sparked protests from human rights organisations and several in the European Parliament after announcing its plan to fingerprint Roma people - including children - as part of a census of Roma camps.

Some critics of the move compared it to the policies of Benito Mussolini, the country's fascist leader during the Second World War...

(more)

Debs also linked to this petition, which is

"to be sent to a summit on the future of the Roma at the European Parliament on 16th September. Please sign it and spread word to everyone you know about it"

...In recent weeks, Romany people in Italy have been subjected to police registration, by means such as fingerprinting, and to forcible rehousing. The Italian government claims this is part of their efforts to control immigration but the actions smack of racism and are a gross violation of basic human rights.

In May 2008 rumours of an abduction of a baby girl by a Gypsy woman in Naples led to an outbreak of racist violence against Roma camps. The response by Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni to this was “that is what happens when gypsies steal babies”.

That this can happen in Europe in the 21st century, 53 years after the defeat of Nazism and Italian fascism is extremely worrying. On 10th July the European Parliament called the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy a clear act of racial discrimination and urged the authorities to stop it. The EU assembly said the measure is not supported by EU human rights treaties and that EU citizens of Roma, or Gypsy, origin must not be treated differently from others in Italy, who are not required to submit their fingerprints.

In Austria, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors and reports on the human rights situation in its 56 participating states, including Italy, also expressed serious reservations about Italy's handling of Gypsies.

The Roma suffered greatly in the Holocaust and I worry that the relative apathy towards the actions of the Italian Government, let alone to far right parties and those with far right sympathies across Europe, will give the far right more confidence to undertake more extreme actions that recall terrible memories of the 1930s and 40s. As history shows, if people and nations remain silent bystanders then fascism can take root and I think that a hard stand is required.

I am well aware that Italy, like many countries in Europe, is concerned about immigration, crime and so on, but am also keenly aware that treating the Roma as second class citizens is not an answer and is a fall-back to the less glorious days of Europe's recent history.

and a facebook community with updates.

ETA: and via Devious Diva, who's been tracking European and particularly Greek treatment of the Roma for some years, had this to say on what's happening in Italy:

Although, this post is based on events happening in Italy, attitudes towards the Roma is no different here or in the rest of Europe. They are probably the most openly discriminated against people in Europe.

Italy has begun fingerprinting the entire Roma population. The European parliament has “urged” the country to stop this racial profiling (rather than condemn the process altogether). Left-leaning newspapers, human rights groups and activists are outraged but world leaders have been silent on the subject...

...One recent newspaper survey found 68% of people wanted all Italy’s Gypsies expelled, whether or not they held Italian passports. Another poll said more than three-quarters of people want unauthorised camps demolished.

This attitude seems to be sanctioned and reinforced by some of the highest authorities in Italy.

Italy’s legal system has already indicated there is nothing to stop discrimination against Roma. In a ruling handed down earlier this year, but only recently reported, the country’s highest appeal court ruled in the case of six people accused of anti-Gypsy racial propaganda that it was acceptable to single out Roma on the basis that they are thieves.

...There was one particular event that prompted me to write about the racial profiling in Italy (as you know I don’t cover many stories from outside Greece). I had briefly seen on the CNN ticker a sentence about the drowning of two Roma girls in Naples. Then theriomorph sent me some links to the story.

WARNING: THE PICTURES IN THE ARTICLES ARE VERY DISTURBING.

From CNN

Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand.

...from the Independent, this article entitled The Picture that Shames Italy

It was the sort of tragedy that could happen on any beach. But what happened next has stunned Italy. The bodies of the two girls were laid on the sand; their sister and cousin were taken away by the police to identify and contact the parents. Some pious soul donated a couple of towels to preserve the most basic decencies. Then beach life resumed.

The indifference was taken as shocking proof that many Italians no longer have human feelings for the Roma, even though the communities have lived side by side for generations.

That is what I want to say about these latest events in Italy. It is the indifference that pains me so much about attitudes towards minorities. That we can ignore what happens in their communities because we barely see them as human. We see them as “a problem” that needs to be dealt with. I posted the other day about how labeling people as “illegals’ dehumanises them and makes it easier for us to turn a blind eye....

much more, go read.

The Roma (aka "Gypsies") are perennial targets and were particularly devastated during the Holocaust for similar reasons as the Jews were: primarily, peoples without a nation in an era of nationalism.

Which is not to say that anti-Semitism is totally dead, either, of course, even now that "we" -do- have a nation-state of our very own, but...well, that's another post.

Also see (thanks for the link, DD) Roma Rights Network.

Oh, cute: now Jon Justice is trying to get Isabel Garcia disbarred.

Update on this post, as reported by Woc PhD:

While Jon Justice continues to enjoy full privileges as a radio host after posting mock sexual assault videos in which he made racist comments about Latinas and immigrants while assaulting a piñata with public defender Isabel Garcia’s face pasted to it (see [PBW's] original post for more), his efforts to have Garcia dismissed from her job as a public defender in Arizona have gone forward. Garcia is currently under investigation by the AZ state bar for participating in a protest against a book signing for a book that supports active discrimination against immigrants and subversion of their rights. “Justice” and others, have misrepresented the events to say that Garcia’s “toting of a severed piñata head of a police officer” constitutes violation of the bar’s code of conduct. Garcia was actually picking up the head after protesters split the piñata open in traditional form. She and others actively protested the incitement of anti-immigrant sentiment and abuse of immigrants and the Latin@ community in AZ which they felt were being exacerbated by the event and the author. Should the review board decide that Garcia is guilty of violating codes of conduct, she could lose her license to practice law in the state of Arizona and would also lose her job as a public defender...

(read more)

...Anyone who is concerned about sexual violence, racism, and/or the place where these two things intersects needs to take action to support women’s rights in Arizona. You can make your voice heard by joining the write in campaign [PBW] mentioned in the previous post AND by doing the following:

1. Contact Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry in support of Isabel Garcia. 520.740.8661 or e-mail: chh@pima.gov
2. Contact the Journal Broadcast Group, expressing your opinion of Jon Justice and the tactics of 104.1FM, and your concern that local KGUN 9 would be associated with an outlet that is so obviously NOT an objective media source. Contact Julie Brinks: 520.290.7600 or e-mail: jbrinks@journalbroadcastinggroup.com
3. Contact the Board of Supervisors, voicing your support of Isabel Garcia, who has broken no rule or regulation as a Pima County employee.

Pima County Board of Supervisors
30 West Congress Street, 11th Floor
Tucson, Arizona 85701
Receptionist - (520) 740-8126
Fax - (520) 884-1152

Ann Day, District 1
Ann.Day@pima.gov
(520) 740-2738

Ramón Valadez, District 2
district2@pima.gov
(520) 740-8126

Sharon Bronson, District 3
district3@pima.gov
(520) 740-8051

Ray Carroll, District 4
district4@pima.gov
(520) 740-8094

Richard Elías, Chairman, District 5
district5@pima.gov
(520) 740-8126

"Passing:" some "privilege."

Over at this Alas a Blog thread, Sylvia has an excellent comment that I'm gonna repost in full, just because it's so very excellent and full context helps:

“Passing privilege” — I can’t believe anyone is going to argue that the alleged ability to “pass” makes a group’s oppression somehow “not as bad.” Even if individuals can pass, they can only do so by hiding and disguising who they are. Is homophobia a “lesser” oppression because gays and lesbians (at least the white ones) can “pass?” — if they STFU, anyway. Are we really going to start comparing oppressions? Is that what anyone in anti-oppression work should be doing?

Penka, you’re absolutely right. I mean, to bring it back to writing as an example — look at the Brontë sisters. If I raised an argument that they were successful because they did a great job passing as male writers, and therefore we should not talk about the fact they could not initially publish works as female writers, everyone here would be looking at me as if I had two heads and one was shoved high up my ass. Passing isn’t a privilege; it’s a survival skill. It is a choice to blend in with the oppressors to keep yourself as safe as possible from harm FROM those same people. It’s feeling knots as you hear people who care about you trash and belittle something that is a part of you you cannot change. And it is no cakewalk — it’s difficult to even couch it in terms of being a privilege.

I mean, think about these incidences of passing:

1) A woman diagnosed with a debilitating disease and experiences chronic pain tirelessly works a physically demanding job to reach managerial status as if she is able-bodied because she knows if she revealed that she had that disease and the treatments she receives, she would lose the job she loves.

2) A man attempting to join a primarily heterosexual fraternity gets an impromptu assignment to write homophobic slurs on a friend’s whiteboard. The group dives into writing; the fraternity heads are all watching. But he’s been dating this friend for a couple of weeks.

3) A woman who works three jobs to support her younger siblings while going to college part-time learns about a banquet at the end of the school year for graduating seniors. The banquet is mandatory for all graduates because they present their projects as the main event, and the cost is over $300 per person because of the event’s location. She only has $500 for groceries for the next two months.

In all these situations, people are forced to choose between “passing” and reaching a goal that is important to their immediate advancement or revealing something about themselves that could leave them vulnerable to attack or loss. How is this a privilege?

I tried to broaden these examples beyond race and gender because often the superficial examples of passing seem to scramble people’s brains as a “good thing.” Where is this hidden benefit of being able to pass?

and my response:

Yes, absolutely. In all of those instances, I suppose one could make the argument that having the "choice" at all is a "privilege" over those who can't--for instance, the young man who's so obviously gay that he never gets into the fraternity at all, and is the one who gets the slurs written on the whiteboard--but what a fucking choice. It doesn't change the basic problem, or who's at fault for perpetuating it.

also, for those who can and do make the choice to "pass," internalization, the "closet," if you will (which can exist on a number of axes, not just sexuality) is its own special kind of hell.

in fact, speaking of, an old joke (not that I'm laughing here, but by way of illustration, I actually think it's apt) suddenly comes to mind:

Person dies and goes to hell, and the devil tells hir that sie has a choice of several rooms wherein sie can go and suffer for all eternity.

The first room has people being boiled in oil.

The second room has people lying on beds of knives.

The third room has people standing chest-to-chin-deep in steaming shit, but they're actually talking to each other and holding cups of coffee, and don't seem to be in physical agony. The new infernal tenant tells the devil, "I'll take this one, then."

Choice made, the person goes to join the throng. Shortly thereafter, a demon comes in with a pitchfork and goes,

"Right everyone, coffee break's over, back on your heads."

That there would be "passing," basically.

ETA:

Oh yes, passing privilege. The ability to lie about things that matter in order to make assholes happy.

--dw3t-hthr (see comments)

Taking credit for other womens' work isn't feminist. It's just tacky.

or, as Sudy puts it, "Stop Stealing."

on further edit: a clear summary of what went down, and who, is here. I am very sorry that the person who was being appropriated from has withdrawn, temporarily, I hope, from the blogosphere.


Look. It's not that difficult a concept. A woman who's under the radar, relative to you, posts important news stories that are, in turn, under the radar. Both her under-the-radarness and the stories' have to do with, surprise, marginalization in ways that go beyond simple sexism: y'know, racism AND sexism, for instance. She works hard at building community and getting the word out about important stories. You, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with self-aggrandizement.

For a year or two or more, you steadfastly ignore her, on the whole. Certainly you don't bother to link to the stories she's covering; that would be too much like giving someone else credit. No. You wait. Maybe you're even at the same conference as this other woman, not so long ago, wherein she speaks on these same issues. And then, you post the stories and the POV the woman has been eloquently -trying- to get you to listen to for all this time...without a hint that you know who this person is. Kudos rain in. For you. Applause, applause, there's nothing like applause.

Oh, yeah, and meanwhile, you're getting published by the same publishing house as the one that a bunch of WoC have just taken to task for not-so-benign neglect and a recent jaw-dropping display of arrogance and lalala-we're-not-racist-you're-just-unreasonable -and-mean. Which has pretty much been your tune all along, also, wrt these very same women.

No, okay, I'll even bite: let's say for one minute that it's not racism that's the root problem here, as in, You Are Not A Racist, (because that's all that really matters here, right?) Nu, so okay. Then, it's this:

Self-involvement to the point of solipsism. Superficiality. Vanity. Laziness. Greed. Spite, even. Really, just general all-round crappy-ass behavior and piss-poor ethics. Which, in this case, dovetails nicely into already existing structures meant to support such behavior as well as certain demographics who've codified power for themselves in various institutionalized manners.

To wit, and in short: ASSHOLERY.

Which can include, but is not limited to, institutionalized sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. etc. etc. This is where small-a assholery becomes Structural Assholery.

Ah, but, at the same time: the personal is political, neh?

So, whee, fight the power, we're all feminists here, making a better world blahblah yesyesyes; but whoops, immigration doesn't affect me I mean "us" -personally-; but! say look it's getting to be a hot topic, I know! It'd make a great article subject! --o, what is it NOW? First you're all mad at me because I don't talk about it, and now you're mad because I do? Oh, what, now, you want me to acknowledge my sources, too? GOD. Why must you all be so unreasonable? You see, this is why you're not as successful as I am, because you're always complaining. p.s. yr just JELLUS.

Which, yes, of course: because fuck knows that book deals and racking up the hits and winning the election are the bottom line here. I mean, you are every woman, it's all in you; therefore, we should all be HAPPY that you're such a SUCCESS, right? God: everyone else is so SELFISH, aren't they?


***on further edit: and Sylvia spells it out v-e-r-y s-lo-w-l-y.***

...

and I gotta say, BA? I feel it too. In a different way, and a totally different and unrelated situation (not going into it, not blog-related. actually, a bunch of different things besides that as well), but you know what: yeah. Don't mean to hijack, you're dead on right, just noting, personally: Yeah.

I don't necessarily WANT TO TALK.

...when that conversation predicates on saying well hey even though I was in your space,felt unsafe , felt , unwelcome, was mistreated

just because you didn't intend to means you did nothing wrong. That requires I absolve guilt before we even talk

...I have a place to go, I have presses and conferences, and friends and interests and ways to work and build

Like any other human being so when some wants something a dialogue
They are ASKING me something
and yes you have to ask me in a way I want.

This burden I can lay down.

...I don't have to make you feel good about asking for something YOU want.

...I am willing when I am treated how I want to be treated to talk to ANYONE but no I no longer and should have never had to keep dealing with ANYONE just in the name of "solidarity"

when I have the choice of dealingw ith those I want and can see building actual change with

and that includes my very crazy foul mouthed

HUMAN love

o KICKASS, i'm an EXPORT! Who wants a share of me?! WHO WANTS--

ooh, this is truly special:

Discussing his opposition to the Uniting American Families Act — “which would allow gay Americans the same right straight Americans have to sponsor a foreign partner for citizenship” — Family Research Council Vice President Peter Sprigg recently offered rhetorical support for exporting gay men and women from America. “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society,” said Sprigg.

Hey, can we choose where we get exported to? I always wanted to go to Rome. Maybe they could work out an exchange with some nice Italian marble, and--

Oh. Right. Sorry, dude. You were saying?



Oh. I see.

*

So, I take it the "exporting" probably won't be in the first-class section. Damn. I was really looking forward to the complimentary champagne.


More on Sprigg:

Of all the speakers that day, Sprigg worried me the most. He is a well-spoken man, articulate (at least when he's following a script), and his talk was sprinkled with references to other people's work -- I cannot bring myself to call it "research," but that is what he calls it. It sounds like he's quoting scientific research and stuff, but when you go look it up you discover that hardly any of it comes from respectable journals or authorities.

The theme of his talk that day was that he was going to dispel some "myths" about homosexuality. And it was the weirdest thing, every "myth" had a kind of rationale that followed it, which justified discrimination against gays...

But the thing that struck you, as he went on and on, was -- what motivates this guy? He spends his whole life thinking of ways to make gay people sound bad. I mean, really, he goes to work at the Family Research Council, and that's what he does. They must have meetings, where they take any tidbit of information and discuss how to spin it so that gay people look bad. They figure out how to twist arguments so their lobbyists can go into the halls of the Capitol Building and persuade our leaders to pass laws that make life harder for gay people. And why? Why not fight real bad guys, robbers and rapists and murderers and terrorists? Why gay people, of all things?...

also:

While Sprigg gave the usual compassionate-sounding phrases of the anti-gay movement—with statements like, "We desire the best for homosexuals, and desiring the best for someone and acting to bring that about is the essence of love…"— he "affirmed" the state of Florida for having the strongest prohibition against adoption by gay couples. He made the claim that "most children raised by homosexuals are the result of previous heterosexual relationships," and proceeded to pontificate about how this "undermines the notion that homosexuality is something fixed from birth and cannot change—there are very few homosexuals who have never had a heterosexual relationship."

Sprigg’s shining moment, I think, was when he chastised the "militant gay rights activists" for characterizing sexual orientation as tantamount to race. He stated that "homosexuality is not equivalent to heterosexuality," and thus is not a civil rights issue like race.

We heard a lot about those "ex-gays" and then were addressed by "an ex-gay" in person: Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International. Chambers worried about "the militant activist groups out to co-opt family life, our rights, and change America into an America that is only good for them." We were told that these “militant gay activists” were "trying to co-opt our very way of life."

[Jaunty musclemen from the 'Family Guy'] In fact, the phrase "militant gay activist" was bandied around so much, I felt silly for having left my weaponry at home … I was also ashamed not to fit Chambers' image of what a gay man is: a "jaunty mustached muscleman," apparently, in contrast to the "nice young people, old people, and attractive women" progressives are said to use in our commercials and media campaigns. Chambers also claimed that "the gay activist movement is wealthy. None of us in the pro-family movement are making money. I am in poverty compared to what the executives of the pro-gay movement are making."

Chambers concluded by saying, "We have to stand up against an evil agenda."

This all sounds...oddly familiar. The rhetoric, the techniques...I mean, like, something recent familiar. What could it be? -think think think- Huh. Well, it'll come to me.

Meanwhile, this is the bill in question, the one people like Sprigg are fighting so hard. The Uniting American Families Act.



I leave you with a rather heartwarming example of how at least one person dealt with this particular assclown.

More of that, please. And, send your Congresscritters a note (yeah, it's HRC, but they're right about this one, and the form is there).

World AIDS day, belatedly

She's got a point there, kids:

antiprincess on the real "sex pox."

...whatever side of the porn/sexwork/bdsm fence you sit on, what about AIDS, y'all?

I'm not HIV+, nor am I an AIDS activist. But I know people who work long and hard to purge the idea from the human consciousness that there is some consensual sexual behavior that deserves PUNISHMENT. Not just any punishment, but The Biggest, Baddest, Most Punishing Punishment - long, slow, conspicuously Capital Punishment in the form of a wasting disease, with clearly visible physical benchmarks of its progress as it slowly kills its victims.

so, when I see the word "sexpox", I don't think of cute hawtt titjobbed bisexee suckfuckers who giggle and simper on their spindly heels and tilt their empty heads and smile while cooing "ooh! I'm so empowerful! aren't I, Nigel?"

(and even if I did get that mental picture, it wouldn't match any of the individuals I know who identify as "sex-positive." the gulf of understanding here is unbridgeable, apparently, when it comes to that.)

when I see the word "sexpox", I think of a fatal disease that happens to people who fuck the wrong way, and need to be punished before they can die as a consequence for their behavior.

I mean, I guess, if you think there's a type of consenting adult sexual behavior that NEEDS to be punished by a fatal disease, because that behavior is THAT SINFUL that people who do it need years and years of suffering until they've repented enough to die in misery, then by all means continue slinging around "sexpox" like it's no more harmful than "tranny" or "faggot". (eyeroll)

but if you really think that there's a type of consenting adult sexual behavior that deserves the death penalty, may I humbly suggest you examine what that really means...

and yes, belatedly, World AIDS day was a week ago.

Some bloggers that covered it:

8 Asians:

When December 1st rolled around, otherwise known as World AIDS Day, I didn’t think too much about it. Granted that I’ve been involved in one shape or form in HIV/AIDS prevention among the queer Asian men’s community for over 10 years, first in LA doing some work with APAIT or Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team and in SF doing research for APIWC or Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center, and have done some collaborative work with APICHA or Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS in New York, but I’ve been out of that loop for some time, and so I do what I usually do–stopped for a moment, reflected on my friends who’ve become HIV+ and friends who’ve passed on, then moved on with my life.

I bring this up because tonight, a friend of mine from Singapore told me he just tested HIV+ and was contemplating suicide. Part of me put on my unofficial HIV counselor cap and encouraged him to seek services within Singapore, like Action for AIDS. Part of me, on the other hand, after I had done everything I could and got him on the phone with a counselor, had to stop, think, and sigh, “Goddamn, another one of my friends.”...

Lesbian Life

December 1st is World AIDS Day. According the the Centers for Disease Control, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Women of color are especially affected by HIV and AIDS. But what about lesbians? Where do they they rank in rates of HIV infection?

Well, there is some good news and some bad news on that front. On the one hand, there seems to be very few documented cases of female to female sexual transmission of the disease. On the other hand, the way the CDC tracks AIDS makes it very difficult to document female to female transmission.

But no matter if lesbians are or are not contracting HIV via sex with women, lesbians and bisexual women are just as likely to contract AIDS through other means: sex with men, IV drug use, rape and even artificial insemination. As a matter of fact, in some of these groups, lesbians are even more likely to contract HIV. Shouldn't you be informed? Here are the facts about lesbians and HIV/AIDS.

bideshi blue:

Let's talk about SAFE sex! AIDS has made its way into a variety of communities-gay men, heterosexual men and women, blood transfusions, and injectable drug users, and now migrant workers and truckers who move across regions and countries. However the majority of people living with AIDS are heterosexuals and increasingly women, many of whom lack the knowledge and power to insist on safe sex with their partners.

For example, in many cultures, men visit sex workers and then the men refuse to wear condoms. Some sex workers have made organizations and compaigns to insist on condom usage, such as in Thailand or India. At the same time, if the sex workers are unorganized in such a campaign, "No Glove, No Love", then they face economic pressures to insist that their customers wear a condom because the customer can move on to the next sex worker.

Or women trafficked and/or migrated to India or the Middle East and in sex work may have the same problems and can return HIV positive and face the social stigma from their previous activities and HIV infection.

Migrant workers--men and women--become HIV positive during their construction and domestic-sex-care work(s) and are deported back to their country of origin, for example, Nepali women or Bangladeshi male -female migrant workers, who in turn infect their wives-husbands...

TakeBackTheTech

The specificity of women and girls has only recently been highlighted in HIV/AIDS policy, research, programmes and resource allocation. Women make up nearly half of the 40 million people living with HIV worldwide, and the rate of infection in women are increasing. Women, especially young women and grrls, are vulnerable due to gender inequality, social and cultural norms, poverty, biology, and in particular, violence against women.

Women living in situations of domestic violence are much more likely to become infected by HIV than women who live in non-violent households. It is also difficult for women and young grrls to negotiate condom use and safer sex with their partners, a recognised method to reduce the likelihood of HIV infection.

Female sexuality is often constructed in as passive and lacking. Men and boys on the other hand, are understood to possess active sexual agency, and are expected to initiate the first move in sexual interaction. As such, women who take control of their sexuality fall outside of what is ‘normal’, and are easily hailed as being ‘over eager’ or ‘shameless’.

The majority of sexually explicit content available on the internet supports this construction of female/male sexuality. At the same time, the internet has also become a critical space for the expression of women’s desires and sexual rights, especially women of diverse sexualities. We need to be able to control our own bodies, and articulate our own sexual desires and rights, according to our own terms. Not only is this crucial to help mitigate the rate of HIV infections amongst women and girls, it is part of our fundamental human rights.

Homo Homo Sapien

Last night I attended the launch of the Victoria Midwinter Pitt documentary, Rampant: How a City Stopped a Plague and next Monday (3 December) all Australians will have the opportunity to see this brilliant piece of television as the ABC will be showing it at 8.30pm.

The film tells the story from the perspective of a handful of people who instinctively stepped forward and took on the challenge that Australia faced. It is because of their foresight and that of many others, that Australia has managed to limit the number of deaths from AIDS to over 6,500 people.

There were many scenes in the film that stood out for me but one was a scene where one of the Sisters of Charity made this point:

"WE made a decision to become an AIDS hospital."

...orking across multiple layers of law, human rights, social justice, discrimination and stigma were the hallmarks of our early response to HIV/AIDS and underpinned our successes, our empathy and supported us through our loss and grieving.

We all have our own story to tell – some will do it more publicly than others. My responsibility is to tell my own story which is both personal and political as well, and as truthfully as I can and shame or judgement is not part of it. I may have come out with all barrels blazing but this has been an almost 30 year work in progress and I have done so in this documentary in the knowledge that I was in the safe and ethical hands of a production company (Penny Chapman Productions and staff and director Victoria Midwinter Pitt whose desire it was to document our unique approach to the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

But seriously I have internalised enough whore stigma and have endured enough of other people's social values to last me another lifetime.

Coming out of the scarlet closet so to speak has been a confronting but liberating experience, it's not for all but for those who can it is exhilarating freeing yourself from the prejudice, stereotyping and stigma that often shames sex workers into silence not to mention the harms that can and do befall our nearest and dearest by association. My children have grown up and are able to fight their own battles and in fact would fight anybody who dared to discredit me and my life’s work including my sex work. Thank you Jesse.

This documentary has also given me the opportunity to highlight the intrinsic role sex workers played in the fight against HIV/AIDS - educating men and providing practical 'hands on' experience in the use of condoms and safe sex while fighting for better conditions and law reform to support these initiatives – they are unsung heroes of the epidemic but amazingly continue to be vilified, shamed and discriminated against in the eyes of the law and in society. SEX WORK and sex work ACTIVISM HAS BEEN A LARGE PART OF MY LIFE and this documentary has given me the opportunity to promote sex worker rights and banish some of the shame of silence which hopefully enables more sex workers to speak out particularly important today in this conservative climate WHERE our hard one (law) reforms and in jeopardy where even our sisters in the right wing faction of post-feminist brigade are calling for criminalisation of our clients and maintaining and even strengthening the criminal sanctions on our industry...

What Black Men Think (Keith Boykin)

We can’t stop the AIDS epidemic until we stop the lies that fuel the epidemic. That’s why today I’m featuring the video (above) about black men...It deconstructs some of the most popular myths about black men in America. One of those myths — that there are more black men in prison than in college — was actually repeated last year by the President of Harvard University. Is it any wonder, then, that so many others buy into the myths?

Another popular myth is that black men on the down low are responsible for the AIDS epidemic. The video discounts that assumption, and now new research by the CDC’s Dr. Greg Millett helps to disprove this theory. The research, reported in this week’s Gay City News, indicates that men on the down low are not the cause of the AIDS epidemic in black America.

New Research on Black Men and HIV

“Among the dozen explanations studied, three leading theories were ruled out by Millett’s work. Significantly, the assumption of higher risk behavior among black MSM-as measured by unprotected anal intercourse, total number of sex partners, and commercial sex work-was not found to explain the differential in infection rates relative to non-black gay and bi men. This conclusion was based on a review of more than 25 separate studies,” GCN reported.

Also important, self-identity does not determine risk for HIV. “Black [men who have sex with men] who don’t disclose their sexual behavior compared to black MSM who do disclose their sexual behavior are less likely to be HIV-positive, they’re less likely to engage in unprotected sex with more than five male partners lifetime, and they engage in less unprotected sex generally,” according to Millett...

***

Meanwhile, Black Amazon has a pointed reminder that AIDS isn't the only "sex pox" out there:

Of course STD's shouldn't be stigmatized, and no people aren't " bad people" for having them.

But sorry y'all it's still

A BIG FUCKING DEAL.

and I'll curb my observation that social stigma tends to work in specific rarefied airs.

But the constant and unrelenting message of Fuck it , it's not serious, no big deal?

WHAT?!

Sex is a big deal, having an std BIG DAMN deal, (especially when for all the hair tossing bullshit that std is only actually manageable if you have health care)

YES Y'ALL BIG DAMN DEAL

and

KNOW WHAT WE"RE ALL WORTH A BIG DAMN DEAL.

If you got it through sexual contact something went WRONG. You're n ot a horrible person, you still should have a fulfilling sex life, and the ability to have sex only with caring willing understanding partners

BUT NO IT'S NOT FUCKING BENIGN.

Petit explain this to me, what the heck is with everyone ratcheting DOWN the stakes. Self care sexual care big fucking deal

and you know what we'll make mistakes.

and they'll be serious one.

Isn't it bad and wrong to be convincing people that being healthy and RESPONSIBLE is no big damn deal.

As if self care isn't hard?...

...and a bit of news:

News release from Immigration Equality:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued proposed regulations which purport to offer a "streamlined," "categorical" waiver for HIV-positive visitors from other countries. Under current immigration law, any foreign national who tests positive for HIV is "inadmissible," meaning he is barred from permanent residence and even short term travel in the United States. There are waivers available to this rule, but obtaining them has always been difficult.

On World AIDS Day last year, President Bush announced his intention to create a streamlined process for foreign travelers with HIV to enter the United States more easily. Currently the United States is one of only 13 countries in the world, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, which ban travel for individuals who are HIV-positive. Now, almost a year later, DHS has proposed regulations which would make it even harder to get a short-term waiver.

"Unfortunately, despite using the terms 'streamlined' and 'categorical,' in reality these regulations are neither," said Victoria Neilson, Legal Director of Immigration Equality. Under the new rules, a visitor would need to travel with all the medication he would need during his stay in the U.S., prove that he has medical insurance that is accepted in the U.S. and would cover any medical contingency, and prove that he won't engage in behavior that might put the American public at risk. The maximum term of the waiver would be 30 days.

"More than two decades into this epidemic, the United States continues to stigmatize people with HIV and treat this illness unlike any other virus," Neilson continued. "Creating insurmountable hurdles to travel does nothing to protect the American public from HIV."

something tells me i shoulda stood in bed

A Bad News Roundup, because I kind of don't really feel up to addressing any of these any more than that right now, though each deserves its own post(s).

Via Renegade: another (? i seem to recall) case wherein "sleepwalking" is a justification for rape, cause you know, how was the guy supposed to know the difference? if she's like that? in the middle of the road and all? who wouldn't just get on top and ask questions never? p.s. he's HIV positive.

Dexter Ford, 52, is charged with raping the 23-year-old woman early Thursday morning near Interstate 71 in Cincinnati.

Ford's lawyer, Jeff Adams, said prosecutors told him the woman takes prescription medication and has a sleepwalking condition, a fact that will likely be the core part of Ford's defense.

"It goes to consent," he said. "How is he to know she is sleepwalking, if it's a dream 'yes' or a real 'yes?'

...During the past 15 years Ford, who is currently homeless, has served time in the Hamilton County jail and state prisons on charges including aggravated arson, breaking and entering, possession of illegal drug paraphernalia, theft and trespassing, court records showed.

...Sleepwalkers typically look like they are in a daze, and may not respond to outside stimuli, he said.

See? Totally understandable! Any reasonable person would see a mumbled "yes" (you know, assuming that convenient hypothetical actually happened) from a "dazed looking person" and immediately take advantage of the situation! That's not rape! So not his fault. And plus, you know, guy who's already been arrested for "aggravated" arson, theft, trespassing, and other signs of being respectful of boundaries in general, "on top of" a woman "near the Interstate," I mean, I'd -totally- assume that was, like, all about consensual good times. Who wouldn't? C'mon, people, benefit of the doubt!

Like f'r instance in this case. Trinity reminds us of last year's case in Australia that actually may beat out the Glen Ridge case for sheer evil, and the loathsome enabling thereof. iacb (among others) notes the more recent news that once again, the fuckers got off with a slap on the wrist:

EIGHT teenagers have escaped a jail term for their role in the notorious "Werribee DVD" after a judge ruled they should complete a rehabilitation program to prevent them repeating their "callous" crimes.

A Children's Court judge convicted seven of the eight youths yesterday after they pleaded guilty to making a film in Werribee last year, which showed them forcing a 17-year-old girl to perform sex acts with two of the boys while the others spat on her, poked her with sticks and repeatedly set her hair alight.

...The judge said the DVD shocked the community.

"Your behaviour was cowardly, brutal and, above all, a serious breach of the law … it was a sustained attack by a pack of young men upon a vulnerable young woman," he said. If they had not pleaded guilty they would have been at "significant risk" of serving time in youth detention, he said.

The court heard that the victim, a 17-year-old girl who suffers from a mild intellectual delay, was terrified during the attack and continues to fear she will be recognised in public.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the girl said: "I'm shocked that they did this to me … my life has been changed forever."

The court heard the girl's father, who only became aware of the attack two hours before excerpts of the film were shown on a television program in October last year, had suffered significant emotional and financial damage. He could not be contacted last night to comment on the sentence.

The eight teenagers, now aged 16 to 18, pleaded guilty last month to four offences over the attack, including procuring an act of sexual penetration by intimidation, assault and making child pornography.

Three other teens charged over the DVD will contest the charges in December, meaning the victim will have to testify in court

I wonder what it would've taken for "significant risk" to be upgraded to, like, "oh, you're REALLY asking for it now." Actually burning her to death? Oh, well, errant yoot. twinklecoddlepinchcheeks

Maybe (maybe) if they'd been responsible for something like this: via Questioning Transphobia:

A trans woman in Indiana was airlifted to a hospital with two broken shoulders, burns over 40% of her face, in a drug-induced coma. The hospital says that the injuries are consistent with physical assault, being doused in gasoline, and set on fire. The sheriff says that it was an automobile accident.

Information here

More information here: ("Yeah. That. And her purse is missing")

Donation information here.

brownfemipower links to the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence Women Of Color Caucus' statement on the case of Megan Williams, and also notes (via xicanopower)
the continuing saga of the teenage boy who was kidnapped, taken across the Mexican border, and is not being allowed back into the U.S. Instead, his family in Nebraska is being deported as well.

"He's in a bit of a pickle, of course," Mumgaard said. "Anyone who is here in the U.S. without documentation is behind the eight ball almost immediately, even a 13-year-old boy."

You don't say.

Meanwhile, as the world turns, all kinds of lovely stuff on an epic scale. brownfemipower has been monitoring the catastrophic flooding in Tabasco, Mexico

(one MILLION Mexicans displaced by floods, yes that's right; and the U.S. has pledged $300,000 to aid refugees, yes THAT's correct, which i guess is what, about 33 cents per refugee? sweet)

...over a series of posts, including some choice words of her own springing off some comments at feministe*:

And guess what, poor white folks–they already ARE effected by global warming (try googling mountain top removal and Appalachia some time, or asbestos poisoning and mining town, or drug addiction and mining or black lung and mining towns, or…maybe you get the picture). These white folks have been working alongside people of color to invoke radical environmental justice for a long time.

But let’s go to the next point:

Just look at who Bush is killing with our wars. The Americans dying are more poor than anything else.

Actually, Bush is killing brown people. And he is using poor white people and people of color to do it. He is not killing white people. The mission we’ve “accomplished’ is the deaths of over a hundred thousand BROWN people. And that’s just in Iraq. Yes, Bush is willingly putting the lives of poor whites into dangerous positions,, but he is not killing them. The Bush regime has not created whole knew words (Islamofacists) to describe poor white citizens. He has not named an axis of evil consisting of Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee. He has not used these code words to justify the obliteration of poor whites.

He is killing brown people. Period. He is using poor whites and people of color to do it. Period.

...As native environmentalist activists have said, “Once they’re done with us, they’re coming for you, so you better start paying attention”.

That’s what happens when there’s an economic *hierarchy*–eventually, level by level, each group of people will be destroyed, it doesn’t matter what color they are. But the base of that hierarchy is built on the souls and lives of people of color–and that’s not a fucking accident.

Some people were trying to say that the Katrina response was about class, not race, also (it's always an either-or, too, right?) Speaking of, Bint Alshamsa shares this joyous news:

All Public Housing Units in New Orleans Set To Be Destroyed

Information on upcoming protests/civil disobedience, and how to help or join, included in the link.

And there's oh, so much more--I hadn't even gotten to the scary shit in Pakistan, for instance--this is a good starting place, threats/urgings for Pakistani bloggers to go offline before they're -made- to be shut down notwithstanding--but, I gotta stop now.

The next post(s) shall be about something Fluffy.

Dark Carnival

Via Progressive Gold: maybe this goes some way toward explaining how the same person who crafted a scarily-HUAC-ish looking bill can have also voted to close Guantanamo: apparently, you CAN take it with you.

"Camp Justice"

Do you remember a few months ago hearing about a proposal floating around to build what would have essentially amounted to a little quaint unknown miniature city on an abandoned airfield at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba – to house federal judges and other personnel there for the sole purpose of trying detainees under the new laws of the Military Commissions Act? Ring a bell? Well, in any event, at a cost of potentially $125 million it was swiftly shot down by Defense Secretary Robert Gates who even he himself saw the political disaster in that plan, thankfully enough.


However, that “military commission compound” – as it was loosely referred to in our previous coverage – would have in theory accommodated up to 1,200 people and provided the capacity to conduct as many as five trials simultaneously in the first U.S. war crimes tribunals held since World War II. The proposed site we learned was used back in the 1990s to house “a tent camp for Cuban rafters."

This fact was made even more curious when we later heard that the U.S. Congress approved earlier this year “an $18 million proposal for the Department of Defense to build a migrant detention facility” on the base as well. Or, as The Miami Herald quoted one U.S. official who called it a space “to shelter interdicted migrants.”
This abandoned runway sure is a precarious little strip of land, to say the least.

Though I’m not quite sure what has become of that contract yet there have been (it seems) various attempts to secure Guantánamo’s value in the war on terror by redeveloping and adding significant new permanent structures to it cementing not only the facility itself but the legal architecture that holds the site in place, too. And I find these last couple proposals a bit too eerily synchronized not to be part of a larger strategy to keep the controversial facility from being shut down altogether. Since Congress has faced continuous pressure to close Guantanamo Bay as a detention center – both internally and from governments abroad – it is hardly odd really to find this sudden plan to offshore a brand new warehouse for rounded-up coastal border-crossers (who can under law now be tried as felons or ‘alien unlawful enemy combatants’) and to establish a compound to expedite the rapid legal processing of them once they end up there...

...According to the article the court building – “surrounded by trailers, moveable cells, concertina wire and a tent city” – is itself a prefabricated and totally portable kit of parts that’s been shipped to Cuba and, we are told, “could be unplugged, disassembled and put back together somewhere else.” Go figure, justice cast in Lego plastic ready to be made in an infinite reconfigurability of political forms.



In the Pentagon’s own words it is a state-of-the-art courthouse, completely unprecedented, never before seen, yet described literally by the Times reporter as “a squat, windowless structure of corrugated metal” rigged inside with the latest trial technology – “the perfect architecture for the long-running limbo that is Guantánamo.” Nicely said.

Like the sign reads ‘Camp Justice’ is – to its credit – just what it says it is: justice in the form of a camp. There is absolutely no pretense here whatsoever, nor can it be mistaken for anything else either, really, which is partially what makes it so disturbing. Not to mention how obnoxious and arrogant it is in its crude declaration of itself. CAMP JUSTICE. We're here. But, again – to be fair – the name does actually say it all...

In a frighteningly lucid and surgical essay Vanishing Points geographer Derek Gregory describes the war on terror as a “war on law”, or a “war through law” – through the suspension of law. While emergency is the state’s tactic it is ultimately the law itself that is the most critical site of political struggle, he contends. If I recall correctly, Derek explains how Guantanamo Bay was established as a purposefully ambiguous political space camouflaged in the folds of legal uncertainty. In short, the U.S. left Cuba while still claiming jurisdiction over the base but not official territorial sovereignty, which allowed it to exist in between a place of law and lawlessness – essentially a place of “indeterminate time” and “indefinite detention.” He calls it a “site of non-place” created for a “site of non-people” located on the peripheral edge – or the “the vanishing point” – of the legal spectrum where international law is no longer enforceable (and therefore non-existent), and where American sovereignty has no application. It is the ultimate space of legal oblivion, you might say. It is neither a legal nor an illegal space and in all juridical dimensions is neither existent nor non-existent: it is – as far as I can make of it – the production of a convenient and sub-legal nowhere.

And just like that, they can make you...disappear.

Poof.

And then they, what, fold up their tents and move on.

Oh for FUCK's sake, that's IT.

Via Oh No a WoC PhD: guess who's coming to SoCal and playing Savior? that's wight, wabbit: Blackwater! Yes, THAT Blackwater!

Amidst the burning wild fires, devistated California residents sit in FEMA - State coordinated evacuation facilities and drink water and eat food without fear of it running out or being shot trying to get to higher ground. Though the blaze has hit million dollar homes and modest homes alike, the power of race and class in California as a whole has always insured that the state is well cared for in times of disaster. (This does not mean that supplies are well or fairly distributed, as anyone who lived through some of the crisis in the 80s will well remember.)

One thing that California and New Orleans do have in common however, is that Blackwater is ready to “rescue.” In fact, Blackwater has been lobbying to get into San Diego to start their own “border training camp” to privatize border patrolling for years in Congress. All though they have the go ahead from the company from whom they bought the land and the support of many conservative Californians, the fires in the same region may usher in the perfect way to circumvent the opposition.

Using their “credentials” as established “peace keepers” in New Orleans during and after the disaster, they can enter SoCal as aid workers and then, just like NOLA, never leave.

That's just too fucking close to home for me. I grew up in SoCal, I went to college in San Diego, I'm way too familiar with the various numbnuts who want to "seal the border." Bad enough worrying about if my family's in the way of the actual fires (they weren't this time, thankfully). Now you're talking about bringing a fucking fundie neocon mercenary armed compound for the purposes of institutionalized xenophobia and incipient fascism? Oh bitch NO. That's it. Time to wake up. I don't know exactly what that means at this point, but that's IT. NO.

update: oh! it just keeps getting better! via brownfemipower,

Chicago Public Schools is allowing the military to run four of its public schools.


This is apparently "drawing a mixed reaction." According to NPR.

What the fuck does it take?

Fun facts for the day on U.S. immigration policy

Did you know that:

...no matter how many domestic partnership rights your city or state or company grants you, it will not protect your relationship if your partner is not a U.S. citizen? No matter how long you've been together?

If my [same-sex] partner and I enter into a civil union in Vermont, will the government recognize it for immigration purposes?

No, a civil union conferred by the state of Vermont is not recognized by the federal government, which oversees immigration.

Can I marry my same-sex partner in the U.S. so I can change my status to legal permanent resident?

No. A federal law, the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) passed in 1996, states that the federal government will not respect same-sex marriages. Therefore, even when states begin to end their discrimination and allow same-sex couples to marry, marrying a same-sex partner in the U.S. will not affect immigration status until DOMA is repealed or deemed unconstitutional by the courts.

Do other countries recognize same-sex partnerships for the immigration purposes?

Yes. 14 countries consider same-sex partners as families for immigration purposes: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

What if my partner and I are legally married in another country? Will that allow me to sponsor my spouse for U.S. immigration?

No. The law stating that the U.S. government does not respect marriages between same-sex couples applies no matter where the couple was married. Further, depending on your circumstances, getting married in another country could even lead to your spouse's deportation. While this law may be challenged in court, doing so may be very risky, both for your partner who may be deported, and for other same-sex bi-national couples. Before making any decisions about marriage, consult a qualified immigration attorney who is knowledgeable about LGBT issues for individualized advice about your situation.

You should also be aware that legislation to allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration to the U.S. has been introduced in Congress. For more information about the Permanent Partners Immigration Act or to work for its passage, contact the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force or the Human Rights Campaign.

...and, furthermore,

Generally, people with HIV are barred from both entering the country and receiving Legal Permanent Resident status (a green card). However, some waivers are available that permit people to enter the country or change their status to LPR. Before applying for a green card, you may want to find out your HIV status ahead of time at a site that conducts anonymous testing. You can find such a site by calling the National AIDS Hotline at 1-800-342-AIDS.

What types of waivers are available?

* HIV Waiver—Family: If you have an immediate family member that is a legal permanent resident or a citizen, they may obtain an HIV waiver on your behalf. To qualify, you must show that a close relative who is a U.S. citizen will sponsor you, that you will not be a danger to public health, that there is a minimum possibility of you spreading HIV, and that you will not become a “public charge.”

* HIV Waiver—Humanitarian: See section on asylum below.

How does the government determine if you are a “public charge”?

The government may determine you are a “public charge” and deny you legal permanent residency or re-entry into the U.S. if you leave for a period of time. A “public charge” is a person who cannot support him- or herself without cash benefits such as Social Security Income (SSI). Public charge is not a barrier to obtaining citizenships, nor is it an issue for people granted asylum. To determine whether a person will become a public charge, the government looks at a number of factors including age, health, income, family size and education and skills....

On a related note: the Carnival of Radical Action, Back to School Edition

at Having Read the Fine Print, and it's a terrific wealth of links and inspiration. From the always awesome BA's intro:

Forget saviors

We need teachers. We need them from the places we have never thought to have gotten them before

We need scarred forearms ,split tongues, bowed heads, nappy roots , and raised fists.

gender queers, drag queens, bois, grrrrrrrrrls ,nerds, jocks, fierce women ,dangerous young men, single mothers, grad students, auto didactics, blind to the seeing world , brave in the face of danger, scared in the night, way too loud in the library, too big for the Gap, too small for your pants ,

but most of all we NEED each other.

And because we need you there are things we need you to know.

So this Carnival is meant to be only the beginning of our education.

Because we are NOT the world’s special case, or pet issue.

We are not to be recruited, convinced, or calmed down. We are not here to be enlightened, uplifted or “bettered”.

We want to live. And it’s not about cool or fun or hip . It’s about

Our lives ,Our rights, Our terms.

Fighting governments, fighting confusion , fighting for our lives

I have this incredibly odd belief.

WE CAN SPEAK FOR OURSELVES.

And one more

WE SHOULD BE AND ARE SPEAKING TO EACH OTHER...

check it out.