Oppression Olympics

VAWA and the Privilege to Vote Republican

So there's this bill called VAWA or the Violence Against Women Act, and it's an act that essentially increases protection for women who are victims of domestic abuse (it could be broader than that – I'm not sure). Now according to ncdsv.org, VAWA is a misnomer, because the most liberal version of the act protects people of all genders and sexual orientations. So naturally, in January of 2012 the Republicans were all into killing the parts of the bill that protects people who are of non-hetero sexual orientations, AS WELL AS the parts that protect American Indian women living in sovereign Indian Country, and my school sponsored my going to the capitol (with a few classmates) to lobby for the full version of the bill. Now it's February of 2013 and their attempts have made headlines.

And I must say, this cannot possibly be reflective of the views of the people. Most of us are for marriage equality, so I can assume a bigger chunk of us want to protect our peers, Queer or not, from violence. And it occurs to me that the Republicans are allowed to do this simply because of privilege and apathy. In fact, generally, they are allowed to swing so far to the right socially because of privilege and apathy. And of course, the reluctance to protect Indian women frankly blows my mind and reinforces that premise. 

"Don't vote on 'hot-button' social issues," cry the fiscal conservatives, and thus, bills like VAWA get gutted and the congresspeople who approve such gutting get reelected because of their supposed fiscal prudence. Yeah, well, that's real easy to say when VAWA already protects you. Hard to say when you're trans* or Indian. 

So yeah. I'm just here to say, vote on social issues. Vote vote vote on them. We MUST draw the line somewhere on human rights abuses. 

Here's the link – Republicans, I'm disappointed. 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/23/house-gop-strips-lgbt-native-american-provisions-in-vawa/

Knock knock. Who's there? Interrupting White guy.

Black people get interrupted sometimes.

Mark Lamont-Hill is a demigod

I think it's no secret that we see Black people as aggressive. And it's really frustrating when people tell me that I'm wrong in an argument simply because they perceive me as angry. Similarly, we perceive women as emotional. Thus, "you're upset" becomes a weapon of argumentation against me.

I also observe White people putting words in my mouth, i.e. misconstruing the narratives I present in a way that suits them, or, rewriting history the White way. I see this as microcosmic of colonialism. Now, bear with me. But, you know how Whites write the history books? That's colonialism. And when my speech gets co-opted, I see that as a similar practice. Not to conflate interruption and colonialism, obviously, because one is a much more serious problem than the other (take a guess).

Before you object to this, consider an extreme example of a Black narrative being misconstrued the White way. The amount of misinformation about Barack Obama is unprecedented—1/4 people don't even know what his religion is. The degree to which the Republican party has been allowed to write his story is unique and honestly hilarious. 

What other president has been called a Muslim Atheist Socialist Communist Arab Kenyan Tyrant?

This is why I don't believe in ethos as a legitimate aspect of argumentation. Ethos involves what you bring to a debate and thus, the preconceived notions about who you are. Black people have less ethos, and so do women. So does anyone in a non-dominant social group. Dominant groups are too often allowed to co-opt the speech of those who belong to oppressed groups. 

I urge you to think about the ethos that your privilege affords you, and how durable your privilege makes that ethos. That doesn't only mean to question credibility for a White man, it also means that I should question my credibility as straight and upper-middle class. Who has to have manners and conduct themselves respectfully? And who can take more liberties and condescend their peers a little more?

Just think about it, ok? I know it sounds out there, but think about it. 

Affirmative Action

SCOTUS has deemed affirmative action illegal unless it’s integrated into a holistic approach to college admissions, that is, considered a “factor” but not a quota. This is largely due to Justices Roberts and Kennedy, in their swing-vote-y swinginess, Alito in his Scalia-bandwagoniness, Thomas in his frustrating silence and Scalia himself, in his full diversity-denying form.  

What? I just don't care about Brown people!

(IT'S A JOKE GOSH) 

But I am an affirmative action believer. According to Jeremy Pienik’s paper Race, Social Class, and Parental Involvement with Children’s Cognitive Development, Lareau and Horvat in 1999 indicated that Black students are less likely to do well in school independent of social class. According to Sean F. Reardon’s paper, The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations, the class gap is twice as wide as the race gap. And other factors, such as gender, ability, orientation and mental illness all affect school performance and individually provide potential for the marginalization of students. So why shouldn’t college admissions boards be able to know these facets of identity in students?

There are a number of advantages to affirmative action. The first is empirical: Affirmative action for women has already been practiced in the U.S. (and with protest that pales in comparison to the protest that’s come from race-based affirmative action). And today, women actually surpass men in graduation (perhaps we overdid it), and we’ve closed the achievement gap, at least at face-value. But because we can whitewash feminism but not racism, we’re uncomfortable with race-based affirmative action. “But class is a real difference,” proponents of class- but not race- based affirmative action cry. And now people call for class-based affirmative action in lieu of race, because class is now considered somehow more real than race. But that isn’t true. It’s not only necessary that we give the poor equal access to education, but that we ensure the number of poor Blacks is at some point equal to the number of poor Whites.

Thus, I propose that affirmative action should apply to all facets of identity. That is, gender, ability, class, orientation, race/ethnicity, nationality/immigration status, mental health—everything. Because why shouldn’t college admissions boards know everything identity-wise about their potential students? There’s value in a diverse student body. There’s value in it because a breadth of perspectives in a classroom is most educational and because it’s also least marginalizing for a classroom to be segregated. It’s also most valuable to the entirety of the community if a classroom is diverse and available for all of its members. 

Feminists, get it together.

Today, I will take you back to the days of the democratic 2008 primary, and complain about Hillary Clinton and her constituents. I have a problem with what I like to call Eurocentric Feminists, which is a misnomer, because really what I mean is a feminist who doesn't care about any other types of oppression besides your generic 1950's-style misogyny. I think this is a great example:

Hi Haters

So I go to a predominantly White prep school, and I don't fit in very well—probably because I do things like social justice blogging. And it recently occurred to me that my blog has likely drawn a small faction of kids (meaning 2 or 3) around a computer to watch my videos and laugh at me:

My school doesn't have NEARLY that many tokens.

I'm not sure what's humiliating about my blog, but it occurred to me—have haters made me famous??

Well not famous. But, you know, have haters gotten me page-views?

And I know this isn't really about social justice, but to eccentric kids in high school...

Stay weird.

Political Correctness: Boo hoo

So for those of you who are strangers, I'm in high school (I know), and earlier this year, a kid at my school made his senior speech about political correctness. This pissed me off not because the kid personally offended me—I think he did the topic justice—but because there have been so many previous speeches at my school about political correctness. And they all complain about how straight White Christian males are silenced and "reverse-oppressed" by Queer Brown* Muslim womens' (I kid, I kid) political correctness. Boo hoo.

I think the choice of a balding White guy for this ecard might be intentional.

(Go ahead. Call me a reverse racist. DO IT.)

And so I made a facebook status about it and people got real mad, but hey, I got off scott-free without any allusions to my being a house slave (kids telling me I'm not a real Black person). Here's how it went:

Something that makes me question the political correctness speech is the choice to make that speech in the first place; such a choice is, in turn, a decision about what areas of social justice warrant the most dialogue. When I hear 6 or 7 speeches of the same thing, it makes me feel as if that thing must be a problem of enormous magnitude. But for a social justice issue, it really isn't. Censorship via "political correctness" doesn't stand a chance, magnitude wise, against poverty, for example. This is the point about which I agree with [a different kid at my school]: We should make choices about not just what we'd like to dialogue about, but the magnitude of the issue and the necessity for such dialogue. How pressing is "political correctness"? Somewhat. How much is it dialogued about? Way more than other issues of greater magnitude. And honestly, this leads me to draw the conclusion that for every speech about the oppressed, we need 6 about the privileged because we are that afraid of giving a voice to the voiceless. And of course the privileged should have a voice, but how pressing is that issue? Hardly at all. Fighting for the privileged to have a voice is like fighting for straight peoples' right to marry—it just isn't that big. Truth may be truth, but what's telling is which truths we choose to share.

The internet was mad at me that day.

 Furthermore, I think we should be politically correct. Two warrants:

1. Being polite to people is OK. If I want you to call me Black instead of African American, you should respect that that's what makes me comfortable and just call me that. Why is it such a big deal to just be nice to people? Some people prefer LGBTQIA, some people prefer Queer, some people prefer disabled, some people prefer differently able... Just be nice and call people what they want to be called.

2. You should let a member of an oppressed group decide what they would like to be called. For example, if you're White, you might think that African American is a better term than Black because it recognizes my ancestry. But I may prefer Black because I think it helps us remember that we are not just from Africa to America, but from Africa, on a slave ship, in the fields and the house, and facilitators of the civil rights movement etc etc and acknowledges a history (this is my actual opinion). Instead of arguing with me about it, respect that I am Black and you are White and let me define my own identity. Furthermore, do not complain about the burden of "political correctness" I have put on you. It's your burden to be communicative about what I'd like to be called since you are the one with privilege. Same goes for me and someone Queer or LGBTQIA—I should ask first (I like Queer because it's super inclusive, so that's what I default to, but I will change what I say if someone asks me to). Although when it comes to immigration status, you should probs just say undocumented. But you get my point. Ask people their gender pronouns and stuff!

*I like the terms Queer and Brown better than LGBTQIA and of color because they're monosyllabic and inclusive. 

Re: It's Only Sexist When Men Do It

His video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JA4EPRbWhQ

Hadiya Pendleton and Human Valuelessness

Days ago, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was mistakenly shot in Chicago near the President's old house.

Since this video came out of impulsive frustration with the system, there are a few mistakes. Firstly, I mispronounced Hadiya Pendleton's name—it's Hi-dee-uh—and that's my bad). Secondly, I said that 409 people were murdered in Chicago in 2008, when really it was 509. Thirdly, she was shot near Obama's old house, not the white house. But unfortunately for me, this was done off the top of my head with some notes, so I can't re-create it. Here it is:

She has a similar video:

Waitin' on Roosevelt?

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure there's a Sambo in some of Langston Hughes' poetry. I'm still probably humiliating myself by criticizing him though. Thoughts? I still love Langston Hughes overall. I too sing, America!