Wednesday, September 30, 2009

This is just terrible...


John Derbyshire thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to vote...

Yup...you didn't misunderstand...Derbyshire of the National Review recently argued against women's suffrage in his new tome We are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism.

Here's what he said about his "scholarly work" on the radio

"[Women] want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren't inclined to do it -- and in the present days, they're not -- then they'd like the state to do it for them."

He then continued to spew his vile with...

"Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I'll say this - if it were to be, I wouldn't lose a minute's sleep."

GROSS. And people say there isn't a need for feminism..tsk tsk.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Can we stop pretending...

that much, but not all, of the backlash against President Obama is fueled by his ethnicity. I mentioned this a little in my last post, but what were those schools in the South thinking? In case you didn't hear about this, a few districts refused to broadcast Obama's address to students a few weeks ago. They claimed it was because Obama would secretly spread the liberal agenda. Since when is "stay in school" a secret liberal plot against the right? When did it become ok for senators to call the president a liar in the middle of television broadcast? Finally, when did it become ok to raise protest signs like these...





I can't believe how afraid people are. Obama is not going to turn the white people in this country into slaves!!!!!!!!!!!! Way to use trite fear tactics. It's the same argument people use for feminist. "If feminist had their way, men would be the oppressed ones, and we can't have that." Ahhh...so you admit that women are oppressed...it's just you don't want to be oppressed in the same way. This means that you acknowledge that fact there is an injustice, but as long as it doesn't affect you, it's fine. Similarly, many of these protest signs by simply having phrases like "white slavery" admit that people of color have been and still are discriminated against, and now they are afraid it will be reversed. These fears are unjustified, pathetic, and sad.

Let's mask the public's eyes so they can't see that Obama only wishes to bring change to this country. Let's ignore the fact that 3% of the population holds over 90% of the wealth. Let's continue to pretend that Obama's skin color has nothing to do with some of the public's discontent.

America voted...the conservative right is clearly no longer the majority no matter how much Fox news pretends that you are "most of America."

Obama is our president for the next four years...deal with it.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Let's talk Language

I've been thinking a lot about language lately, especially concerning pronouns. The gender/sex dichotomy lingual system we operate under is something activist try to deconstruct. I could blog about this forever, and I probably will eventually, but another word I want to talk about it "race."

At first, I really wanted to find a new word for racism, and that's because of the root's origin. "Race" was a scientific term was once a heavily "researched" concept. Race implies that there is a genetic difference between those of a different skin color, and hence that there is a "pure blood" that is superior to the rest. And this concept does NOT limit itself to black vs. white like we so often think. Plenty of groups were "impure" including the Irish and Italian. We can use the word ethnicity, even though we very often are still asked to identify our "race." So I went on a mini-campaign to find a new word for racism as well. If race doesn't exist and is actually a social construct, kind of like gender, why is it that we still use the word racism? People don't discriminate based on genetic differences, they make judgments based on skin tone, among other factors.

I was told by a few people that it wasn't worth it to try to put a new word out there for racism. That this word was never going to change.

I got frustrated, and took a nap, and then had some thoughts. I think the word racism is actually ok, because it's definition is not flawed. Racism is the discrimination or assumptions based on the notion that there is a genetic difference between people of different colors. Well yeah. There is a good chance that racist people still actually believe that. Racism is alive and well, just ask those principles who wouldn't allow President Obama's message to be broadcasted in their school. "Staying in school" is totally a liberal agenda.

I just think that instead of asking people what their "race" is or saying they made a decision based on your "race..." we should utilize the word ethnicity. Whether the perpetrator of the assumption knows it or not, ethnicity (among other factors including class and dress) is the real reason why we make "racial" assumptions in the first place.

So what's my "race"...human.
What's my ethnicity...Jamaican, Italian, German, Irish, Dutch, and Cherokee Native American.
Why is the word racism still relevant...because people are ignorant enough to believe that there is a genetic difference between humans with beautiful differences.

But I still want to try really hard to begin using queerphobic! Homophobia is based on homosexuality which is based on that gender/sex dichotomy. We do use transphobia to more inclusive, but what about those who are intersexed? Just like the word queer has become an all encompassing, unifying term for the LGBTTIQA community, I hope we realize that the word "homophobia" leaves out a lot of people!