No Offense

Recently a girl in my new lab said to me, "you can tell me if you find my jokes offensive. I know I tend to joke about a lot of crazy stuff, so you should tell me if it bothers you." She had just made a slightly off-colour (and not very funny) joke. Doesn't matter what it was.

I smiled blandly at her and returned to the actual conversation. At the time I thought that I was deciding not to say anything about her somewhat offensive joke because I didn't want to take the time to explain that the reason I found the joke offensive was not the reason she thought someone might find it offensive. Like explaining to someone that when they call your shirt "gay" you aren't offended because they didn't like your shirt. It wasn't that, but it was somewhat analogous. And I just didn't want to get into it.

I mean, it's true. I didn't want to get into that with her. But as I let more and more stupid little things from her slide, and I had absolutely no interest in mentioning any of them, I realized there was more going on. So here's the thing.

It's not about my feelings. First of all, my feelings don't get particularly hurt when someone makes derogatory remarks about a group I'm a member of. It's pretty simple: if someone is that much of a bigot then their opinion doesn't matter to me, and if their opinion doesn't matter, then nothing they say can hurt me. Really. My primary emotional response is boredom. But that's an aside, and here's the more important point: when it comes to my relationships, I don't want someone to refrain from making certain jokes or using certain language because I find it offensive. I want them to refrain from doing those things because *they* find it offensive. I want them to have thought critically about the assumptions that underlie their jokes and about the effect their language has on others. And if they are someone who does not do that kind of thinking, well, I want them to wear that fact on their sleeve.

Just one thing I do have to get off my chest, though: If you want to have a career studying sexually transmitted infections, then by the time you're in grad school you should be able to talk about sex without needing to crack terrible jokes to assuage your discomfort. Seriously.

So It Turns Out...

Greg Laden? Awesome on race. Awesome on science education. Kind of a sexist asshat.

It's really a shame. Come on people, there are so many good reasons why this woman shouldn't be VP. Having been a beauty queen isn't one of them.

I'm actually quite disappointed, because I'm usually a fan of Laden's. But I know that he was called out on the beauty queen thing in his first post on Palin, and he hasn't either stopped doing it, or explained why he thinks it's okay.

Amazing

Everyone needs to go watch this speech by Barack Obama.

I can't help it. I ought to know that every step in an election campaign is choreographed. That I should make no assumptions that a politician's words in any way reflect their beliefs. I know that, but I just can't help it. This speech gives me hope. Maybe it's just that I've never heard Obama speak before. I have heard that he's an excellent orator and it could be that that's all this is, but I don't think so.

I can't endorse the speech unqualifiedly -- there were three things in it that I found objectionable -- but three things in a 37 minute speech is not bad, and for the bulk of it I was amazed. Obama was saying things that are necessary, things that I think every American (and Canadian) needs to hear, but as important as the content of the speech is, more important is the fact that Obama delivered it, and delivered it now. He could have left it a desk drawer (or more likely a file on his computer), waiting for the day when he was retired and had nothing to lose.

I honestly didn't think I would live to see the day that a serious politician who has a real chance of winning the American presidential election would stand up and speak an uncomfortable truth to people who might not want to hear it, people who he hopes will nonetheless vote for him. It sets a heartening precedent. Obama's courage (and, one hopes, success) in delivering this speech opens the door to something resembling honest discussion about oppression. It makes room for women politicians to speak up about back-alley abortions and the necessity of reproductive rights. It makes room for gay and lesbian politicians to talk about the days before Stonewall and the ongoing oppressions they face.

I'm not so naive as to think that this is going to start happening regularly, or right away. But it's happened once, and that means it can happen again.

Update: Pam Spaulding at Pandagon has written a post saying much of what I was trying to say, and more, much more eloquently than I did. Just go read that.

I Said...

I coulda sworn I posted this, but apparently blogger et it.

The best thing about my Evolution prof: She calls white Americans "European-Americans". Always.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Apparently, Hamas is training American Muslim college students in terrorist techniques. Now, I don't want to come off as fear mongering here, but I think we all need to be very careful. Muslim girls in American colleges have learned the previously-unknown-to-them terrorist techniques of wearing head scarves, rolling their eyes, and getting up to pee. If we don't act now, no psychotic right-wing Christian speaker will ever be safe from... um... neutral or mildly rude behaviour?

Shit, I can't keep this up. I can't even pretend to follow the reasoning here. Just go read Thers' post cuz it's funny as hell.

Anyone Else Sick of this Story?

It's a regular on cop shows, and it goes like this:

A crime is committed in Chinatown.* The locals don't want to go to the police, but you can't really keep a death/explosion/kidnapping secret, so they find out anyway. The cop assigned to the case suspects the local Chinese organized crime group (LCOCG), but since no one who witnessed or knows about the crime will talk to him**, he's blocked at every turn and the LCOCG continues to threaten and harm and generally cause mayhem until finally, out of desperation, someone close to the original crime victim agrees to talk to the cop, whereupon she is rewarded for her wise trust in the police by seeing all the leaders of the LCOCG arrested and, if applicable, all kidnapped people returned unharmed. Unless, of course, she waited too long, in which case the mob bosses are still arrested and she is sternly reminded that if only she had come forward sooner poor Nathan Wu would still be alive and what has she learned from all this?

Does anyone else feel like they're being forced to vicariously act like a patronizing asshole when they're watching these sorts of things? Cuz I do.

You know, just once I'd like to see a story where a crime committed in Chinatown is not committed by the Chinese Mafia, the victims and/or families thereof cooperate with police as much as the details of the story allow, and cooperating with the police is not a deus ex machina for getting the damn crime solved. I feel like that's not really a lot to ask.

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*Extra points if Torontonians can identify the streets they're shooting on.

**Even more points if a woman on the police force makes some halfhearted comment about the Chinese people's fear of white cops being justified on account of a history of institutionalized racism, which comment is promptly forgotten by all.

Racist Fuckheadery Alive and Well in Toronto

Warning to Toronto's Ward 7 residents. Your city councillor is a racist fuckhead. I heard on the CBC yesterday, I think on Here and Now, that Mammoliti wants to make bars' and clubs' liquor licenses contingent on a commitment from the owners/managers that they will not allow entrance to people wearing gang colours, or play gangster rap. Mammoliti's justification is that the music glorifies violence, specifically violence against women and cops*, and that it is therefore a legitimate question of safety.

The interviewer at least seemed to recognize the racist fuckheadery and challenged the councillor by a) pointing out that violence in clubs is bad for business, so club owners already take steps to discourage it by installing metal detectors and often banning gang colours of their own volition and b) asking the councillor if there was any evidence that listening to the type of music in question actually increases the incidence of violence. Mammoliti succeeded in avoiding this question, among others about whether the club owners themselves supported the new rules, and whether he was worried that this might constitute an unacceptable level of censorship.

At one point during the interview, Mammoliti showed his true colours by admitting that part of the point of the rule was that if clubs weren't allowed to play "music that glorifies guns and violence," then "those sorts of people" would be less likely to go to the clubs and cause problems. I kind of thought that everyone knew what "those sorts of people" meant, to the point that it had stopped being a useable euphemism for racist fuckheads who don't want to appear racist. Using that phrase in a discussion about rap music is about equivalent to using the phrase "money and the ethnic vote" in a discussion of Quebec elections, isn't it?

I have a question for Mr. Mammoliti. Sir, if you're so fucking worried about violence against women that you're willing to ban a music style to help prevent it, may we assume that you'll soon be banning The Beatles as well? After all a little glorification of stalking was not exactly uncommon in their lyrics, and stalking victims are often in serious danger from their stalkers. Or if we're talking generally dangerous, how about banning most American country music? I mean surely, in the long run, nationalistic pride and American exceptionallism are more dangerous than a few individuals with guns or knives, aren't they? Because, after all, this is about increasing safety, and not about keeping Black people out of bars, right?

Mr. Mammoliti, you're a racist fuckhead.

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*Not usually a natural class

I See Red and Green

Why is it that the people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo are the most likely to yell about being colour-blind? Take, for example, this post over at Christian Conservative. I really think that the only way for someone who lives in North America and has a reasonable amount of intelligence to say something like that is through willful ignorance. It cannot escape one's notice that all the Presidents of the USA (and, for that matter, all elected Prime Ministers of Canada) have belonged to a certain demographic. Why, having made that observation, would it not occur to one to immediately wonder what it is about that demographic that is keeping its members in office? How are people so incurious that they're happy to not wonder at all and continue to maintain that their electoral process is entirely a meritocracy?

In response to Gallaugher's final paragraph:

Why can’t we talk about a Presidential candidate who is best fit for the job, rather than whether they are black, white, red or green?

I said this in the comments:

Because there has never been a black President. As I see it there are two options:

1) There has never been a black person qualified and competent to be president who wanted the job

or

2) There is still racism in the USA and no black person can be elected President, no matter how qualified they are.

Now, given the number of black people in the USA, the only way to believe (1) is true is to believe that black people are inherently less capable of doing the job of president than white people. Since civilized and well-informed people (yourself included, of course) will obviously reject that, (2) is what's left. So we need to talk about it.

What I want to know is, are there grounds to either reject my dichotomy, or reject my conclusion about option (1)? If not then, Gallaugher, do you want to fess up to believing option (1) and its corollary?

It seems that Conservatives have decided to attach themselves to the optics of the phrase colour-blind while completely failing to get the point. While being blind to an individual's race, sex, orientation, or religious beliefs when considering them for a job, position, scholarship, etc. is generally* a good thing, being blind to these things when examining the demographics of certain positions to determine if they have actually been awarded on merit is, of course, impossible. And continuing to act blind to them when the obvious conclusion is that the positions are not being awarded entirely on merit, but also on the basis of these characteristics is despicable.

Gallaugher, I challenge you: If you reject what I've said above, explain why. If you don't, justify your insistence on colourblindness in examining the prospects for who could get elected to the role of President.

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*There are certain positions where some of these characteristics are, in fact, relevant. For example, a Mosque would be justified in taking religion into account when choosing people for positions of religious leadership, regardless of whether there were non-Muslim applicants who actually knew more about Islam than some of the (apparently under-educated in this case) Muslim applicants. Also, there are times when some of the characteristics would have a direct bearing on competence, for example, could a man effectively lead a Take Back the Night campaign?

Also, I want to make clear that this should not be construed as my being against affirmative action. Only if all, or at least most, potential employers, decision-makers, electors, etc. were colour-blind in this way, and nepotism were non-existent, would affirmative action be unnecessary.