It’s amazing the schisms that have broken open in this campaign season. Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project has an eye-opening post up, “Why is EMILY’s List endorsing anti-semitism, racism and homophobia?”  EMILY’s List, an organization that promotes and helps fund women who run for public office, the primary goal is to ensure that pro-choice candidates are elected.

In one Congressional race (Tennessee’s 9th district, which includes Memphis and environs), EMILY’s List is backing a candidate, Nikki Tinker, who is up against a pro-choice, pro-LGBT incumbent, Steven Cohen. Tinker’s campaign and surrogates have engaged in disturbing tactics that show how conflicts between core Democratic constituencies have erupted into ways difficult to paper over.

Rep. Steve Cohen, who is Jewish, was attacked in a flier (left, “Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus”) distributed by a black homobigoted pastor from Murphreesboro who is not even from Cohen’s district, Rev. George Brooks. Tinker, who happens to be black as well, and was called to condemn the flier. (WaPo):

[T]he literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to “see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election.”

The Commercial Appeal wrote an editorial in Wednesday’s paper condemning Tinker for not speaking out against the anti-Semitic literature.

“What does Nikki Tinker think about anti-Semitic literature being circulated that might help her unseat 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen in the Democratic primary next August?” the editorial asked. “The question goes to the character of the woman who wants to represent the 9th District, and 9th District voters deserve an answer. But Tinker declined to return a phone call about the flier.”

The Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, an organization of black pastors that has backed Tinker’s campaign as well, has openly criticized Cohen for his support of hate crimes legislation. Why is this not an issue for EMILY’s List? Certainly its resources can be spent more effectively in another race, given incumbent Cohen’s pro-choice record. Why back such a divisive candidate if your primary issue is already supported? Is there something missing from this picture that we should be aware of?

You can read more over at Bil’s pad. He concludes that in this case, for EMILY’s List, it has placed working to elect a pro-choice woman above any concerns about anti-Semitism or homophobia pouring from Tinker’s campaign and supporters.

Argh, I’m done hiding my head and will be brave enough to talk about it, having been inspired by Sarah Seltzer.  All these attacks on “Sex and the City” in light of the movie that has come out—-mostly from people who probably never watched a minute of the show—-are sexist.  And they’re a particularly insidious form of sexism, one that feminists are prone to falling for, which suggests that women don’t deserve respect unless they distance themselves from unserious things.  (Of course, if you adequately empty your life of humor and beauty to show how serious you are, you’ll get it for that, too.)  As an audience member at one of my reading suggested, there’s something very fishy about the way the writers at Gawker and Jezebel bash the show for what?  Doing pretty much the same stuff that they do at those websites, except at least “SATC” is fictional.  And the sluttier-and-tougher-than-thou one-upmanship  just made me embarrassed for the participants. 

But the worst is the assumption that because it’s about four women and it’s funny and it’s about sex and there’s expensive clothes, then it is by definition stupid.  Why?  Because it’s feminine, admit it.

Meanwhile, you’ve got commentators like Best Week Ever’s Paul F. Tompkins and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. They’re both generally smart, enlightened folks, but last night Tompkins dropped by Olbermann’s show so they could snicker their way through a “Sex and the City survival guide for men.” (Check it out below.) The premise, of course, was that no so-called real man would ever want to see a movie about three-dimensional, adult female characters. (The TV show also featured plenty of well-rounded, interesting male characters over the years, by the by — Steve, Aidan, Trey — but we can ignore that inconvenient fact.) Quipped Tompkins: “If you’re with a woman who is insisting that you go see this movie, I think it’s time to maybe date someone else. Because men are not meant to see this movie with women.” Way to police those restrictive gender roles, bro!

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Once again, I have to exercise skepticism that there’s huge numbers of “angry white women” out there who will vote McCain instead of Obama out of spite.  Spite feelings are running high right now, which is why Joan Walsh makes me cringe 15 separate times in her piece today. Threats that there’s going to be a white feminist stampede out the door to McCain (with a few racist potshots thrown out on the way) are highly overrated.  I don’t doubt that Obama won’t get the vote of blatantly racist white people, but I suspect most of them decamped to the Republicans in 1964 with Strom Thurmond. 

But for those who want a good reason to vote for Obama over McCain (I can’t believe I’m writing this) for feminist reasons, um, there’s the issues.  Remember those?  Again, I think 99.9% of feminists are smart enough to remember those, even those smarting because they were invested in the Clinton campaign.  I think a lot better of feminists than those who point to Geraldine Ferraro and say, “See?  They’re angry and bitter and need to be coddled.”  It reinforces a negative and untrue stereotype of women that we’re emotional and irrational and can’t be reasoned with.  But really, it’s only Ferraro who is being irrational and unreasonable.  You can’t extrapolate from there about all women, all white feminists, or even most of either group.  Remember how it works:

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With two hands over my eyes and plugs in my ears, I could still tell you that Clinton losing the nomination is going to inspire all sorts of disingenuous hand-wringing concealing glee over women’s chances in politics.  Again, I’m grateful to the LA Times for stalking out in the other direction by giving the space this week to Katha Pollitt and myself to discuss these issues, knowing we’re two feminists and unlikely to either throw in the towel on women or be happy about it.  Later today will be the next round, and as I’ve already written my part, I can tell you that I lament that the U.S. can’t follow the lead of countries that have seat quotas in legislative bodies for women, a simple measure that would go a long way to make historic runs like Hillary Clinton’s seem less like “make it or break it” moments for our chances to have a female President. 

For those about to gloat about the end of women in politics, I salute you.

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The wingnut version of a Zen koan: “If a woman is beaten or raped, but shuts up about it and doesn’t tell anyone, did it really happen?”  I mean, no one but the abuser knows about it, right?  So it’s like it didn’t happen, right?  Sure, you weenie liberals might say the victim knows about it, but that’s because you’re liberals and you just love victims, to the degree that you’re willing to believe that if a woman suffers, it matters even if she doesn’t bother anyone with her bitching and moaning about it. 

If that sounds extreme, well explain to me how else we’re supposed to take this column by Dennis Prager.

If you want to understand the negative impact of feminism on women (and men) and, by extension, the destructive effects of liberal teachers, Democratic politics and liberal news media on African-Americans, here is Katie Couric last week on the CBS Evening News…

Every time I hear this whine, I want to ask, what form of victimizing do wingnuts think is legitimate?  Is rape the right thing to do?  Is beating your wife A-OK?  Because those are the primary forms of violence against women that feminists agitate against, “creating” victims that apparently wouldn’t be victims if they shut up about it.

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Image irrelevant to post, but too cute to ignore.  Hat tip.

I steamrolled through the latest issue of Bitch.  Lots of good stuff in there, and highly recommended.  As usual, I’m only driven to blog when I’ve got a complaint, but I want it to be clear that this is, in the grand scheme of things, a minor issue in a sea of Teh Shitness.  And I was really eager when I saw an article by Jason Webber about a subject near and dear to my heart—-the feminist anomaly of Prince, the man who managed on sheer talent to become a megastar while playing with gender boundaries, exalting female sexuality, and causing many straight men with masculinity issues anxiety because they couldn’t deny the awesome power of Prince’s music.  Webber’s thesis is that despite all this, Prince is a mess of contradictions, being the most feminist man in the music industry on one hand and then on the other indulging in some gross sexism. It’s a great thesis, because a) it’s true and b) it has the potential to be a touchstone for how feminist men in general resolve the tensions between wanting to be good people and the temptations to bolster their egos, sense of masculinity, and for some, sense of naughtiness by indulging sexism.  How well does Prince succeed?  Should we applaud him for dealing with these tensions in himself in such a public manner?  Is that tempered by the fact that he’s so idiosyncratic that his own struggles don’t really translate into something other men can relate to?

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I just want to write a quick post about the issue of “silence” arguments—-i.e., the “why aren’t group A writing more about topic B?” posts.  It’s similar to the “you can’t prove a negative” fallacy.  All too often, when we get angry with someone for not blogging a specific news item, it’s not that they don’t care, but something more mundane.  They were napping when it came out and missed it in their news reader.  They don’t feel they have anything useful to add to the discussion, and think someone else blogged about it more eloquently.  They cover similar topics so often that they occasionally skip a news item on the topic lest they come across as shrill, one-note bloggers.  There’s only so many hours in a day, and even the most devoted bloggers spend some of those napping, earning money, or keeping their marriages together.  And of course, at least 50% of the time someone is accused of ignoring an issue or story, they actually blogged it and the complainer is ignoring that or conveniently missed that to make a point. 

For me, the number one determinant on whether or not I blog a news item is whether or not I have anything entertaining or useful to say on the topic.  If you really feel strongly that I have an obligation to blog about X, Y, or Z, and I don’t, please consider that I might not be all-powerful and have witty, intelligent things to say on everything. 

I say this because I read Kathy G’s post about the feminist silence about attacks on Michelle Obama with guilt, because I don’t think I’ve blogged any furious, “Shut up you monsters!” posts about the attacks on Michelle Obama.  But the damning “silence” language makes it sound, in my case at least, a lot more nefarious than it really is.*  It’s not that I don’t care.  I miss a lot of dust-ups (like this one), and honestly I don’t think I would have anything useful to say about it even if I hadn’t.

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Well, this is a new one.  Most of the trackbacks I get from people not accusing me of blogging about what they want me to blog about—-it goes without question that their judgment on my obligations is better than mine—-comes from people accusing me of not blogging enough about how we should liberate Muslim women from head coverings through bombing aimed at liberating them from their earthly existence.  Occasionally I get a leftist lamenting that I spend too much time making this place entertaining instead of a nobly unread drag that posts to a non-existent readership, but mostly it’s the right wingers demanding that I free Muslim women by blogging against their right to live free of being killed by American shrapnel.  But this guy is accusing me of wasting my time exposing religious nuts who want to deprive both men and women around the entire globe of pretty much every freedom you can name, and instead suggesting that I don’t—-get this—-write enough about rape.  That I write about rape 1000% more often than any other blogger with this much traffic, except maybe the fine ladies at Feministing is no matter.  Because by my neglectful inability to dwell non-stop on a topic that’s, let’s face it, pretty fucking depressing, I’ve personally caused the abysmal sexist politics that have resulted in a 6% conviction rate for rape in Britain. 

Horrible “American Feminists” at Feministing (where Jessica is also editing a book confronting sex negative/misogynist attitudes that contribute to rape) did in fact cover the story, which has so far not led to a dramatic reversal for the criminal justice system in Britain.  But I promise that if they could change things, they would.  It seems in fact that the conviction rate has been sliding over the years, so I suspect what’s going on is a similar situation to other reactionary movements such as the ones that sprung those obviously guilty of lynching or war crimes.  In other words, if our nutball friend actually cares about convicting rapists, he needs to quit ranting about horrible, no good feminists, because it’s precisely those sentiments that encourage reactionary backlashes that lead to these situations. 

Interestingly, because of ineffective American Feminist bitchy worthlessness, the rape rate in the United States has been going down consistently since feminists ineffectively made it an issue though they probably didn’t want to.  Like 85% gone down.  Despite annoyingness to random internet assholes with strange agendas, it turns out that American Feminism has something to do with the decline in rape.

I flashed for a moment of how much things have changed in the U.S., and why this probably has so much to do with the significantly lower rape rate here, something you should want if you are really concerned about rape.  I was listening to the Datarock CD and they ironically quote the lyrics to “Summer Nights” from Grease.  It’s been years since I’ve heard that song or a reference to it, I guess, because my mind really tripped on the casual crack about rape in the lyric, “Did she put up a fight?”  Granted, the lyric is there as a 50s historical detail, but even so, the casual reference to the traditional battle between guys who want it and girls who want to preserve their reputation—-and the acceptance that it culminates in rape on a regular basis—-gave me pause.  In the 70s, they put it there to suggest how much sexual mores have changed.  Now gender and power mores have changed that the 70s wink and nudge is nauseating.  Witness: On the show “Mad Men”, there are regular cracks from male characters about women “putting up a fight”, and instead of being a colorful historical detail, it’s supposed to make the audience queasy.  If that shift in attitudes about women’s rights and sex hasn’t contributed to a lowered rape rate, I’d be shocked. 

Why this has resulted in a misogynist backlash in Britain, I can’t say.  I don’t know enough about the cultural or legal differences to offer an opinion.  Maybe British readers have some sort of insight?

What’s offensive about the

Pastor

Father Pfleger sermon is not what he said about White privilege. Melissa’s post recognizes this while properly focusing on the misogyny. In fact, for the first half of the video, I was getting ready to post about it positively, in contrast to Michelle Malkin (thanks for the transcription, Michelle, such as it is):

to address the one who says, “Well, don’t hold me responsible (gesticulating) for what my ancestors did. But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did and unless you are ready to give up the benefits (voice rising), throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money you put into the company you WALKED INTO BECAUSE YO’ DADDY AND YO’ GRANDDADDY AND YO’ GREATGRANDDADDY–(screaming at the top of his lungs)–UNLESS YOU’RE WILLING TO GIVE UP THE BENEFITS, THEN YOU MUST BE REPSONSIBLE [Malkin’s sic] FOR WHAT WAS DONE IN YOUR GENERATION ‘CUZ YOU ARE THE BENEFICIARY OF THIS INSURANCE POLICY! (Wild gestures, wild applause).

…We must be honest enough to expose white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head.

Malkin’s editorializing punctuation aside, I was nodding my head in agreement until after all that, when he got to the part where he became a raving misogynist. (See Melissa’s post.) But I’m not bringing it up as a 50% defense of Pfleger; merely to point out that the media attention is focusing on the wrong part of the sermon. Which, of course, and unsurprisingly, is just redoubling the misogyny at play, with the added bonus of denying the existence of white privilege!

Goddamn it. The only thing that would piss me off more is if a large portion of commenters at a place that called itself “TalkLeft” were behaving exactly the same way. (Looks like Big Tent Democrat got sick of it and closed comments.)

Update: As Incertus in comments indirectly reminds me I should have said “But I’m not bringing it up as a 50% defense of Pfleger; merely to point out that the media attention, and Obama, are focusing on the wrong part of the sermon.”

Seriously, he actually did this

It’s too much to hope that MSNBC will fire this asshole - unless it’s for stealing Chris Matthews’ schtick - but you might drop MSNBC a line about this anyway:

Discussing Sen. Hillary Clinton’s decision to remain in the presidential race, MSNBC senior campaign correspondent Tucker Carlson, during the May 27 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, said of Clinton, “Look, she’s a trapped animal, there’s absolutely no question about it. As I’ve thought to myself many times, if you’ve ever tried to get your cat in a box, you know what Hillary Clinton is doing right now.” Carlson then imitated a screeching cat, and added, “with all four paws out, all the hair standing up? Look, she is in feral mode.” After co-host Mika Brzezinski said, “I don’t know what to say,” and guest co-host Mike Barnicle said, “Tucker Carlson, ladies and gentlemen,” Carlson asserted, “And I say that as a compliment, I admire her tenacity. I do.”

Don’t worry, he says it as a compliment. Join us next time when Tucker Carlson compares McCain favorably to a 19-year-old beagle with bladder control problems.

Dear NBC (e-mail addresses liberated from Media Matters, too):

Mr. Phil Griffin,
Senior Vice President, News
NBC Television Network
30 Rockefeller Plz
New York, NY 10112
phil.griffin@nbc.com

Steve Capus,
President, NBC News
steve.capus@nbc.com

MSNBC
letters@msnbc.com
MSNBC/Microsoft-NBC
30 Rockefeller Plz
3rd Fl
New York, NY 10112
(212) 664-4444

Tucker Carlson
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)