A Downy Woodpecker shows off his lovely crest. Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
A Downy Woodpecker shows off his lovely crest. Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Siobhan at Against the Grain has a post up about the latest anti-transgender peoples campaign of yet another conservative, bigoted, paranoid Christian group. They are all ‘family’ something or other, this one is Family Policy Alliance. I’ll just go with Fapa. Fapa apparently thinks they are oh-so-brilliant, with their latest attempt to spread bigotry, hate, and fear: they want people to ask them for permission to pee, or whatever else they plan to do in the lav. They have a website, full of women boo-hooing over the possibility that male genitals might be lurking behind a closed door. Well, maybe full isn’t the right word. They are soliciting stories, though! I’m rude enough to suggest that all manner of people send stories in – there really isn’t a rule the story has to be a hateful piece of bigotry, it’s just an expectation. They have a hashtag on twitter, which isn’t going that well for them. I think the Fapa should be completely drowned out. I can think of all kinds of things I’d apply #AskMeFirst to in the case of conservative, hateful, immoral Christians. I bet everyone else can, too.
Personally, I think it would be grand if every person of this particular persuasion had to #AskMeFirst if it was alright for them to continually try to legislate hate. Naturally, once they got their no, it would expected of them to take that answer gracefully and respectfully.
Ah, that was a nice fantasy, wasn’t it?
I think it’s time for people to get quite rude, in the nicest way possible, of course.
Via Against the Grain.
Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity: pic.twitter.com/HDSPYtepqb
— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) September 21, 2016
Audience Member: I had a question about, there’s been a lot of violence in the black community – I want to know, what would you do to help stop that violence, you know, black-on-black crime…
Trump: Right, well, one of the things I’d do, Ricardo, is I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically, you understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York city it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way it worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.
Alexandra Jaffe: Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity.
Trump will be yakking on tonight about instituting Stop ‘n’ Frisks, citing the disastrous, unconstitutional mess that took place in New York. He seems to think that’s just an incredibly brilliant idea, and that’s going to “cure” all that black violence, and of course, it will make black people vote for him. Yep.
Dean Frederick Saxton, who made a name for himself by telling women they ‘deserve’ rape (Screen cap).
Finally, this asshole has been arrested. It’s about damn time. Unfortunately, this plague on the UofA campus saw a slap given, banning Saxton from the campus for one year, and he has 10 days to contest this. Why not go for a permanent ban, UofA? How about letting your students know they are most important, rather than supplying targets for Saxton’s brand of hatred and harm? Grow a bloody spine, and ban this asshole forever, take out a restraining order, whatever you have to do, because do you really want to be known as the adult leaders who thought it was okay to have a man on campus, yelling at students that they deserved to be raped? How about all the students who agree with him, and might take this as encouragement to act?
TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) –
A controversial street preacher known as Brother Dean has been accused of assaulting a University of Arizona student, authorities said.
Rene Hernandez, a spokesperson for the University of Arizona Police Department, said Dean Frederick Saxton was arrested around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20.
Saxton has been accused of kicking a woman in the chest and has been banned from the UA campus for one year.
Sgt. Filbert Barrera, spokesman for the UAPD, said Saxon was given an one-year exclusionary order and has 10 days to contest it.
Saxton was booked into the Pima County Jail on an assault charge. Bond was set at $641 and he is expected to appear in court.
Via Tucson News Now.
I’m so livid!! We all know Racism is alive and well (whether you like to admit it or not). When said acts of racism happen at your school, it is infuriating and heart breaking. My friend left her phone in her room and the three kids pictured below took her phone and took the snapchat pictured below. The captioned it “locked the black bitch out”. My friend was not aware that they had done this and didn’t even realize they had put this on her snapchat story until another friend of ours pointed it out. The University of North Dakota needs to take action against these students for this blatant act of racism.
Once again, Ndakota demonstrates its jolly spirit of racism and sexism. Hey, girls – that’s not a joke. That’s not a prank. It’s rank racism and the vile stench is now wafting across the internet. Supposedly, you’re in university to learn something, not be caught up in toxic arrested development. Supposedly, you’re women now, and you should be forging chains of solidarity with other women. But no, you chose the racist, sexist idiot route. Thanks ever for making the place I live even worse.
Naturally, UND made some understated noises, all of which amounted to “in the process of gathering information.” Not much different from “well, we need to investigate.” Christ on a stick, I’m tired of those bloody shopworn phrases. I’ll hope something is done, but it will be a small hope. After all, this is Ndakota, where racism is considered a lively and cherished sport.
This was UND’s response:
— Univ of North Dakota (@myUND) September 21, 2016
Have a care reading the comments, because there’s a healthy amount of racist stupid on display:
@myUND Is pleasing the Twitter mob more important than preventing these girl's lives from being destroyed from making a harmless mistake?
— A. Wyatt Mann (@awyattmann19) September 21, 2016
Oh look, once again we see anything a white student does being relegated to a harmless mistake. FFS.
Via Raw Story.
State Sen. Jason Rapert (Facebook).
Arkansas Senator Jason Rapert went on another screedfest on facebook, had his posts removed, and the Bully of Bigelow proceeded to whine about it so much that FB restored his nasty bigotry rants. Mr. Rapert isn’t like very much by his constituents, who appear disgusted but not in the least surprised.
Arkansas Times reports that Rapert is claiming vindication after Facebook has decided to restore posts he wrote over the weekend where he declared his support for rounding up and deporting not just Muslim extremists, but “every single Muslim extremist sympathizer and other anti-American crazies.”
“Regardless of who is responsible for these events today – we need to round up every single Muslim extremist sympathizer and other anti-American crazies and detain them or deport them,” wrote Rapert in response to the mass stabbing that occurred in a Minnesota mall and the dumpster bombing in Manhattan. “And for goodness sake – stop bringing more Muslims into this nation.”
Rapert also said that Muslims “wait for every opportunity to convert Americans to Islam or kill the infidels — that is what their holy book the Koran instructs them to do.”
I can’t even work up an eyeroll for this isht anymore. Just what does your bible tell you to do, Mr. Rapert? It wouldn’t have anything at all to do with converting people, preaching that gospel, saving souls or constantly committing genocide on people who were somewhat different (or had something “god’s people” wanted). It’s the same fucking religion, you idiot! Same god! Oh, and I’m fairly sure the Quran doesn’t specifically mention America, anymore than any version of the bible, you flaming idiot.
Well, in the end, FB caved to this genocidally minded puffbag of idiocy. Shame, that, because I think these posts are terror-focused. They are certainly filled with hate and the desire to harm.
Via Arkansas Times, Arkansas Online, and Raw Story.
Alex Jacobs has an excellent column up at ICTMN.
The Optics Say Birmingham 1963, but It’s Standing Rock 2016, Or could it be Selma 1965, Bloody Sunday, when the President had to federalize the National Guard. Many of the water and land protectors may feel it’s like the Greasy Grass Fight in 1876, Alcatraz 1969 or Wounded Knee 1973. A new generation of activists are being passed the drums and pipes. But right now they need lawyers and funds to bail them out of North Dakota jails. Dozens more were arrested at the Red Warrior Camp including media with their cameras (probably to be used as evidence). If hundreds of the protectors went in to get arrested that would shut down the system. Perhaps shut down the camps too, but more people will come to sneak past the checkpoints, just like 1973.
The land they are on, folks keep calling it private property or Army Corps of Engineers land. But the Oceti Sakowin say the land was theirs until the Army Corps of Engineers at the behest of North Dakota politicians came in and flooded Standing Rock and Cheyenne River lands where Lake Oahe is now. There was no consultation and no compensation for their homelands, for this violation of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868. Now it’s where the Dakota Access Pipeline threatens to be built 100 feet below, crossing the Missouri River three times. The Indians say the whites flooded the river, stole their land and left them nothing but poverty.
What we Natives are fighting, among many things, is the perceived numbers against us. We cannot deny that we are the very bottom 2% of the population. For every person talking about #NoDAPL and #Standing Rock, nine are arguing over various media distractions. But don’t get mad, just get even. Keep talking, texting, tweeting, posting, writing about #NoDAPL, Sacred Stone, Red Warrior, the indigenous activists coming from around the world and Lawrence O’Donnell too. Billionaire Kelcy Warren set-up his Energy Transfer Partners as a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) company which does not pay taxes. North Dakota politicians are in lock step with the oil & gas industries, Congressman Kevin Cramer as an energy advisor – and climate change denier – to Donald Trump (see no evil), Senator John Hoeven who sits on both Native American and Energy Committees (hear no evil), and Senator Heidi Heitcamp’s non-sequitur responses who also sits on a Native American Committee (say no evil). Is this a pattern of conflict of interests in North Dakota?
Natives are told to go home, do your protest legally, petition the government as citizens do and depend on the courts. Sovereignty, treaties, environmental justice?
Kelcy Warren and the ETP strategy is to keep buying up weaker pipeline, oil & gas companies, because the price of oil is low. The plan for DAPL/ETP in Iowa was all this dirty fracked Bakken oil in the pipelines was for domestic consumption. But Congress changed the 40 year ban to allow U.S. companies to export crude oil, this dirty fracked Bakken oil, to counter the oil price war the Saudis have unleashed on the world. All thanks to Warren’s friend, ex-Texas Governor Rick Perry who joined the board of ETP and lobbied to end the ban.
It’s no longer about American Energy Independence but outright profits for the U.S. and foreign banks who’ve invested in a futures deal to get cheap oil to their countries. The biggest problem for the citizenry (and for ETP) is that these huge pipelines need to be full to maximize profits. Bakken crude is dirty and needs to be heated to move better. This bakes the soil and along with oil and brine spills, the once black fertile land becomes useless. ETP heats, cools, or liquefies the oil & gas for its 70,000 miles of pipelines and is aiming for a goal of 150,000 miles. ETP says, “this is a growth project” and they are “exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on U.S. energy exports.” So forget any carbon reduction and pollution treaties, this sets the stage for more fracking and environmental degradation for years.
[…]
But the nation and the world is watching now. I remember the story, the Crow scouts told Lt. Col. Custer the day they looked down at the biggest gathering of Indians anyone had seen. You don’t have enough bullets for all the Indians down there. Custer didn’t believe, didn’t care about those numbers.
We got to think like that, that whatever they think they got, we got more. They fight for a paycheck. We fight for all we got and all we will have and all that we lost. We got them now. Now it’s them stuck in the past trying to impose a nationwide system of pipelines that will degrade the environment for the next 50 years. The Native water and land protectors, #NoDAPL, the Raging Grannies, farmers and ranchers of Iowa, Bold Nebraska now Bold Alliance that took down Keystone XL, all need to prepare to fight for the future. The country needs to rebuild its infrastructure, go into debt if need be to create millions of jobs not just thousands, with new transmission lines for all manner of green energy projects and not just pipelines. This is the time to start the switch to renewables.
Remember The Greasy Grass River 140 years ago. They don’t have enough “bullets” if we all stand up.
I’m just going to add a reminder here: when you read or hear “light and sweet” or “like olive oil” in regard to oil, remember that you’re drinking oil’s kool-aid. It’s marketing. They want people to think of honey or other food, because in our minds, we consign honey, syrup, or plant oils to the good category. If this oil was that manner of good, it wouldn’t poison land and water. If this oil was that manner of good, the white people of Bismarck wouldn’t have gotten upset about the pipeline running north of them. It’s toxic. It’s poison. It kills. It renders water into death, not life. It is inimical to life. Oil is invested in this type of marketing so that people won’t question, won’t try to stop them. They count on such marketing to keep the majority of people on their side of things.
Via ICTMN.
Crowds of atheists and other freethinkers assembled by the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool for the Reason Rally on June 4, 2016 in Washington, D.C. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks.
(RNS) Maybe atheists should just embrace it as a slogan: “Atheists: The group Americans love to hate.”
About 40 percent of Americans say atheists “do not at all agree” with their vision of America, according to a new study from sociologists at the University of Minnesota who compared Americans’ perceptions of minority faith and racial groups.
But the study marks a grimmer milestone — Americans’ disapproval of Muslims has jumped to 45.5 percent from just over 26 percent 10 years ago, the last time the question was asked.
And “nones” — those who say they have no religious affiliation, but may also have spiritual or religious beliefs — are also unpopular. This is significant because nones now make up one-third of the U.S. population.
- Almost half of those surveyed — 48.9 percent — said they would disapprove of their child marrying a Muslim, up from 33.5 percent in 2006.
- The spiritual but not religious are mistrusted by 12 percent of Americans, while almost 40 percent of Americans say the rise of the “nones” is “not a good thing.”
- Disapproval rates for several minority groups have grown — Jews, Latinos and Asian-Americans experienced 10-point jumps in disapproval, while recent immigrants, conservative Christians and African-Americans grew about 13 percent each.
The new study also attempts to find out why atheists are so reviled by what its authors call “dominant group members” — aka religious Americans. The findings pinpoint three things: Religious Americans associate atheists with “criminality,” materialism and “a lack of accountability.”
Considering how often various religions and religious people are shown to be engaged in criminal activities, such as child rape and fraud, it staggers me that we continue to be associated with criminality and a lack of accountability. As for accountability, what comes to mind are a string of public ‘confessions’ by high profile Christians, complete with crocodile tears, proclaiming their supposed regret for fraud, adultery, or whatever crime, and saying they are accountable to god. I don’t care about that, because being accountable to a god means absolutely nothing. I am not accountable to any god, I am not accountable to any fictional character. I am accountable to other people, human and not. That is what matters, taking responsibility for my own life, and every way that life affects or impacts others. Christians are quite willing to be utterly immoral, telling themselves that this, that or the other is ‘god’s will’. (I speak more of Christians, because the bulk of my exposure and experience is with one form of Christianity or another.) They often speak in the most appalling terms, and are openly hateful and bigoted. Yet, it’s the non-religious who remain blamed for all the ills.
Abrahamaic based religions are highly splintered, particularly so in the States, with a rather amazing amount of different flavours of Christianity. I really feel for all the Muslims who are now the focus of much hatred, because if there’s one thing I wish Christians at large would get through their collective thick skull, it’s that the religious belief is the same. Abrahamaic based, same basic beliefs, same god, same, same, same. Yes, interpretations are different, but the basic belief? The same.
The study’s authors — sociologists Penny Edgell, Douglas Hartmann, Evan Stewart and Joseph Gerteis — describe the jump in disapproval of Muslims as a major change and are focusing now on identifying reasons for it.
“Religion becomes a signal and a marker, an easy shorthand for Americans’ moral judgment,” Hartmann said. “But that is not the only thing going on with Muslims. It’s more complicated.”
But Hussein Rashid, an adjunct professor at Barnard College who frequently writes and consults about Islam in the U.S., said the jump in anti-Islamic sentiment the study pinpoints is reflected in the current political rhetoric.
“The data from this survey shows that there is an increasing pull away from the promise of America,” he said in an email. “In 10 years, people have a more negative perception of Muslims, Jews, gays, Latinos, and Blacks. As a new America is taking shape, with all its diversity, there is a reactionary response that wants a mythic America of everyone being exactly the same.”
The study has more bad news for atheists — despite a decade of organized effort from groups such as American Atheists, the Secular Coalition for America and Openly Secular to normalize nonbelief, Americans are not buying it — religious belief remains a measure of trustworthiness and belonging, the study found.
“Overall, we find no support for the idea that the increasing visibility of non-religious persons, groups, and movements in American life has reduced anti-atheist sentiment in any significant way,” the study’s authors write.
[…]
The study was written from data collected in 2014 from 2,500 participants. It was published in the current issue of Social Forces journal. The previous study was published in 2006 by three of the same authors.
FILE – This July 15, 1925 file photo shows attorney William Jennings Bryan, sitting center behind the microphone during a radio broadcast of the landmark trial of John Thomas Scopes in Dayton, Tenn. The controversial trial between religion and state determined how evolution would be taught in schools. Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was found guilty of teaching evolution and fined. The town hosts an annual festival, this year July 20-21, marking the anniversary of the famous trial about the teaching of evolution in public schools. (AP Photo, file)
The Atlantic’s Emma Green has an interview with Washington University in St. Louis professor Leigh Eric Schmidt about his book, Village Atheists. Unlike similar efforts, Schmidt doesn’t shy away from the white straight male problem of atheism, which has been present for always. This is in no way a modern problem, although I’d venture to say it’s gotten worse, in terms of virulence and open bigotry. And yes, of course strides have certainly been made when it comes to atheist women, but unfortunately, many of the obstacles remain stubbornly in place, held firmly down by white male atheists. The whole interview is very good, and I highly recommend clicking over to read it in its entirety. This post, I want to focus on women.
“Male atheists are bad. Women atheists are genuinely considered monsters.”
Green: Why has the movement traditionally been so masculine?
Schmidt: In the 19th century, there are more women in the church than men. So there is an association with churches and pious femininity and domesticity. Freethinkers see women as supporters of the church, and supporters of evangelical Protestant politics, whether it’s temperance or other moral-reform causes, so there’s an alienation that arises there. They’re fearful that if women have the right to vote, they’ll vote for Christian-inflected politics. They’re afraid: What’s this going to do? Is this really going to advance the cause of reason, the cause of science, if we give women the right to vote?
Green: You talk about the perceived oddness of “woman atheists.” How have the experiences of women who are atheists differed from those of men historically?
Schmidt: Because there was such an ideal of pious femininity—women are supposed to be pious, women are supposed to go to church—there was greater horror associated with a woman being an atheist than with a man being an atheist. Male atheists are bad. Women atheists are genuinely considered monsters.
So that puts a lot of pressure on somebody like Elmina Drake Slenker or other women atheists to say, “Being an atheist does not deprive me of these maternal ideals.” Slenker writes domestic fiction in which freethinking, atheist women are also incredible housekeepers and homemakers. She wants to make sure there is no conflict over 19th century ideals and atheism—and no man has to worry in the same way she has to worry.
She is also much more interested in rethinking the marriage relationship, birth control, and reproductive rights. That’s something a lot of the freethinkers and atheists—the men around her—want to avoid. They see the issue as too controversial; that’s not an issue they’re willing to engage.
But she’s willing to engage it. And that gets her arrested for obscenity.
Green: If someone weren’t necessarily familiar with her story, they might read that and think of a 1970s-style women’s liberation movement, dedicated to deconstructing sexuality, etc. But as you write, Slenker was actually a part of Alphaism—a movement that promoted only procreative sex in monogamous relationships.
It seems like there was a kinship between freethinker movements and some of the vice-control impulses of the Victorian era, including Alphaism, or perhaps something like the temperance movement. Why was it that outspoken, freethinking women like Slenker went in this direction with their programs of reform?
Schmidt: It tells us a lot about the incredible pressures she experiences as a woman who has come out as an atheist and someone who wants to explore issues around sexual physiology. She could be so radical on the question of God, but she has to assure everyone, “I’m really this pure woman. I’m really this virtuous, domesticated woman. I always put my family first. I’m not a libertine.” For her, it’s about an image of purity that she maintains publicly, which also comes in handy when you’re being tried for obscenity.
Not much has changed, unfortunately. Women still feel this need to reassure society at large that yes, they are still a woman, in spite of thinking for themselves, for believing they should have full rights, including that of bodily autonomy, and no, it does not make a woman evil to contemplate or have a pregnancy terminated. Nor is a woman evil for using contraception and engaging in a sex life. Women are constantly judged, on hundreds of metrics, every single day. Women are still seen as the keepers of morality, while men are seen as requiring the constant watchfulness of women, as they can’t really be counted on to be thinking, moral people.
Schmidt: There is an element of suspicion that’s so deep-seated. You see it in John Locke: You can’t trust the atheist. There’s nothing to bind them to society. There’s this chaos they represent: a sense that they can’t be held accountable, and that you can’t trust them.
This is more intense by magnitudes of order when it comes to women, and many more magnitudes if women are anywhere under the queer umbrella. We’re already considered to be highly untrustworthy – that’s part and parcel of the oldest stories, it’s the basis of major religions, and it’s part and parcel of history.* When a woman declares atheism, that untrustworthiness hits an all time high. *Recommended Reading – Misogyny, The World’s Oldest Prejudice by Jack Holland:
Full article and interview is here.
From Giliell, the breathtaking beauty of our smallest relatives. Click for full size.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) from Kengi. Majestic birds. Click for full size.
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
Grackle, putting out the call. Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
National Guard and wounded during 1921 Tulsa race riots (Tulsa World/Wikimedia Commons).
A brief look at Tulsa’s history, and it’s not at all a good one.
The black neighborhood in Tulsa was known as “Greenwood” because Greenwood Avenue ran through it. Approximately 10,000 African Americans lived there. While there were large numbers of black people who lived in poverty in the area, the business district was its own complete city. There were dozens of black-owned businesses. Every kind of small business — grocery stores, beauty shops, jewelry stores, photography studios, tailor shops, and much more — a large number of restaurants, and a 750-seat theatre, the Dreamland Theater “that offered live musical and theatrical revues as well as silent movies accompanied by a piano player.” There were two black-owned newspapers. There were 15 African American physicians’ offices. A hospital. A large number of churches. A library. And a 54-room hotel, the Stradford Hotel.
[…]
During the night and the following day, the white mob invaded Greenwood. They pulled residents out of their homes and beat and killed them, including old people and children. They torched every building. Black people escaping Greenwood were arrested by the Oklahoma National Guard, who locked masses of them up in holding centers and only released them when white people stepped forward and vouched for individual black people.
The best estimates are that 300 people died during the riot, and 1256 structures were torched. While the Red Cross provided relief efforts for those thousands of people who had been burnt out of their homes, for which the city and county paid into the Red Cross relief fund, no compensation was paid to the victims of the violence. In addition, not a single white person was held accountable for any of the crimes committed May 31-June 1.
I had never heard of this before, and it’s unconscionable that to this day, it’s barely acknowledged, and no restitution or compensation was ever offered. Tulsa’s history with people of colour is a dark and shameful one. It’s time to bring it all out into the light in the spirit of change, and one of those should be a vow to stop murdering people of colour. It’s been going on much too long, as the recent murder of Terence Crutcher demonstrates all too well.