2009-09-06 21:18 | Today's kickass quote, via karnythia@LJ.
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
– Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
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2009-09-01 11:04 | Egalitarianism.
It would probably be rude to repost an entire comment here, so instead I will do my usual excerpt-and-link.
In response to the concept of feminism fighting all forms of oppression (ableism, cissexism in general not just transmisogyny, racism, etc etc), I don't think it really works.
We already have a term for a movement that seeks to fight every inch of oppression everywhere it raises its head. Egalitarianism. And anyone can be Egalitarian because it includes everyone. It is the overarching rights for all movement.
Feminism (like disabled activism, womanism, racial activism, trans activism, and etc) is more of a specialization of Egalitarianism.
This comment gets what I've been thinking for months and months now, but have not been able to verbalise.
2009-06-03 10:06 | I haven't been this angry in ages.
I am an extremist at heart. I know I get a little locked into "I'm right and aaa!", when it comes to certain topics. So, I try my best to see things from the other side, or at least absent myself from conversations because I know I get rage-y.
Other times, fuck the other side.
From Amanda at Pandagon: JUST BE NORMAL AGAIN – "A couple of weeks ago, I got my hands on the training manual for the courses that anti-choice group Justice For All uses in its courses." From her post at RH Reality Check:
What I first learned was that Justice For All has no problem instructing its activists to use deception to lure people into a conversation. In the section titled "Why Don't You Pass Out Condoms and Promote Birth Control?," the authors tacitly admit that sensible people might be put off by the anti-choice movement's willingness to increase the abortion rate by standing as firmly against contraception, especially the birth control pill, as they do legal abortion. So instead of allowing members to admit their hostility to all forms of contraception, they instruct them to conceal their beliefs until a target has been softened up to hear about their true message–sexual abstinence for all not trying to procreate–through a series of dodgy, misleading arguments, including misinformation about how the birth control pill works.
This tactic is a mainstay of the anti-choice movement: it shows one face to the initiated, and another to the public, especially on the topic of contraception. Once you realize this, the movement's half-hearted denunciations of Dr. Tiller's murder, coupled with the enthusiastic return to calling Dr. Tiller a monster, become all the more chilling.
If you are a "pro-lifer", instead of getting pissy with pro-choicers who are upset with you and yours, why not instead look to your movement? This isn't just some freakish screed, this is a goddamn training manual. This is for when they set up a table at college campuses, what the shit.
Mighty Ponygirl commented this, in the first link:
I had mentioned that very point to the husband last night: that after 9/11, Muslim groups came out an roundly declared that Islam was a religion of peace, that the hijackers and terrorists were not representative of the Muslim community, and that what happened was a horrific tragedy and an act of terrorism. [...] But the anti-choice movement is so comfortable with the language of victim-blaming, and so assured in their own safety because they have a powerful brigade of politicians and talking heads who will scream bloody murder if anyone treats their threats for what they are, that they're absolutely fine with saying things like "Tiller reaped what he sowed."
Have some more fun here, from Fred at Slactivist who used to work for an evangelical non-profit:
What I realized then, in 1994, as I watched these groups line up to condemn violence against "mass-murderers" and to renounce armed opposition to "the Holocaust," was that these folks didn't really mean any of it. They were horrified by the spectacle of someone taking their own rhetoric and arguments seriously. "We don't really mean anything we say," these groups rushed to announce. "We don't really believe any of that."
And since they no longer bothered to claim they believed it, I stopped trying to believe it too.
Words mean things. Jesus.
I think I'm going to investigate the local Planned Parenthood, and see how it's doing. There were some stalls on building it, I recall, due to protests. I wonder if they still get protesters. I could go take pictures…
