The Great Race

The recent and horrible killing of Trayvon Martin has brought an undercurrent of racial tensions, previously blatantly referenced only by the left lamenting racism from the right and from the extreme racist factions on the far right (such as the preacher introducing Rick Santorum at a recent rally), into broad daylight. The Obama administration, in fact, despite being the subject of coded racial language in the political sphere, has made an effort to downplay the racial difference as much as possible, as Robert De Niro just found out.

Yet the racial consciousness inside the country was aching to break free. Recently the Justice Department blocked a Texas law that would have required voters to present valid photo ID because the state could not satisfactorily argue that minority voters would not be disenfranchised by the law, while there is no "evidence of significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by the state’s existing laws." It seems the only reason for Texas to push for the law would be racist, but not in plainly spoken terms. In Georgia the creator of the famous anti-Obama bumper sticker that reads "Don't Re-Nig 2012," Paula Smith, has come out and defended it, somehow claiming the N-word is not racist. Why? "Because I don’t use it. I have kids here around me that are black kids. I call them my own kids. I’ve helped black families…to guide them in the right direction. Paintball is one of these things. We like to laugh and have a good time. That’s our way of life." I've read this over and over and still can't understand it. The only conclusion I can draw is that we have an example of one more instance of de facto racism that is being covered up as best as possible.

Now we have the death of a young man that cannot be explained without acknowledging racism, even with Paula Smith's bizarre dictionary. And talk about racism may enter the political sphere:

Recently a study was released analyzing the effect the president's race has on public approval of his policies. It's a fascinating study and worth the four and a half minutes of listening; you can listen to it below. The study told the provisions of a policy to two groups, telling one it was Barack Obama's policy and the other that it was Bill Clinton's. The study found that test subjects who had a more liberal view towards race tended to favor the Obama policy and those who were more conservative favored Clinton's, even though they were the same. The study concludes that the race of a president does indeed play some role in his public approval.

I'm going to take the same road as the NPR piece and not jump to the wide-reaching conclusion that Obama's lack of popularity is due to racism - although I kind of imply it by juxtaposing this study with Trayvon Martin's murder. I'm a little skeptical that the study's methods provide conclusive evidence as to the role race plays in approval rating because Bill Clinton is not just a white version of Barack Obama, or visa versa, so it's hard to isolate race as the only difference that mattered to the test subjects. Still, I think it opens up a valuable and interesting question that should be looked into. It would be beneficial to know what role race has in our subconscious political attitudes. And I think it's dangerous to avoid serious thought and discussion as a country about race any longer.

Not What I Meant

I think some Republican lawmakers have been reading my blog, namely my most recent post. In it I looked at an Ohio counter to the rampant and sexist anti-abortion and women's health laws being passed in various states. The counter was to provide equally sexist and damaging regulations, but this time on men's health in order to, it seems, get men to understand what discrimination feels like. I concluded that this approach to fighting back is misguided and destructive.

In the current debate about the Violence Against Women Act's upcoming possibility for renewal some social conservatives have taken to the same kind of argument to justify voting against the legislation's newest form. As Janice Shaw Crouse says, speaking for the Concerned Women for America organization, the legislation "creates an ideology that all men are guilty and all women are victims." It would be against our country's best interests, she is essentially arguing, for us to pass anti-woman or anti-man legislation. Another high-profile conservative woman, Phyllis Schlafly, said the legislation advocates for "divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men."

Sounds good enough. That's a lot like what I wrote the other day, arguing against Democrat-supported legislation aimed at men to retaliate, an eye for an eye, for the existing sexist legislation oppressing women. Of course the flip side of that argument is that I believe conservatives shouldn't pass oppressive legislation to begin with, but the main concern of my post was about the direction of the left-wing response.

So, what is the legislation that victimizes women and makes men out to be evil-doers? And here's the rub, the reason I am so upset with how Republicans have twisted the logic they've ripped from my blog:

The legislation would continue existing grant programs to local law enforcement and battered women shelters, but would expand efforts to reach Indian tribes and rural areas. It would increase the availability of free legal assistance to victims of domestic violence, extend the definition of violence against women to include stalking, and provide training for civil and criminal court personnel to deal with families with a history of violence. It would also allow more battered illegal immigrants to claim temporary visas, and would include same-sex couples in programs for domestic violence.

Most upsetting to Republican lawmakers, like Senator Jeff Sessions who said the above "are matters put on that bill that almost seem to invite opposition," are probably the last two, expanding coverage of the law to include homosexuals and non-citizens. It's amazing that such a blatant acceptance and support of gays would not come up as the most divisive issue. No, instead it is sexism: the conservative women's groups feel that expanding the definition of domestic violence persecutes men and victimizes women.

It seems like a common Republican tactic to demonize Democrats and liberals. When conservatives are unwilling to compromise on anything, ranging from taxes to reproductive rights, it's actually because liberals are intolerant of other ideologies, despite social conservatives exhibiting far more dangerous, uncompromising, and outspoken intolerance - is there a liberal equivalent to Rush Limbaugh, who said "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for," or his dozens of other hateful prominent cohorts? When Democrats and liberals champion themselves on being supportive of the LGBTQ community, social conservatives claim this support is actually evidence of their intolerance for religious freedom of expression, and their discrimination against non-straight sexual orientations is excused by the perceived discrimination of their religion and ideology from the left. And now, with Santorum's unfortunate recent successes and the Democrats increasingly being seen as the party that supports women's rights, conservatives fire back with trumped up charges of sexism towards men.

They're creating two sides to issues with more than just two sides. Just because Republicans favor anti-woman legislation doesn't mean their Democratic opposition is anti-man. Just because conservatives vilify the poor doesn't mean that liberals do the same for the rich. Just because Republicans advocate religious rights doesn't mean that Democrats are godless, as Santorum seems to think about Obama and most Christians in America. And just because Republicans are intolerant of so many demographics - gays, poor people, non-Christians, foreigners and immigrants, liberals, and so on - does not mean that Democrats and liberals have to, by default, oppose the "opposites" of those demographics. But the right continues to frame these issues as two dimensional only so as to place the left firmly on the opposing side, effectively creating the image of two parties of "no" when there is really only one.

Granted, liberals and Democrats are not free of their individual prejudices, being humans, and, like everyone else, address individual and unique bigotry. But a general mass of slightly like-minded people, the left is not as opposed to things as the right would like us all to believe. In fact, just by calling them "left" and "right" I partake in the same misconceiving - I have been separating conservatives from Republicans and liberals from Democrats as often as convenient in order to weakly alleviate the limited understanding of politics right-wing strategists want us to have.

So that is my objection to the application of my previous logic: conservatives are using it to create a false impression of liberal sexism towards men. The changes to the Violence Against Women Act - namely to expand coverage to meet the needs of more demographics of women and to include stalking as a definition of violence against women - are not measures that will change any of the "ideology" that Crouse is worried about, nor will it lead to the "divorce" Schlafly fears. But because the legislation is obviously designed to protect women, it can be portrayed as discriminating against men, precisely what I argued against in my previous post.

My argument is being applied in a situation it doesn't belong for the purpose of spreading misconceptions. When I urged Democrats not to be reverse-sexist in their response to sexist legislation as in the Ohio example I gave, I did not mean that all Democratic legislation pertaining to women's health is dangerous and equally oppressive. Do not confuse something that occasionally happens for something that is inevitable. The Violence Against Women Act will (and has already) protect many people and benefit America, and it would be a terrible shame to lose it to falsified accusations of sexism.

So, social conservatives who are using my logic: that was an insulting reading of my last post. Despicable.

An Eye For An Eye?

It's a common response from mischievous children when asked why they hit a classmate: "Because he hit me first!" An Eye For An Eye is not only one of the oldest written laws in human history, it makes a lot of intuitive sense. It's fair, it's punishment for wrongdoing, and it follows a natural reaction to being wronged.

And humans never seem to grow out of it.

Example:

A bill has been introduced in the Ohio state senate as a counterbalance to the strict and sexist anti-abortion laws by Senator Nina Turner. The bill would regulate men's reproductive health by requiring men looking to obtain erectile dysfunction, drugs such as Viagra, to first "see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency."

While there is a very thin front of concern for male reproductive health, the biggest purpose of the legislation seems to be a strike back at legislators pushing for the same kinds of regulations on women's reproductive health, especially the supporters of the controversial "Heartbeat Bill" that would make abortion illegal as soon as the fetus has a detectable heartbeat (about 6 weeks after conception at the earliest). If men are going to impose egregious regulations on women's health, Senator Turner's supporters reason, they might change their minds if men's health faces similarly bizarre regulations. The Occupy Wall Street movement has already voiced support for Senator Turner for this very reason.

And these regulations really are bizarre, and probably harmful. Impotence might be caused by medical or psychological reasons, and a sex therapist trying to resolve a medical problem may only augment the existing problem. Not to mention that many sex therapists are sex-negative, as Dan Savage points out repeatedly on his show and column, and could add new problems to a sexual relationship. And the requirement for an affidavit signed by a partner seems to have no purpose beyond humiliating men much the way women are under some abortion laws, and therefore forcing men to confront their own unfairness in passing those abortion laws.

This bill makes intuitive sense - and only intuitive sense. Give men a taste of their sexist medicine. If they could only see just how draconian and humiliating their "pro life" legislation is to women, then perhaps they might change their minds. But that's the funny thing about the mischievous children who are asked why they hit a classmate: without the teacher, most often neither he nor the kid initiated the fight would realize that hitting is wrong. The bullied's lesson on why violence is bad - "now you know how it feels" mentality - only increases tension and anger. Both children suffer, and both children get in trouble.

If Senator Turner and her supporters understand how wrong the laws oppressing women are, they should know better than to try and mimic them. The answer to oppressive women's health laws is not oppressive men's health laws. Then Ohio would become a land of oppressed men and women, where instead legislators should be fighting against oppression. Senator Turner's legislation is just as dangerous as the legislation she is retaliating against.

If this is the strategy we use to fight for women's rights, then neither side, like the two children, will win.

The Trouble With Compromise

Could it be that compromise sometimes isn't a cornerstone of how Democracy functions and instead a bane to society?

I was dismayed when I read an article recapping one of the Republican debates a few weeks back when the audience, a vocal force this election season, booed candidates whose record showed a willingness to compromise with the opposition (sadly I can't find the article now). But this anti-compromise sentiment does seem to be the mood of the day. Liberals are upset at Obama for compromising on issues such as, well, just about anything, and Republicans are upset with a compromise on, well, just about anything, it seems. Thankfully we saw an exception recently with the jobs bill, but everyone knows that bipartisanship is a special case nowadays.

Why is it that we value unwavering conviction so highly, especially in today's difficult economic times when unified action could solve major problems? Well, sometimes it seems that compromise actually hurts.

Take the pro-bullying law in Michigan originally intended to be an anti-bullying law. When it was just a bill the law had the intention of preventing children from being intimidated by their peers, a practice that has been known to lead to depression and sometimes violence and suicide. Then the compromise was made: the right added an amendment to the bill that would allow for bullying to continue if in the name of "a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction." So instead of preventing bullying as originally intended, the bill actually gives legal immunity to any Christians who bully gays in the name of the bible. Previous supporters of the legislation spoke out against its mutated form but to no avail, and now the law is in the books in Michigan.

On the other side of the social political spectrum, we see what happened with the infamous ultra-sound law that just passed in Virginia. Now, before I go on I have to clear something up I wrote about this legislation in an earlier post: the form of this bill that was signed into law allows women seeking an abortion to opt for a traditional ultrasound instead of the vaginal probe technique. On the surface it seems like a good compromise and commendable job by the left in the Virginia legislature to prevent a harmful right-wing law from being too powerful. However, on second glance it becomes apparent that the law now does nothing but burn cash. The reason for the invasive vaginal probe in the first place was to obtain accurate ultrasound images where a normal ultrasound can't in the early stages of pregnancy, when most abortions take place. So in practice the law will mandate a number of costly ultrasounds that will provide no new information. The law's sexist purpose has been defeated, creating a new mandate for doctors to waste money in its place. As Eric Zorn writes in the Chicago Tribune:

The objection here is that when a doctor and a patient agree to such a test, it's a decision made for medical reasons in a clinical context.  When  lawmakers and executive officers compel a doctor to perform such a test for the acknowledged purpose of hoping to dissuade the woman from going through the with abortion, it's not a decision and not a medical procedure, but a political act.  And when that test will reveal absolutely nothing of value, it becomes a charade.

So now all that's left is the "symbolic" expense of the pro-some-life movement, leaving no one happy and everyone worse off. No wonder people are fed up with compromise.

A Little Solace

If you've been reading my blog lately you probably know that I'm upset with Christians these days. I'm upset at the crazy right-wing Rick Santorum followers for being violently hateful and the moderates and liberals for being apparently unwilling to speak out against it.

Well, perhaps the far right fringe groups of American Christianity has finally gone too far and gotten some of the non-far-right-fringe Christians in an organization called Faithful America to organize a message condemning Tony Perkins' hate speech towards homosexuals and asking why MSNBC continues to provide him with a platform to spread his hate to viewers nationwide. You can see the 30-second ad, which MSNBC refused to air for obvious reasons, below:



It's nice to know there are Christians out there fighting against homophobia. I'm sure there are faith-based reasons to believe in equal rights for everyone regardless of sexual orientation, and if those arguments could only gain publicity then we could avoid the very dangerous prospect of the hateful far right from deciding what "true" Christianity is for Americans, as Rick Santorum is trying to do.

Meanwhile, at Faithful America's site you can read about efforts of not-crazy Christians to combat the right's overwhelming hate furor. You can even sign a petition, their favorite mode of action, if you want.

For me, on the other hand, it's time for bed.