We're in a moment.
Some might be inclined to say it's a moment precipitated by Harvey Weinstein, but I'm not entirely sure that that's accurate. I'm far more likely to say that we're in a moment occasioned by the irreconcilable differences between the 53% and the 47%.
Which 53%? You know the ones, the 53% of White women (WW) who blithely voted for a pussy grabber and his trusty sidekick the quiet misogynist; the 53% some small number of whom later took to the streets in droves in pink pussy hats or did they? Is there any overlap between the 53% and the pink pussy-hatted posse?
How many of the 53% of WW who held their noses and voted for the kasually kleptocratic kakistocracy of DJT are now railing against pussy and tittie grabbers in all spheres? Is there one? Are there perhaps two? A dozen? A few?
How many of the 53% who voted eagerly because Jesus sent us Donald, are now just as eager to vote for an alleged pedophile?
As it turns out, a whole damn lot.
From the look of Roy Moore's numbers with evangelical women in Alabama, it is clear that the idea of male predation does not compute with them. Why is that? What is it about what they're learning in church, in their literal reading and understanding of the Bible that leads them to this place? What is it about what's being preached from the pulpits of various evangelical churches that makes room for a belief in their own unworthiness? Starting with the story of Eve, the b*tch who got humanity kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the Bible is chock full of stories of women being used and abused, or shifty, conniving and untrustworthy (Delilah?) or offered up for abuse to assuage men's rage (Lot's daughters) and satisfy debts. It really ain't a stretch to see how these bible-believing women could come to believe themselves to be unworthy.
As important as it may be to take a close look at the 53% and try to understand how their belief system impacts their voting, it's just as important to look at so-called liberal women like Lena Dunham, Hillary Clinton, Camille Cosby and various Al Franken apologists, who have had great difficulty believing that men they know could possibly be rapists or sexual predators.
It's probably not worth asking how many of the women of the 53% have had a change in their perspective in the last year. It's not worth asking because the evidence is that there will be little movement from them. It is worth asking how many of the 47% are in the business of making excuses for men like John Conyers and Franken. How many of the 47% believe, to varying degrees, that their guy isn't as bad as those other guys who are obvs pervs?
We have to deal with the fact that a significant number of White women are (and have long been) willing to split hairs on odiousness, which kinda explains why this shit is at epidemic levels! (And yes, I'm putting this on White women. Go back and look at the chart above again. See where the sisters' support for Moore lies? Their collective name is Bennett and they collectively ain't in it. NWLs, this is on you.)
So the question has to be asked: what percentage of the 47% aren't quite as problematic as the 53% but are damn problematic anyway? Consider Lena Dunham, Hillary Clinton and Camille Cosby (the brown exception proving the rule) because these are women whose liberal bona fides are well known. And yet, Dunham defended her alleged rapist friend (publicly calling his accuser a liar I might add); Camille Cosby continues to stand by her man as did Hillary clinging to the gossamer thin 'innocent until proven guilty' shield. (I also observe that Matt Lauer's wife, a Dutch woman, is alleged however to have decamped for her pays natale, entirely over Lauer's odiosity is she. One might almost be inclined to ask why American women tolerate that which other women find intolerable. Might almost be inclined to ask.....but that's an essay for another day)
While the 53% may believe in an established subordinate place for women that makes liberal women cringe, the 47% are not without sins of their own.
The 53% may hold to a belief system premised upon a woman's being unfit for leadership, and women's general second-classedness in all things, but liberal women have been known to be complicit in the wrong-doing of their men and I'm not sure that that's much better. I could whip out my plantation wives references here, but nope not today. I could reference the women of the KKK but nope, not today. I could draw a correlation between the White women of the suffrage movement, but again, nope. Or maybe I could spare a thought for the role of White women in lynching - either from the perspective of causing the lynchings (Carolyn Holloway Bryant Donham, my favorite whipping girl) or the perspective of the wondrous celebratory events that lynchings became - but nah, not today.
White women - conservative and liberal - have been picking sides and splitting decency hairs for generations. The sexual predation stories of the past several weeks are only another piece of the infinite and complicated puzzle that is American history.
What is becoming clear to me is that we're in a lot of f--king trouble.We are not moving the needle enough or nearly fast enough. The problems within the 47% are the proof of that.
We truly shouldn't be having so much difficulty in separating ugly acts from the potential good a particular candidate/individual represents. But then, if we couldn't do it last November, why the hell would we be able to do it now? How have we changed or grown in the intervening span of time? (Answer: not a whole lot.)
US history is clear: we've never done the amount of growing required to root out ugliness. We're just too lazy to do it. Worse still, we're too seduced by the dual mythologies of American Exceptionalism and "America is great because America is good", as I heard candidate Clinton say during the campaign season. Growth begins with an acknowledgement of shortcomings and neither of our favorite mythologies allows for acknowledgement of past (or present) wrongdoings. We. Ain't. There. Yet. Or probably evah.
We shun the light of truth. We hate the manure of self-reflection. We. Do. Not. Grow. Or when we do, we call it political correctnes and kvetch about it until we find a politician who is one minute away from calling someone like me a n*gger with all the baggage that word carries.
Call me a liar. Prove me wrong. Grow. Lemme see ya. I dare ya.
Like I said, we're in a lot of f--king trouble.
Some might be inclined to say it's a moment precipitated by Harvey Weinstein, but I'm not entirely sure that that's accurate. I'm far more likely to say that we're in a moment occasioned by the irreconcilable differences between the 53% and the 47%.
Which 53%? You know the ones, the 53% of White women (WW) who blithely voted for a pussy grabber and his trusty sidekick the quiet misogynist; the 53% some small number of whom later took to the streets in droves in pink pussy hats or did they? Is there any overlap between the 53% and the pink pussy-hatted posse?
How many of the 53% of WW who held their noses and voted for the kasually kleptocratic kakistocracy of DJT are now railing against pussy and tittie grabbers in all spheres? Is there one? Are there perhaps two? A dozen? A few?
How many of the 53% who voted eagerly because Jesus sent us Donald, are now just as eager to vote for an alleged pedophile?
As it turns out, a whole damn lot.
From the look of Roy Moore's numbers with evangelical women in Alabama, it is clear that the idea of male predation does not compute with them. Why is that? What is it about what they're learning in church, in their literal reading and understanding of the Bible that leads them to this place? What is it about what's being preached from the pulpits of various evangelical churches that makes room for a belief in their own unworthiness? Starting with the story of Eve, the b*tch who got humanity kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the Bible is chock full of stories of women being used and abused, or shifty, conniving and untrustworthy (Delilah?) or offered up for abuse to assuage men's rage (Lot's daughters) and satisfy debts. It really ain't a stretch to see how these bible-believing women could come to believe themselves to be unworthy.
As important as it may be to take a close look at the 53% and try to understand how their belief system impacts their voting, it's just as important to look at so-called liberal women like Lena Dunham, Hillary Clinton, Camille Cosby and various Al Franken apologists, who have had great difficulty believing that men they know could possibly be rapists or sexual predators.
It's probably not worth asking how many of the women of the 53% have had a change in their perspective in the last year. It's not worth asking because the evidence is that there will be little movement from them. It is worth asking how many of the 47% are in the business of making excuses for men like John Conyers and Franken. How many of the 47% believe, to varying degrees, that their guy isn't as bad as those other guys who are obvs pervs?
We have to deal with the fact that a significant number of White women are (and have long been) willing to split hairs on odiousness, which kinda explains why this shit is at epidemic levels! (And yes, I'm putting this on White women. Go back and look at the chart above again. See where the sisters' support for Moore lies? Their collective name is Bennett and they collectively ain't in it. NWLs, this is on you.)
So the question has to be asked: what percentage of the 47% aren't quite as problematic as the 53% but are damn problematic anyway? Consider Lena Dunham, Hillary Clinton and Camille Cosby (the brown exception proving the rule) because these are women whose liberal bona fides are well known. And yet, Dunham defended her alleged rapist friend (publicly calling his accuser a liar I might add); Camille Cosby continues to stand by her man as did Hillary clinging to the gossamer thin 'innocent until proven guilty' shield. (I also observe that Matt Lauer's wife, a Dutch woman, is alleged however to have decamped for her pays natale, entirely over Lauer's odiosity is she. One might almost be inclined to ask why American women tolerate that which other women find intolerable. Might almost be inclined to ask.....but that's an essay for another day)
While the 53% may believe in an established subordinate place for women that makes liberal women cringe, the 47% are not without sins of their own.
The 53% may hold to a belief system premised upon a woman's being unfit for leadership, and women's general second-classedness in all things, but liberal women have been known to be complicit in the wrong-doing of their men and I'm not sure that that's much better. I could whip out my plantation wives references here, but nope not today. I could reference the women of the KKK but nope, not today. I could draw a correlation between the White women of the suffrage movement, but again, nope. Or maybe I could spare a thought for the role of White women in lynching - either from the perspective of causing the lynchings (Carolyn Holloway Bryant Donham, my favorite whipping girl) or the perspective of the wondrous celebratory events that lynchings became - but nah, not today.
White women - conservative and liberal - have been picking sides and splitting decency hairs for generations. The sexual predation stories of the past several weeks are only another piece of the infinite and complicated puzzle that is American history.
What is becoming clear to me is that we're in a lot of f--king trouble.We are not moving the needle enough or nearly fast enough. The problems within the 47% are the proof of that.
We truly shouldn't be having so much difficulty in separating ugly acts from the potential good a particular candidate/individual represents. But then, if we couldn't do it last November, why the hell would we be able to do it now? How have we changed or grown in the intervening span of time? (Answer: not a whole lot.)
US history is clear: we've never done the amount of growing required to root out ugliness. We're just too lazy to do it. Worse still, we're too seduced by the dual mythologies of American Exceptionalism and "America is great because America is good", as I heard candidate Clinton say during the campaign season. Growth begins with an acknowledgement of shortcomings and neither of our favorite mythologies allows for acknowledgement of past (or present) wrongdoings. We. Ain't. There. Yet. Or probably evah.
We shun the light of truth. We hate the manure of self-reflection. We. Do. Not. Grow. Or when we do, we call it political correctnes and kvetch about it until we find a politician who is one minute away from calling someone like me a n*gger with all the baggage that word carries.
Call me a liar. Prove me wrong. Grow. Lemme see ya. I dare ya.
Like I said, we're in a lot of f--king trouble.
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