Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

Your wife otm tho, a woman's safety is the most important thing

well yeah of course, I was just surprised how she was v dismissive of the video being made at all, she was very "eh dgaf, not important". Granted she is a hardened citybilly and mother of two and I'm sure she a) doesn't get it as much as she did when she was younger and b) has been dealing w it for so long that it no longer phases her/she's not even aware of it

many xxp

i feel like i'm under pressure to say that something that had a 80% probability of occurring actually 100% happened and can be stated as a fact. and that's frustrating, especially when there are many other constructive things that can be said (and have been) without venturing into the land of assumptions. if somehow there was a way to prove this one way or another, i would certainly make a bet that Bliss made racist editing decisions on purpose. for sure. based off of his background, and what he said, it seems more likely than not. but having a hunch about something is different than knowing for sure.

but if i'm in contenderizer territory i must have made major mistakes somewhere along the way, so i'll just stfu.

Patriarchy and street harassment are real, scary, and dangerous. It doesn’t take a graduate degree in gender studies to understand that calling out and making comments about strangers passing on the street is not positive social behavior. It’s an exercise of male dominance and power that can easily lead to threats of violence and assault. But so too are the media images and narratives that single out “blackness” as its own threat to white security, selectively culling and dismissing the behavior of everyone else, are their own exercise of white supremacy.
They contribute to the illusion that black criminality and threats are present on every street corner, they justify the biased policing of brown and black male bodies, and they reinforce age-old myths about black hyper-sexuality and lasciviousness. Furthermore, they marginalize the experiences of black and brown women in the very same spaces.
Let’s end street harassment, for sure—but let’s do it for all of us.

That's from http://qz.com/289449/women-of-color-are-upset-over-the-catcalling-video-but-not-why-you-think/

Sorry on phone so can't format better

oh good a "not why you think" article.

That's a great article!

i feel like i'm under pressure to say that something that had a 80% probability of occurring actually 100% happened and can be stated as a fact. and that's frustrating, especially when there are many other constructive things that can be said (and have been) without venturing into the land of assumptions. if somehow there was a way to prove this one way or another, i would certainly make a bet that Bliss made racist editing decisions on purpose. for sure. based off of his background, and what he said, it seems more likely than not. but having a hunch about something is different than knowing for sure.

but if i'm in contenderizer territory i must have made major mistakes somewhere along the way, so i'll just stfu.

I'm not talking about intent. I'm talking about the artifact he produced, reviewed, and decided to put out to the world. I understand that deflection drives part of my objection, but I don't think it drives all of it.

in reference to white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy and what io and b. bell have been saying so clearly here, it's a problem when one point of that triangle is singled out using the other(s) as leverage (the transactional concept io brings up) (+ intent is a moot point!), that's a zero sum game, and the problem is not discussion about why that's a problem.

and djp too.

i feel like i'm under pressure to say that something that had a 80% probability of occurring actually 100% happened

Yeah but it doesnt feel right does it? sure its not 100% certain and you cant prove it, but it doesnt sit right. why is your first inclination to defend this person, to look for 'well maybe the equipment wasnt so good that day", even though 80% of you thinks thats not really true. I understand wanting a higher percentage in your mind before criticizing, but what is it thats making you sign your name to flimsy excuses you don't seem convinced of even yourself, to defend a guy that you've no real reason to align yourself with. This is what is confusing to me

do you need 100% proof that a guy that pushes you out of the way on the subway is kind of a dick, or well it could be he has problems with spacial awareness

One thing I hope doesn't get lost in all of this is that catcalling sucks and dudes really need to reacquaint themselves with the concept of "death by a thousand papercuts" before getting all "what, you can't even say 'hello'?" defensive.

such a t-bomb. and great posts from b. bell. the idea of a white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy from bell hooks keeps echoing around in my head wrt all this. the proof is around/in us all the time.

― mattresslessness, Friday, October 31, 2014 4:49 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you thank you! I was just talking it over w one of my anti-street harassment community org sisters last night and that distillation came to me. I was trying to see La Lechera's point about effectiveness and the basic truths that resonate w people and their right to feel that validation and be part of something but where does the responsibility actually lie and why do I care so much? In a way that is as simple as possible. And boom. :D

xp I am not even talking to those guys anymore, I did that for most of yesterday and I was SO REASONABLE AND CALM and I am done.

I understand the point about being pragmatic, but when responses to racism basically boil down to "but we need to figure out how to make this argument more ~palatable~ to white people" it just makes me feel like such a fundamental point has been missed. This is not about ~sparing out feelings~. It's about acknowledging our part in something which is larger than just us.

I'm not sure if you can ever get the message that acts can be racist without racist intentions accepted and understood unless you uncouple it, to some extent, from the broadly accepted message that overtly racist acts are socially unacceptable, though. It's not simply soft-peddling a hard truth that could otherwise be made more effective with forceful delivery, it's explaining the very basic point that 'i didn't mean it to be racist' doesn't mean it wasn't racist to people who have no conception of that reality.

The starting point you're working with (and correct me if i'm wrong) is that most / all white people are both personally racist and complicit in broader systems of racist oppression but can make an effort to educate themselves and limit (but not necessarily remove entirely) the negative effects. Act stemming from those failings are by definition racist but are not necessarily de facto evidence of any greater personal shortcomings than exist in the man on the Clapham omnibus. Focusing on the individual and not the act isn't helpful. That's probably true but that's not the starting point that most people are currently working with.

The video maker may be overtly racist, there's a case to be made for that on the evidence available, so may not be the best example here, but the broader idea that the benefit of the doubt should be extended on malicious intent but that this doesn't mean removing racism from the agenda when that intent's not there, or not proven, seems like the best way to start most conversations around grey areas.

tl:dr but the gist is that the failure to distinguish between overt and systematic /endemic racism makes it's harder to convince a lot of people that systematic / endemic racism exists.

The problem with this video is that even though it claims to speak for the experience of all women, the women who are disproportionately affected by street harassment are nowhere to be seen. If this video had featured a woman of color, one who belonged to the LGBTQ community, there would have been a better representation of what the most common victims of harassment actually face. But who knows if a video like that would have garnered as much sympathy, or as many donations? Well, Hollaback probably knows, which is exactly why they endorsed this white-washed version rather than depicting a day in the life of someone who is far more likely to be victimized.

Don't think this Brooklyn Mag article has been shared here yet? But the above conclusion seems very otm to me.

Love that. My friend just said last night that she felt it was financially motivated and extra gross when she saw the appeal for donations at the end, which tbh I had just ignored so hard I didn't even notice it.

Yeah but it doesnt feel right does it? sure its not 100% certain and you cant prove it, but it doesnt sit right. why is your first inclination to defend this person, to look for 'well maybe the equipment wasnt so good that day", even though 80% of you thinks thats not really true. I understand wanting a higher percentage in your mind before criticizing, but what is it thats making you sign your name to flimsy excuses you don't seem convinced of even yourself, to defend a guy that you've no real reason to align yourself with. This is what is confusing to me

do you need 100% proof that a guy that pushes you out of the way on the subway is kind of a dick, or well it could be he has problems with spacial awareness

i think there is plenty of indisputable evidence of Bliss' background of assholeishness, and plenty of indisputable reasons to criticize the end result of the video (the racial inbalance), and that it's very useful to draw connections between these two things. that's already a powerful argument! my problem is extending that stance to headnod along with everyone else that since there's a good chance that he acted intentionally, and he is definitely a dick and the final product has a racial imbalance, then therefore we should all agree that he certainly acted intentionally. why do that? why venture off into making up facts? why not stick with what's already certain, which is already damning for Bliss? i just don't get it, sorry.

also although my first reaction to getting told to stfu is to stfu and hate myself for the rest of the month, since i'm already pissing everyone off i may as well continue the trend by saying it's a really shitty thing to tell someone that they're not allowed to engage in a conversation about something. it makes sense if someone is straight up trolling, so if that's how i'm coming across then i deeply apologize. i realize (PAINFULLY REALIZE) that whether or not he did it intentionally or not ultimately doesn't matter, so i apologize for making that aspect of it more prominent than it needs to be. but i thought it was pretty non-controversial to say that no one can actually prove that he had a bunch of footage and edited it out. but hey, since he probably did it, then he did it. let's just round up to "100% certain", facts don't really matter.

Buddddddddy, I don't think you're trolling and I like you a lot. I think you are WAY over-inspecting something because something about it makes you uncomfortable and you want to turn away the full point of the argument against it, even if you can only splinter off a little bit of it, it seems like a "win." That kind of rhetorical hair-splitting is something we know well around here and we've probably all done it. It's just your turn today. We still love you.

I just wanna echo something that in orbit said above.

Things I've been saying are not my original ideas; I did not come up with them on mine own. These are ideas that I have heard from (and in some cases discussed with) Women of Colour, and I want to acknowledge their role in shaping - and relearning - my thoughts on these issues. Most of them are women I follow on twitter through a shared interest in music or pop culture, who have opened my eyes - J., Rana, Chitra, Bim, Reni and others. These ideas come from blogosphere people like Sara Ahmed and Flavia Dzodan. These ideas come from reading books by bell hooks and Angela Y Davis and a primer on Black Feminist Thought which included many other writers (like Audrey Lorde) whose works are harder to find in the UK. They come from blogs like Gradient Lair and Racalicious and Crunk Feminist Collective. And many other tweeters and writers whose names are escaping me right now but whose words and experiences are cycled constantly by the labour of women of colour. These are their ideas, I am not claiming them as mine own.

It's not that I don't appreciate a shout-out from mattresslessness, it's that I am not the one who deserves it. I agree with these arguments, I support them - and I am also painfully aware that as a white woman, I am far more likely to be listened to by white men than women of colour are.

Also who the fuck cares what his intentions were? I don't. The product he created is racist, it is undeniably influenced by unexamined racist beliefs whether the creator knowingly espouses them or not. Okay. No one cares. The influence of the product is to increase inequality, or to privilege one kind of "equality" against another kind in a perceived zero-sum game. That's shitty anti-oppression work. If anti-oppression struggle is your job and you put out that, you're doing a bad job at your job. Do better.

but i thought it was pretty non-controversial to say that no one can actually prove that he had a bunch of footage and edited it out.

http://gothamist.com/2014/10/30/how_the_100_catcalls_in_10_hours_st.php

Directly from his own statement:

Was any street harassment footage cut out of the edit? So in total, we had by my estimates 108 street harassments that took place during the shoot. Of that, we got both the quality audio and video we needed to have a scene, for roughly 30 to 40 scenes. The drop off came mostly through the difficulty of this shoot. Not only did we need quality in both pieces, but we frequently missed a shot because of noise, people standing in front of the camera, technical issues (batteries dying, for example), rain/wind, etc.

Since this video was also meant to serve as a viral video, it needed to be short due to internet audience attention spans. So we whittled away at this until we had the video just a tick under two minutes. This left us with just 20 scenes total, 18 of which have someone visible on camera.

[...]

Do you have a response to the race comments/criticisms? I think the biggest misconception here is not understanding how inaccurate a sample size of 18 people is going to be, out of the tens of thousands of cat calls that happen. For example, the two dudes that stalk her, they alone account for 50% of the video, wildly swinging the scales with just two guys. What if they were Italian, or Russian? Does that mean that we're saying or implying that 50% of Italians are responsible for cat calling?

The biggest problem is people are acting like this is a survey, and there's no way anyone would trust such a survey of 18 people, especially with two people making up half the vote. There's no way that's going to be accurate. Like, there's no Asian men in this video either, are we saying that Asians don't catcall? People are drawing way too broad of conclusions. We filmed for a short period of time, we captured a few dozen interactions, and since we knew that they wouldn't necessarily represent the full demographics, we talk at the end of the video about how people from all backgrounds catcalled during our shoot.

Also I can even walk you through it, but there were 6 or 7 white guys in this video that catcalled, that's 33% to 40% percent. It's tricky picking everyone out because all their faces are blurred, which has only lead to more confusion. Additionally, their scenes were short, where those two guys who were non-white, they alone ate up half the video. So the run times yes, heavily portray blacks/Latinos, but the actual number count is much closer. And that's the problem with a 18 person sample size, inaccurate results, which is why this video shouldn't be treated like a survey.

So, by dude's admission, he had usable footage of 30-40 incidents, which was edited down to the video we saw. We don't know the ethnicity of the people whose takes weren't usable and we don't know the ethnicity of the people he decided to cut. We do know the ethnicity of the people he decided to include and particularly the two he chose to highlight, and the impression formed about the video from that decision. So yes, we do know that he edited dudes out, and even if you carry the actual demographics of the guys in the video over to the ones who were cut as opposed to the impact demographics, you can extrapolate that a significant number of them were white. At a bare minimum, it's unlikely to me anyway that ALL of them were non-white.

thanks for posting that DJP, i didn't know that there were more extensive comments available (don't think Slate linked to them)

how was the camera set up? it also stands to reason that they missed the white guys in their shot because they were out there to capture footage that fit their assumptions and never really aimed the camera at white men

it was literally fixed on a backpack, so no

lol

this shit goes deeper than benghazi

(that is a joke btw)

B
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G
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Also I can even walk you through it, but there were 6 or 7 white guys in this video that catcalled, that's 33% to 40% percent.
Z
I

you jest, but I have actually seen internet comments to the effect of accusing the video of having been faked

but can you PROVE that it hasn't? because unless you can prove with 100% certainty that *death by tomato pelting*

hahaha

the meter was redefined so that the speed of light, stated as 299,792,458 m/s, is 100% accurate, i.e. there are no more significant digits. We only need to redefine '100% racist' wrt this video to be certain that the video is '100% racist'. in other news, there are now halloween costumes that are 2 million % racist.

I saw this one comment that was like "I used to work in a TV news crew and I know for a fact that there is no way to get that steady a shot with a hidden camera, you need a very expensive device called a STEADICAM."

Think it's a pretty standard post-processing techinque to be able to minimize camera shake

U can post process that shit

uh sorry 龜. zing touch.

yeah also I kind of wanted to say "maybe tech has changed a bit since you worked in tv news old man"

it sounds like he went to Tech Day and maybe believed everything that the representative from Steadicam Corp told him

Well, there's this:
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/10/is-catcalling-racist-harrassment/

(misleading URL btw)

Hey, as long as it's a slow day in this thread :/ ... seems this play (and the two segments to follow) might constitute an important epic in our epoch. I'm seeing it in a couple weeks:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/10/theater-review-father-comes-home-from-the-wars.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/theater/father-comes-home-from-the-wars-by-suzan-lori-parks-at-the-public-theater.html

This sounds fascinating and so wholly dependent upon cast/director synergy in order to work that I can't imagine it being performed after this initial run.

Well, I saw the play she won the Pulitzer for about 12 (gasp) years ago, and I don't know if it's had much of a touring / collegiate life? Mos Def was in it.

I'd semi-expect it could transfer to Broadway once this sold-out run is over, but even August Wilson's plays were pretty spotty in that regard, and things are significantly worse for original plays w/out movie stars there now.

karl, i feel for you in this thread

Gradient Lair and Racalicious and Crunk Feminist Collective

All of the above plus bad dominicana,she is the bossssss

sorry to reopen a can of worms, but i wanted to put this set of tweets in here but i couldn't find them again until now:

https://twitter.com/tgirlinterruptd/status/527489366935875584

seen together with this nonsense:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/10/31/do-we-need-a-law-against-catcalling/street-harassment-law-would-restrict-intimidating-behavior

yet another instance where Official Feminism/Liberalism need to think a little harder about law enforcement

that would be a very, very difficult law to draft reasonably

Criminalization is a terrible failure of an idea, not least because when has criminalizing something ever changed the conditions that lead to it happening?? Plus the obvious racialized costs via the overpolicing of Black & brown people and communities that I've already talked about above.

I'm really hoping that the Hb video has been SO BADLY received in some sectors that it will force a confrontation with SSH and Hb's horrible race politics and slow down/stop the move to legislate against street harassment.