Mysogyny

Sarah Palin is right : They're cowards and jerks

For feminists and progressives it's really easy to criticize Sarah Palin. She has a horrid record of defending reproductive rights for women. She sees nothing wrong with abusing her power as governor of Alaska. She has a record of taking gifts and expensive favors from lobbyists and political allies.

What's worse : It's no secret she was not chosen for her knowledge of national domestic or foreign policy and politics. The woman was not vetted properly because she was not crowned the GOPs beauty queen for her knowledge or experience. She was chosen for being a good looking Christian Nationalist that would "turn on" the theocratic faction of the GOPs "base". And it doesn't hurt she actively sold herself to the neo-con hacks desperate to slap some lipstick on the ever ugly Republican Party pig.

Yet all those negatives were pushed aside by the GOP operatives, Bill Krystol included, who sold Sarah Palin as a viable Vice-President to John McCain. All those hacks squabbled over Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and McCain's own pick Joe Lieberman. They wouldn't have any of them.

After a less than 2 hour meeting, McCain and his campaign and party hacks chose her. No drama involved just a cold and calculated political decision. They had more experienced and better qualified women to go after the "Hillary Vote", yet they made her their political beauty queen as the last "Hail Mary" pass they had up their sleeve.

And it worked --at least for a little. McCain's announcement right after the DNC Convention and Obama's speech took all the thunder away from him. The media went ga-ga and so did the 70% of forlorn Republicans who didn't vote for McCain during the primaries he none the less won.

Then Katie Couric happened. Strike One : The woman was a disaster.

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Sarah Palin : A lipsticked pitbull that's a scaredy cat with the press

The LA Times reports that La Palin is being embargoed by the McCain campaign on account of the republicanos not believing it is in their best interest to have her speaking to the press. In other words, they're afraid she's going to make a mistake as Todd Harris says in the video above; because she is not ready to give her opinion on anything a Vice-President could conceivably be involved as co-pilot of the President of the United States.

This is supposedly the woman who will be a heartbeat away from the presidency and who could most possibly succeed in office the 72 year-old John McCain. This is not just another GOP and John McCain strategic blunder. It is down right scary anybody would think this woman is ready to be POTUS.

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When crying "MISOGYNY" becomes a campaign strategy

The Black Monkey vs. The White Bitch

We must be on the dawn of another primary election. The Clinton supporters are screaming "MISOGYNY" and with it, another chapter in the The Opression Olympics is ready to unfold. And lest one of the big newspapers takes their thunder away, The Huffington Post is there to unleash the "un-bitter" straw(o)man :

Sexism is alive and well in America.

One exit poll I saw had almost twice as many voters having trouble voting for a woman for president than voting for a black man.

Oh kaaaay. Where do I begin? Let's start with the truthiness here : One exit poll I saw had almost twice as many voters having trouble voting for a woman for president than voting for a black man.

Ok, I'll bite : Which exit poll was that? Which company did the exit poll? Which were the questions? Where was the poll conducted? Was it in New York City's Harlem or was it in the heart of Appalachia?

In other words, enquiring minds want to know where is the data and how did you interpret it. Because I am going to bet there has been no poll asking the hard questions like : "Would you vote for a black before you vote for a white woman?"

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POP QUIZ : What is wrong with Marie Cocco's "Misogyny I Won't Miss"?

"Bitch Is The New Black" squealed Tina Fey on SNL and this black feminist didn't find it at all funny. Actually, I thought the squeal had a tinge to white supremacy in it.

So now we have Marie Cocco at the Washington Post saying this :

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

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OJ Simpson may finally go to prison

Not all black and/or colored people in this country believed the very black OJ Simpson was "not guilty" in the death of his very white ex-wife, Nicole Brown. I believe he conspired to kill the mother of his children. I also believe was physically involved in the scene of the crime --if not during, then after the deed was done. Even though I believe he got away with murder in ways more Shakespearean that I would care to count, what I do agree with everybody who says the OJ Simpson murder trial was historic.

First, it gave the common person a closer look at the criminal justice system. It taught more than a few people the nuances of being tried for murder vis a vis manslaughter or homicide. There's no going back to trial once aquitted for murder; a painful realization to the millions who thought trying OJ Simpson on that count was a good idea.

Yet the most important lesson learned by the Simpson trial was how far the United States was socially from the days of "To kill a mockingbird". Why? The OJ Simpson trial proved that money and infuence can indeed a black man a "not guilty" verdict.

Which is why, when I read of Mr. Simpson's being held in a county jail without bail, I couldn't help but feel that justice, although deferred, will finally be served. OJ Simpson is waiting looking down the barrel of 30 years in prison for, of all things, stealing "back" his own football memoribilia from associates he claims were going to sell it without his consent.

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Listen to this : Avery, Baratunde and me on NPRs "News and Notes" Blogger Roundtable

Little by little I am getting more media traction and, quite frankly, I am down with that. I am going to post about a TV appearance I made on NY-ABC about two weeks ago but right now I am going to point to you to Farai Chideya's show on NPR, "News and Notes". I was on the show's Blogger Roundtable with Baratunde Thursoton in NYC and Avery Tooley in Washington DC shooting the breeze on the black elite's split between Obama and Hillary, on how Obama is redefining blackness and, more somberly, on the LaVena Johson case.

These 20 minutes are, by far, the funnest I have had in a loooong time. I used to be a voice over artist and, quite frankly, if I had to choose between being in front of a camera or microphone and typing, I would go for the talking --because its easier on the body. And as I said that, I still have my issues when it comes to on-camera work, but that's topic for a whole 'nother post.

Click To Play

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Afghani girl for sale at The New York Times

Ugh.

If there ever was a big media juxtapotion of capitalist imperialism and mysogyny this has got to be the one.

This particular portrait haunts me. Not because there is anything wrong with the girl, but because there is everything wrong with making her a piece of exotica.

She may elicit comparisons with the madonnas of the Renaissance; but I feel our Afghani girl was shot to look more like a pre-Raphaelite painting. Check out especially the ladies created by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

With their dreams of brotherhoods, medievalist fantasies and nymph fetish, the pre-Raphaelites artists can be considered one of the most anti-women aesthetic movements of European. I would like to make the point that it is particularly mysogynist exactly because their style was meant to represent women as precious objects.

So when I look at this ironic juxtaposition at The New York Times, I read it not just as a joke. Looking at it closely it speaks volumes about the way in which Americans not only regard women but 'foreign' or colored women.

Call it the Pier 1 Imports effect.

Anything that is not the 'mainstream' American culture or looks like is treated by the purveyors of 'haute taste' as a commodity, as another tradeable piece of furniture or accessory of interior decor.