Thursday, November 15, 2007

Call for Racist, Sexist, Absurd Comments!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a comment thread became a screenplay or comic strip - like an actual script, except it's based on real-life comments, opinions, and people?

That's my latest baby and here's a sneak peak at the parody I'm creating:

Say It Ain't So Feminism:
True Comments from
True Blogs from
Supposedly True Feminists

If you have any links (and I mean any) to comments, threads, posts that have made you just scream, laugh, or kill over its absurd arrogance, racism, or ignorance POST THEM IN THIS COMMENT THREAD or EMAIL ME! Help a sistah out!

28 comments:

  1. Well, I actually have a PERFECT thread. It was just posted at Orcinus and I quoted and copied it over at my blog (atlasien.blogspot.com). You'll fall in love with "Wes", I promise you.

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  2. Anonymous1:40 PM

    So looking forward to this project!
    Here are some of my latest.... over to the oh so lovely Daniel:

    http://deviousdiva.com/2007/11/02/street-children/#comment-47452

    and DeathToCommunism

    http://deviousdiva.com/2007/11/02/street-children/#comment-48078

    oh and this thread was fun (it was the result of much amusement had at my expense)

    Sorry, I have to rush now but if you want more email me and I'll look through my vast archives of a*@#ole comments.

    Really, really looking forward to this one! Did I say that already?

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  3. well jeez, how much time do you have?
    what about posts in forums where you have to be a member?

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  4. Mhm, about two weeks would be my time frame. And about posts in forums...I'm not sure how this would work. Could you cut and paste? Or does that violate someone's confidentiality or something?

    Let me know because I'd love to read what you have, Hermana...

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  5. Does age of comment matter? Would you prefer to avoid stuff from big blog wars or are those fine?

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  6. Big wars, small battles, side comments, chats - anything that has been said in public over the internet I am looking for!

    This project does not discriminate against age :) And the bigger blog war, the better!

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  7. lots here (not the OP/author, obviously, the subject matter). be sure to check the comments as well...

    similarly, some choice comments rounded up here

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  8. Does it have to be feminists? Or can it be liberals in general? Because most of the worst comments and obvious ignorant stupidity I know of has been said on those blogs like FDL, Kos, etc although the feminists definitely have their moments much of the time it's a bit more iffy. Like most of what Sara said to BfP during the burqa firestorm at Women of Color. She was mostly using the "give us white folks the benefit of the doubt" argument, which is obvious to WOC why it's ignorant and problematic, but not so much to many of the white people...blindness of privilege and all that.

    The one that always comes to mind for me is what TRex said to Liza during the Clinton blogger lunch fiasco.
    So, Liza, dear, before you go assailing your betters and making Jane stand in for every blond white woman who ever pissed you off, maybe you should head back to eighth grade English and, you know, learn to spell and to write in a linear fashion.

    He has since altered the original, after millions of comments finally convinced him that, gosh, telling a black/latina to know her place might be a tad racist. But the original can be found at Feministe here if you need a link.
    http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2006/09/16/3764/

    Also the Kos, 'women's studies set' pie fight comment is a classic of ignorance and sexism.

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  9. Hmmm I assumed the link would automatically be clickable. Since it's not, I'll do it, at Feministe: Know Your Place.

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  10. Two words: book covers.

    Okay more specific: Valenti. Marcotte.

    (And let's not forget Donna's own rockinroundup!)

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  11. Ren asked if witchy woo's comment at her place in this threadis what you're looking for.

    If you need short and punchy, you could use this part: "As the manager of a Women's Refuge (shelter) there's no way I'd accept a pornography performer as a volunteer"

    While there is so much wrong in the comment, that one struck me as the worst of it. Ren was volunteering at a domestic violence shelter, not doing porn there! What difference does it make what she does away from the shelter? They need volunteers to do the work necessary and she was a pair of hands ready and willing to do that work, not there recruiting people into porn or whatever stupidity that ww thought her "different agenda" was.

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  12. Does it have to be bloggers/commenters too? Because I just thought of Elizabeth Edwards, "We can’t make John black, we can’t make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fundraising dollars." and Rosie O'Donnell, "Ching chong. Danny DeVito, ching chong, chong, chong, chong. Drunk. The View. Ching chong."

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  13. First post in this thread about the Tabasco flooding

    Twisty's infamous "Any Excuse to Denigrate Lipstick" post, featuring enough transphobia to fill a ... something really big. Especially every post by LuckyNkl. I can e-mail specific quotes.

    This discussion on Sexual Ambiguities, specifically Rainsong's post in which she compares Emily presenting herself as a woman to a white blogger presenting herself in blackface.

    This discussion on Rachel's Tavern which refers back to a Feministe thread. The central comment from ekittyglendower fits right in, but there's also Heart coming in later:

    What is ignored here (and elsewhere) is women’s lack of agency. ALL women’s. We didn’t end up where we are in the world because we set sail and sailed somewhere, became business owners or government officials, installed our own leaders and governments. We were dragged, enslaved, as chattel, against our will to wherever we ended up. This is relevant.

    The sheer appropriation in this paragraph is pointed out several times in the ensuing replies.

    I'll see if I can come up with more later.

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  14. WOW - these links are great. Thanks so much! This is broadening my ideas. For now, don't worry if they are from "feminist" sites or not. Just send me any links that fit the criteria. Once I sift through everything, I'll see what fits and what doesn't. Thanks again and keep them coming!

    I know there's so much out there. It'll be a test to my patience to read through everything, but I'm looking forward to it.

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  15. So you're starting an RSS feed from "I Blame the Patriarchy", then? *grin*

    Not IBTP-related, I found this truly appalling quote via Bastante Already:

    "Gender identity discrimination is NOT the same thing as discrimination because one does not meet gender stereotypes. Transgender advocates should conflating them for their own purposes and should stop co-opting my life to push their agenda. If transgender advocates don’t think that their lives are enough to support their own political agenda, I’m sorry, but that’s their problem. They don’t get to take over my life for their ends."

    I wonder if they'd accept the same rationale from a man of color refusing to blog about the issues of women of color or recognize them as allies in anti-racist work, because they go their own way on the subject of gender? Something tells me not.

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  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  17. This one still hurts me to read. I'm the commenter "Donna in WI", this was before I had a blog. I was a regular reader and occasional commenter at the Mahablog until that comments thread. (Also notice she tells Bint Alshamsa that she, Bint, is a racist. Yes, the reverse racism card gets played.)
    My Cause is My Country

    I did a call out for submissions here and it's funny to me that I didn't even think to look in my own archives for material, but Kai did!

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  18. Heh, Oolon - I like later in that thread when a lawyer drops in and says that a gender-inclusive ENDA wouldn't touch any rights women already have, and Heart responds that she'd like to hear from other lawyers, especially those who disagree. Because Heart doesn't want that to be the case, she wants to be victimized by transgender politics, which are axiomatic in their badness.

    Dredging up transphobic quotes is like panning for rocks instead of gold, though. :( They're everywhere.

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  19. Donna, I read that thread. All I could think as I followed the trainwreck was "this went off the rails when Maha made the controversy about her."

    It's like a veritable cornucopia of white magic.

    Sudy, I copied Donna and posted your request to my blog as well.

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  20. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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  21. Anonymous12:33 AM

    after reading that 'my cause is my country' nonsense, i have a couple thoughts:

    1. bintshams is the shit!
    2. donna's comments should be their own article.
    3. this is hilarious (...almost): "Why won’t one person of color answer me? What if Bill Clinton just thinks the black bloggers in question blogs /writing sucks?What if certain people are just not viewed to be as good of writers as those who were invited.Why do you dismiss that possibility???"

    and i hope noemi emailed you about the webforum thing she mentioned. it def belongs, and it connects shared experiences of WOC bloggers and zinesters.

    xoxo

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  22. Bint Alshamsa is indeed wonderful. :)

    I know I said I didn't want to overfarm the transphobia, but I had to quote this post by Minerva on Alas, a Blog:

    Social construction begins in infancy.

    My position is not that transpeople suck. My position is that your ideology and account of yourselves is defective. You are defining yourselves through something that doesn’t exist in nature but is a creation of patriarchy. That’s your point of self definition. It’s defintion. It’s a mythology and nothing more. You can’t Trans gender or be trangendered if there is no such thing as gender.

    Trans ideology, EXPLODES the mythology of gender as a noun. It doesn’t exist anywhere except in our heads like Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy. What I’m saying is that this entire idea of gender is ludicrous which is why there is no such being as a transperson. It’s a faulty, falacious account, and understanding and explanation of one’s condition.

    Nexy commented on asking about experiences. This is a poltical discussion and not an experiential one. Feminism is interested in the experiences of women not trans. It seems like a major reversal that nexy may think feminists should be interested in nexy’s experience given that the trans ideological account of extistence as annunciated here by trans advocates, is a reinforcement of the power structures oppressing women. That the account oppresses women, is something that must be must be denied and made inadmissable by trans ideology and there is an attempt here to look at each other and deny there is one while at the same time, that very idealogy is permeating this very discussion.


    That's right. She says feminist theory overrides lived experiences when they're inconvenient to feminism.

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  23. Wow, I somehow broke the link to Bint's blog.

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  24. Anonymous6:27 PM

    Thank you so much for doing this. I'll look for comments. I'll admit to an agenda - men trying to comment in these forums get a chilly reception at best.

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  25. Anonymous7:25 PM

    Okay I love you Sudy, but I have to disgree with the trans issue.

    This is an exercise in logic, it is not a rhetorical question.

    IF gender is an externally-applied social construct, THEN why do the TG's have to change their genitalia in order to express their internal character?

    No one ever answers that question, using logic. Either gender is a social construct, or it is not. If you attempt to use the argument that gender is an intersection of two or more seperate factors, then what are those specific factors?

    One problem is, and apparently I have to spell it out, is that FEMINISTS HAVE CLAIMED FOR YEARS THAT GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT.

    So the claim that 'gender identity is not a social construct' is a logical inconsistancy which must be addressed.

    The problem with automatically shouting 'biology' as the answer is that it only creates additional logical inconsistancies.

    Intersex (chromosome abnormality)is a medically recognized biological deformity. TG is a mental/physical discongruency. Please do not confuse the two.

    Homesexuality and heterosexuality are preferences for the genitalia of one's partner. TG is a preference for one's own genitalia. Please note the distinction.

    An opinion is not an argument; a personal experience is not an argument; wishful thinking is not an argument; claiming everybody does it is not an argument -- those are all justifications.

    The accusation that identity disorder is merely a fetishization of body parts is never addressed - dismissing, minimizing, distracting tactics are not logical arguments.

    Defensiveness is the usual reaction to upsetting ideas, and while that's understandable - that too is not an argument.

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  26. Anonymous7:38 PM

    By the way, if feminists keep avoiding discussing this with me, I am going to send my "sexism is inherent" proof to Glen Sacks, and you can discuss this with him.

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  27. Wow, it's ironic that Andrea came here, considering what I'm about to link.

    White Privilege on Andrea's blog. It's not anything Andrea said specifically, but rather posts like LuckyNkl's:

    "Yeah, white women have privilege all right. If all you anglo women consider having a bigger bullseye painted on your ass a privilege. **chuckle**"

    and

    "Yeah, JW, I do think it funny when white women go around thinking they’re privileged. And I think it sucks when you and some other woc try to exploit that naivety. I mean, what’s the purpose in doing that? To help white boys get their women back into the kitchen? How does that help you or any other woc?"

    There's some more material in that thread, Sudy. Check it out.

    Andrea, on the trans issue: Your comments are full of cissexual privilege. You don't understand trans people and you think that lack of understanding grants you a platform from which to criticize our decisions. You're trying to frame transsexualism in ways that places your theory on the same level as our lived experiences. You're also trying to frame transsexualism solely in terms of gender and its socially constructed nature, which further betrays your lack of understanding.

    If you want to learn about trans people, don't impose your negative beliefs about us on us and attack those, try shutting up and listening, just as you did with Justice Walks. Don't tell us what we think, or why we do what we do. Ask us, listen, and don't make our lives about your politics.

    I am not going to address this further on this post here in Sudy's blog. This is so not the place for trans 101.

    This thread on Feministe may answer some of your questions, however.

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