Today on 'THERE! I Said It! Shower Me With Approval!' Theater

Oh, sweet Nellie Bly Christ:

Are there certain conversations and observations that are off limits for certain people? Take this thing here, below. Is it racist, if I, a white girl, say it?

There is a crisis, to understate the matter, in the black community. About 75 percent (more in some cities) of black babies in the U.S. are born out-of-wedlock. That women should keep their legs closed until marriage is considered a naïve notion at best and a sexist/oppressive one at worst. Subversive is what it is.

Some people are offended by the expression "keep your legs closed." Is it vulgar? Perhaps, but so is having babies with several different men without being married to any of them.

Confession: I actually didn't say the above. LaShawn Barber, who is not an "African-American" woman, but a BLACK woman, did. I've read her stuff over the years, and I thought I would link to/post some of it -- after the 600ish comments I had around midnight Tuesday night, accusing me of being a racist for suggesting that black leaders should condemn the behavior of women like Tarika Wilson, and for my suggestion that being around drug dealers puts oneself and one's children at risk.

Wilson, for the uninitiated, is the Ohio woman who was accidentally shot in a police raid on her house. At 26, she'd already had six children in eight years with five different drug dealer "daddies," and had taken up with yet another drug dealer boyfriend.

Do you have a problem with that behavior? If not, why not?

Let me ask a different question. Do you have a problem with that behavior? If so, SO WHAT? Do you want a medal for your righteous moral stand? Do you want someone to nod his or her head vigorously and give you a round of applause? Seriously, gentlemen, what is our objective at this juncture?

Increasingly I find the neediness of conservatives so intensely tiresome. I find myself wanting to ask if what they're really after, what they really, really need, is some kind of document stipulating that they are the most moral, upright, righteous human beings on the planet, that we all bask and wonder in their glory, look up to them, and acknowledge their superiority. At this point, I'm willing to print something out that says YOU ARE THE BESTEST OKAY and sign it, so that they can hang it on their walls and look lovingly at it, and so that the rest of us can get fucking back to work.

Because until we have repaired all the potholes in all the roads leading to all the cities everywhere, until we have patched the holes in the roofs of all the schools in the country, until we have fed and housed and clothed and healed every person in need in this entire fucking God Bless America nation of ours, you will pardon me if I have things on my list slightly -- just slightly -- above making a dead woman who already sounds like she had a pretty rough time of it feel retroactively bad about how many kids she had with whom, just so that you can see from my remarks what a superior person I am.

Via Sadly, No.

A.

Comments

[Ripley]

Agreed.

I like this part, as well: "Wilson, for the uninitiated, is the Ohio woman who was accidentally shot in a police raid on her house." Well, of course! She was black, so there's no way the police could have done anything wrong... right?

[Nora]

It's the classic wingnut response: this woman was SHOT, and she hadn't been involved in any crime; the police were, at least on the surface, in the WRONG in shooting and killing this woman. But rather than address that, the real wrong of the situation, they seize on something else, in this case (and in most cases) blaming the victim. They want everybody to be talking about whether this woman had too many children with too many men (an interesting point of view, given their opposition to abortion and birth control in general), rather than whether the police should have been so trigger happy, and how often the victims of such police behavior are poor and/or people of color.

And too often the media follow the bright, bouncing ball and get distracted from the real questions.

[Archy]

I, too, think about the "opposition to abortion and birth control" aspect. But, I really think that is missing the larger "concern" shown by such people. As this shows, if a mother chooses to keep those children, she is still wrong because now she was with too many men. Of course, if she were raped by any of those men, she was too provocatively dressed!

See, it's not really about specifics. It is always about "I'm better than you" one way or another, and the related "Let me point out how you are wrong".

It is always easier to run someone else's life I guess, when the guidance consists of "Look at me!"

[Dorothy]

Let's see if I can "enlighten" her about the accusations of racism.

See, the LaShawn Barber quote isn't "racist" no matter who says it, because it doesn't once say "all blacks are like this" or "of course the woman has fatherless children: she's black!" But even if we take the same sentiment:
There is a crisis, to understate the matter, in the black community. About 75 percent (more in some cities) of black babies in the U.S. are born out-of-wedlock.
[...]
Some people are offended by the expression "keep your legs closed." Is it vulgar? Perhaps, but so is having babies with several different men without being married to any of them.

...and just rephrase it a bit, so that it captures more of the Advice Goddess' original language:

"Black welfare queens should stop squeezing out litters of bastard children. If they must be whores, they could at least marry their pimps and dealers instead of dumping their crack-addicted babies onto the taxpayers."

See? Now THAT'S racist, no matter who says it. (It's sexist, too, but so is Barber's original statement.)

Oh, and she's probably getting just as much flack for her "stupid whore deserved to get shot because she hung out with drug dealers" attitude in addition to the whole "litter of kids with multiple dealers" phrasing she used.

Hope this helps!

[Michael]

we all bask and wonder in their glory, look up to them, and acknowledge their superiority.

That pretty much captures the gist of it. People like A.G. scurry about and sniff around like crazy, looking far and wide for someone, anyone, who they can sneer at in order to justify their own hyper-inflated egos.

You'd think they'd spend their waking hours a little more productively.

[Interrobang]

See, the LaShawn Barber quote isn't "racist" no matter who says it

Actually, I think yes it is, no matter who says it. LaShawn Barber, like most suck-up members of oppressed classes (antifeminist women come to mind) has actually internalised some racism there. Can you spot it? It's the part about how the "black community" has a problem if individual actions by members of the class are problematic. In a bigoted (prejudicial) discourse, be it racist, sexist, classist, whatever, actions by members of the class are always a judgement on that class. That's the reality of group-based discrimination, why you often hear "stop doing that, you're making us look bad."

Then again, Amy Alkon isn't exactly a paragon of feminist thought, either, given that she's usually on slut-shaming like white on the KKK...

[Dorothy]

Actually, I think yes it is, no matter who says it. LaShawn Barber, like most suck-up members of oppressed classes (antifeminist women come to mind) has actually internalised some racism there. Can you spot it? It's the part about how the "black community" has a problem if individual actions by members of the class are problematic. In a bigoted (prejudicial) discourse, be it racist, sexist, classist, whatever, actions by members of the class are always a judgement on that class.

Ah, I see your point. I misread that as "black communities" (i.e., "communities which are predominantly black").

I guess the overt sexism ("damned sluts can't keep their legs closed!") just overshadowed any racism to me.

[slim]

Are Rush Limbaugh's and Bob Barr's serial marriages of interest to anyone?

I wouldn't give a fuck, except that they keep trying to tell me how teh gays are scary and want to convert my son to their satanic sex cult...

The most righteous republican I've ever known was 4-times married (every woman he dated became known as "the future ex-Mrs. C.") and the most sexist, bigoted bastard you'd never want to meet.

I think it's because what's inside them is so ugly and scary - and scared - that they have to look outside and whack-a-mole on everything that reflects their own inner demons.

Sad for them, sure, but man does it suck for the rest of us.

[Bob Perkus]

Another great thread to laugh at! Leave it up to the apologist liberals to defend the crack-baby spawning ghetto mamas of the inner cities! Only to a group of socialist wannabes like the regular readers of this blog would a woman such as "po' ole" Tarika Wilson be defended as a decent person. The funny thing is, I have a feeling that most of you liberal apologists have never lived in the inner city yourselves or have never had to be around someone of Wilson's ilk regularly. (By the way, living in an artsy-fartsy city neighborhood among struggling performers and farmers' markets is not the "inner city"). But, for some reason YOU are the ones who feel superior for expressing your feeble opinions that people like Wilson aren't that bad.

I'm not sure about you people, but I'm not really very fond of my tax dollars going to support programs to keep Tarika Wilson and her merry gaggle of multi-fathered crumb crunchers fat, dumb and happy. But, I know that you socialist bums with no morals don't really mind, since you're a bunch of jealous losers anyhow. That's all socialists really are anyway, jealous bums. They want to take away from everyone else who has made it on their own and give it away to bums, losers and crack mamas.

[The Other Sarah]

Athenae,
From my childhood I present you a gift. It's a song lyric, and may all the gods help me, I don't have permission to share it.

"He can't even run his own life. I'll be damned if he'll run mine." It's from Sunshine. Use it on the likes of Corsi and the "Advice Goddess." It'll be good for your mental health and your blood pressure.

[The Other Sarah]

Oh, and Bob Perkus? You should go roost on the Advice Goddess's branch. You'd be in great company.