"Smart" is a privilege, not a disadvantage

I'd been wanting to talk about this  for a while, even before Rachel's post for The Social Justice League. Going from a grade school where we were told none of us was better than the person in the next seat, to a high school where tracking was taken to new and self-esteem shattering levels, I don't put much faith in "smartness." Of course I value intelligence (my definition of intelligence is close to Ozy's ), but not"smartness" as an identity based on IQ and SAT scores, or where one went to college -- which is heavily, if not entirely, tethered to class.

Azealia Banks's Twitter Slur and Artist Deealbreakers

Twitter will be the death of us all, I swear. Or, at least, it serves to make us aware how clueless some celebrities are.

Azealia Banks, who was the music blog world's "it girl" for most of last year, got into a Twitter spat with celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton, called him the "F" word, told him to "kill himself" (among other things ) and effectively turned the world against her.

I don't have a ton to add to the deluge of posts that have come from inside the music as well as the LGBT blogosphere. Perez Hilton is... not exactly my favorite person in the world either, but let's face it,   the public shaming Banks is getting for using a gay slur is expected.

By now I know I shouldn't, but I expect better of celebrities. Yes, they're human; they're flawed. They fuck up like the rest of us, but using a gay slur -- I don't care if she's bi; it's not hers to "reclaim" -- even against someone I despise, is a dealbreaker, plain and simple. Granted, if I removed everyone from my iPod who has done or said something problematic during their career, I'd probably have no one left. But it is becoming hard to write about someone without feeling as though I have to vet them first. For example, each time I write something about Patti Smith or Yoko Ono -- two women I overwhelmingly respect -- should I mention that both have appropriated the "N" word, a solid no-no from someone whom that particular slur can't be used against, and in no way can be justified? It seems irresponsible not to.

Of course, both Patti and Yoko's careers predate Twitter and social media as a whole. Their indiscretions  weren't like they are now, and with enough historical distance, the bad things become obscured by their achievements. It's easy to excuse away things that happened years -- decades -- ago, though those things are part of their respective legacies and should be talked about.

So I guess what I'm asking is, as a few others before me have with no real clear-cut answers, where does one draw the line and say, "Okay, I can no longer promote this person's work?" Maybe because I tend to assign more weight to writers, I find it easier to do so with someone like, say, a Mary Daly, who was clearly a transphobe, than Patti Smith, whose racism was disguised as clumsily articulated artistic statement. By no means, I am excusing her, but how do I talk about her work without the caveat that one of her most well-known songs was pretty fucking racist? I don't, but I still acknowledge her influence.

What we don't talk about

(TM - ableism, guns, violence,  the general asshattery in the comments to some of the posts I've linked to)

I agree with Alas a Blog's Jeffrey Newman that William Hamby's piece for the Examiner, Connecticut Shooting, White Males, and Mass Murder, is invaluable simply because it's so rare that a mainstream journalist mentions the link between white male privilege and mass murder.

I wanted to wait a few days before writing this, but I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with the network coverage of the Sandy Hook shootings. Every time something like this happens, and the round of finding someone to blame, and finding some easy solution (get rid of the guns! lock up all the crazy people!), we always seem to ignore the link between gun violence and masculinity. Granted, gun control is a huge part of it, but it's far from being the sole solution.

I don't want to complete ignore mental illness, though it's an incredibly sensitive issue and one that needs not demonization but understanding. People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violent crimes, not commit them. (s .e. smith posted a list of links that help clear up some of the myths about mental illness.) Dave Cullen, who wrote the definitive book on the Columbine massacre, said on Rachel Maddow's show Friday night, that one thing that a lot of the mass shooters have in common is depression and suicidality. If you look at the statistics, 80% of suicides from firearms are committed by white males. a lot of these mass shootings are also suicides. And men are less likely to seek treatment for depression.

There isn't a whole lot I can say here that hasn't already been said by a few astute bloggers. Here are a handful of links that better explore the link between gender, race, and mass shootings:

How America's Toxic Culture Breeds Mass Murder  (Salon)

Connecticut School Shooting: If Adam Lanza was Named Tariq Muhammad Would the Media be Calling This an Act of "Terrorism? " (We Are Respectable Negroes)

Is a Crisis in White Masculinity Leading to Horrific Gun Crimes Like the Sandy Hook Shootings? (AlterNet)

The Newtown School Shooting — Why We Mustn’t Ignore Gender  (Crates and Ribbons)

Religion and Privilege

This is probably the only post I'll ever write that deals explicitly with religion; generally, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm openly atheist, but without the years of questioning that other non-believers have gone through. Although I went to catholic schools, my upbringing was as secular as it gets. No one went to church and I largely ignored the theology classes I was required to take the same way non-elective I needed to graduate -- spit back enough dogma to pass. However, I realize now what bothers me isn't religion per se, as much as Christian Privilege.

Melissa McEwan wrote a fantastic post about Christian privilege a few years ago:

Christianity, at least (and especially) in America, is a privilege—and, like any privilege, it can be uncomfortable to face the ugly reality of what other members of a privileged class can do to non-privileged folks, even if you don't do it yourself. I'm white, I'm straight, I'm cisgender: I understand the impulse to distance oneself. But as a white person, I am obliged to acknowledge that the history of white supremacy in America is one of slavery, of lynchings, of segregation, of sundown towns, of internment camps, of genocide, and of all manner of institutionalized racism. I don't get to say (nor do I want to) that the KKK aren't "real" white people.

Christian privilege is my landlord putting up Christmas decorations, despite knowing that not all his tenants celebrate it, with an air of "You can do what you want in your own apartment, but here we celebrate Christmas." Christian privilege is someone asking, "Where do you go to church?" It doesn't have to be overt or proselytizing. That's the thing about privilege: it's often invisible.

Gentile/White-Christian Privilege Checklist  (courtesy of Alas, a Blog)

Gwen Sharp Explains "Missing White Girl Syndrome"

I found this video via Sociological Images, and wanted to repost it here, as something like this recently played out in my state when a young girl went missing (and was eventually found dead), yet the media was, if not silent, then not as panicked or outraged had she been white.

Is There Such a Thing as an "Unforgivable Offense?"

courtesy of last.fm

Reading through the comments on this Tiger Beatdown post, I feel conflicted. (I won't comment on the article that was linked other than one of the things I hate most is when men explain me to me.) On one hand, I truly believe that most people, when confronted with their own problematic behavior, will want to learn and grow. On the other, when that behavior becomes a habit, and not limited to one or two isolated incidents, it's really hard for me to look past it, even if they've done consistently good work elsewhere.

I think this is why certain factions of the feminist blogosphere always gets dragged into these conversations. It's not just the behavior that's the problem, it's the denial that it even exists. It's the unwillingness to change that behavior; to not do the work.

What happens when a respected artist or writer, someone who's held in high regard by those same feminists, fails to own up to her mistakes? A good example of this, what I'm loosely calling an "unforgivable offense," is the controversy over Amanda Palmer's Evelyn/Evelyn project, and her refusal to acknowledge that she was contributing to the marginalization of people with disabilities. When the project was invariably criticized, she refused to listen, and dodged responsibility with the classic, "sorry you were offended." FWD explains it better:

Unfortunately, Evelyn Evelyn seems like a project that is far from actually being transgressive, even given the initial appearance of said transgression (because what’s more shocking and weird than conjoined twins, at least according to abled culture?). The project, as far as I can tell, makes no reference to the ways in which actual people with disabilities are treated in Western culture; this probably seems like a tall order for any musical project, but there is a chasm of difference between at least acknowledging that there are people like this (in this case, conjoined twins) who do exist and that they probably are affected by ableism, and outright appropriation of this uniqueness in the name of art. Certainly, Evelyn Evelyn is fictional, and while Palmer and Webley are not required to make any sort of political statement, the seeming lack of awareness that there are actual conjoined twins and that they do not only exist for abled artists’ dressing-up-and-performing purposes is rather troubling.

I don't bring up the Evelyn/Evelyn project to rehash old hurt. I do it because Palmer was given the perfect opportunity to acknowledge what she did wrong, and correct it without becoming defensive. I see this played out time and again within the progressive blogosphere, and the same questions come up: can we call out someone's failures without nullifying the rest of the work they've done? When does an offense become unforgivable?