The official title of this stunning talk is: “Animal liberation and social justice.” But you should watch it, take notes, change your life and donate some cash to the Vine shelter.
Sanitizing Waka Flocka Flame
I’ve noted before that Waka Flocka Flame travels a careful orbit between violent drug rhymes and friendly celebrity. It reminds me of Snoop Dogg and Sean Price — they both sort of make visible the double-consciousness of famous black men. Simultaneously expressing fictional violent anti-social expressions (which are consumed for people’s pleasure) and at the same time in different venues re-representing themselves with a friendly comedic persona (which is consumed for people’s pleasure).
Here is Waka telling a story from his childhood about his grandmother punishing him stylized like a Charles Schultz Peanuts holiday special.
Let’s remember that only the voice is Waka’s the representation is the work of a whole team of experts (sound editors, animators, directors, artists). And a company makes money on the whole thing.
It would be very interesting to map the choices of animated representations of the recent Trae and Waka videos.
Filed under hip hop, media, punishment, representation
Bikers against child abuse video
Filed under do-it-yourself, kindness, representation, sexual assault
Social movements changing journalism and law: Canadian press against Rob Ford
Like most people who spend time on the internets I’m fascinated by Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. I watched his interview with Jimmy Kimmel and thought: this guy is invulnerable. He has that teflon acumen to look the audience in the face and (according to many accounts) lie.
The Walrus has a cool accounting of the legal changes in Canada which led to the press freedoms to write about the bad-boy mayor. Including training the next generation of journalists! That is social movement work.
Rogers and his colleagues were already monitoring defamation cases in other common law countries, such as the US and Britain, looking for effective defences beyond truth and fair comment. A pair of landmark decisions in Britain’s House of Lords in 1999 and 2006 gave them what they needed. “Responsible journalism,” as the Lords called their new defence, posited that if a journalist has taken reasonable steps to verify that a story is true, and has given the subject an opportunity to respond, he or she cannot be found liable for defamation, even if the story contains untruths. Responsible journalism revolutionized British defamation law.
ADIDEM’s task was to persuade Canadian judges to follow suit, but how do you persuade a judge to rewrite the law at your behest? “You start,” says Rogers, “by using defences that are not yet part of the common law of Canada but that you think should be.” First, however, the group had to make sure Canadian journalists were writing stories that hewed to the spirit of responsible journalism, so they began preaching the gospel in their daily interactions with clients and in seminars at journalism schools. At the Ryerson School of Journalism in Toronto, Rogers and the Star’s Bert Bruser, considered the dean of Canadian media law, recruited reporters like Doolittle to the cause.
via The Story behind the Rob Ford Story · thewalrus.ca.
Thanks to Longreads.com for the recommendation.
Filed under communication, learning, resistance
Moral pressure for food choices
Illustration by Laura Jones Martinez from Bitch Magazine.
Nice paragraph on food trends, privilege, corporate health food, and the price of kale in Bitch Magazine. Worth talking about guilt, stress and ethics involved in shopping for food. Salute to Soleil Ho (and graphics by Laura Jones Martinez) explains the moral dilemma presented to shoppers:
I need to buy this if I want to be good, if I really want to take care of myself and my family As it turns out, this moralistic way of framing choice is extremely profitable for food processors, restaurants, and produce retailers: we’ve been effectively held captive by our own consciences.
via The Cost of Kale: How Foodie Trends Can Hurt Low-Income Families | Bitch Media.
Filed under communication, food, health
Cannibal Capitalism: Nate Jackson’s medical records
How do you sustain the gladiators of cannibal capitalism? The folks whose bodies we consume when they fall?
Keep their medical records from them.
Next to that piece of paper was a file as large as a dictionary that contained my injury history. Every injury I ever had was described somewhere in that file. But I never saw it. It wasn’t my property.
Had I owned that file, that information, I would have had a better idea of what was happening to me. Every treatment was in there. Every report written up by Greek or our team doctors. The results of every physical. And an unbiased report from the off-site imaging center that conducted our post-injury MRIs. These MRI reports contain information of great value to a player, because they are unfiltered. But I never saw the file. As far as I knew, I never even had access to it.
During my football career, I dislocated my shoulder multiple times, separated both shoulders, broke my tibia, broke a rib, broke my fingers, tore my medial collateral ligament in my right knee, tore my groin off the bone, tore my hamstring off the bone twice. I had bone chips in my elbow, bone chips in my ankle, concussions, sub-concussions, countless muscle strains, labral tears in either hip, cumulative trauma in the lower spine, sciatic nerve damage, achilles tendinitis, plantar fasciitis in both feet, blisters—oh the blisters! My neck is bad. My clavicles are misaligned. I probably have brain damage.
via My Injury File: How I Shot, Smoked, And Screwed My Way Through The NFL.
Filed under capitalism, communication, health, sport
Accountability for trolls: Jeopardy edition
Arthur Chu has won a couple of Jeopardy episodes with an eye for strategy. Along the way he has received a ton of abuse from the inter webs. He reports in a interview with Slate that his wife encouraged him to engage with the trolls.
I have to give my wife credit for this because she’s a strong believer that dragging trolls into the sunlight to name and shame them is better than ignoring them, and the way she was kind of goading me by retweeting all the offensive tweets and getting me to reply to them got me to see that there were two choices—retreat behind a rock and wait for the trolling to blow over, or consciously engage the trolls, take control of the conversation and own my image as a nerdy rumpled “Jeopardy! jerk” and embrace it. And the latter has turned out to be a lot of fun—and in the end generated a lot more positivity than negativity, though it would’ve been hard to believe that’s how it would’ve ended up that first night of angry people calling me out.
I tend to think that likeliness of success with trolls increases with social status, but this is a good snapshot of the ‘feed the trolls’ argument.
Filed under communication, intersectionality, race, representation
Cannibal capitalism: Derek Boogaard, hockey and head trauma
Turns out that the 3-part New York Times (you still suck) documentary is available at youtube. Worth watching for the discussion of representation, violence, and consumption of sports bodies. Cannibal capitalism – mediated violence where viewers devour the bodies of sports stars who are trading of their bodies for fame.
Filed under capitalism, documentary, health, media, sport
Juxtaposition from death row: Ray Jasper
Ray Jasper is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas. From death row, he wrote a strong piece on his impending death and the practice of state killing. I appreciate the juxtaposition he paints about race. Referencing a passage by Lisa Maxwell, Jasper explains:
Imagine you’re a young white guy facing capital murder charges where you can receive the death penalty… the victim in the case is a black man… when you go to trial and step into the courtroom… the judge is a black man… the two State prosecutors seeking the death penalty on you… are also black men… you couldn’t afford an attorney, so the Judge appointed you two defense lawyers who are also black men… you look in the jury box… there’s 8 more black people and 4 hispanics… the only white person in the courtroom is you… How would you feel facing the death penalty? Do you believe you’ll receive justice?
As outside of the box as that scene is, those were the exact circumstances of my trial. I was the only black person in the courtroom.
Again, I’m not playing the race card, but empathy is putting the shoe on the other foot.
via A Letter From Ray Jasper, Who Is About to Be Executed.
If the people in Texas is going to kill this dude, the least I can do is read his letter.
Filed under communication, juxtaposition, race, representation, rhetoric
Describing the call out as oppression: Paula Deen
There is something toxic about people who have public histories of being offensive arguing that being criticized for hateful comments is comparable to experiencing hate itself.
Here is Zerlina Maxwell explaining why Paula Deen’s recent articulation is exactly this kind of hijack of experience.
“In a recent interview with People, Deen said (via CNN):
“I feel like ‘embattled’ or ‘disgraced’ will always follow my name,” she tells People. “It’s like that black football player who recently came out,” referring to NFL prospect and former University of Missouri football standout, Michael Sam.
“He (Sam) said, ‘I just want to be known as a football player. I don’t want to be known as a gay football player.’ I know exactly what he’s saying.”
It’s no surprise that Deen would feel embattled, but as someone who said racially insensitive things, it is a surprise that Deen sees herself as the oppressed, instead of the one doing the oppressing. How is Paula the victim if she was the mastermind behind the slave themed wedding? It seems to me that actually being oppressed and embattled by structural inequality and policies that lead to disparate outcomes for people of color is worse than being called out for your bigotry. And being the first openly gay player in the NFL like Michael Sam is nothing like being a celebrity chef exposed for referring to your Black employees in explicitly racist terms.”
via Paula Deen thinks she’s oppressed like “that Black” gay NFL player.
1. Writing words or speaking it aloud usually archive ideas marked to bodies.
2. It is worthwhile developing critical vocabulary for this rhetorical maneuver. It is one of the best tactics to resist the call-out.
3. Thanks Feministing. You rock.
Filed under communication, Gay, learning, media, representation, rhetoric
Life of refinement 