Harris-Perry:

What if women

really ruled the world?

Melissa Harris-Perry invites columnist Mona Eltahawy to her show as her panel questions not only what if women ruled the world, but also why they don’t already.

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Why Do They Hate Us?

The real war on women is in the Middle East.

BY MONA ELTAHAWY | MAY/JUNE 2012

In "Distant View of a Minaret," the late and much-neglected Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat begins her short story with a woman so unmoved by sex with her husband that as he focuses solely on his pleasure, she notices a spider web she must sweep off the ceiling and has time to ruminate on her husband's repeated refusal to prolong intercourse until she too climaxes, "as though purposely to deprive her." Just as her husband denies her an orgasm, the call to prayer interrupts his, and the man leaves. After washing up, she loses herself in prayer -- so much more satisfying that she can't wait until the next prayer -- and looks out onto the street from her balcony. She interrupts her reverie to make coffee dutifully for her husband to drink after his nap. Taking it to their bedroom to pour it in front of him as he prefers, she notices he is dead. She instructs their son to go and get a doctor. "She returned to the living room and poured out the coffee for herself. She was surprised at how calm she was," Rifaat writes.

In a crisp three-and-a-half pages, Rifaat lays out a trifecta of sex, death, and religion, a bulldozer that crushes denial and defensiveness to get at the pulsating heart of misogyny in the Middle East. There is no sugarcoating it. They don't hate us because of our freedoms, as the tired, post-9/11 American cliché had it. We have no freedoms because they hate us, as this Arab woman so powerfully says.

Yes: They hate us. It must be said. 

Some may ask why I'm bringing this up now, at a time when the region has risen up, fueled not by the usual hatred of America and Israel but by a common demand for freedom. After all, shouldn't everyone get basic rights first, before women demand special treatment? And what does gender, or for that matter, sex, have to do with the Arab Spring? But I'm not talking about sex hidden away in dark corners and closed bedrooms. An entire political and economic system -- one that treats half of humanity like animals -- must be destroyed along with the other more obvious tyrannies choking off the region from its future. Until the rage shifts from the oppressors in our presidential palaces to the oppressors on our streets and in our homes, our revolution has not even begun.

So: Yes, women all over the world have problems; yes, the United States has yet to elect a female president; and yes, women continue to be objectified in many "Western" countries (I live in one of them). That's where the conversation usually ends when you try to discuss why Arab societies hate women.

But let's put aside what the United States does or doesn't do to women. Name me an Arab country, and I'll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend. When more than 90 percent of ever-married women in Egypt -- including my mother and all but one of her six sisters -- have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating "virginity tests" merely for speaking out, it's no time for silence. When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband "with good intentions" no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. And what, pray tell, are "good intentions"? They are legally deemed to include any beating that is "not severe" or "directed at the face." What all this means is that when it comes to the status of women in the Middle East, it's not better than you think. It's much, much worse. Even after these "revolutions," all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian's blessing -- or divorce either.

Not a single Arab country ranks in the top 100 in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report, putting the region as a whole solidly at the planet's rock bottom. Poor or rich, we all hate our women. Neighbors Saudi Arabia and Yemen, for instance, might be eons apart when it comes to GDP, but only four places separate them on the index, with the kingdom at 131 and Yemen coming in at 135 out of 135 countries. Morocco, often touted for its "progressive" family law (a 2005 report by Western "experts" called it "an example for Muslim countries aiming to integrate into modern society"), ranks 129; according to Morocco's Ministry of Justice, 41,098 girls under age 18 were married there in 2010.

It's easy to see why the lowest-ranked country is Yemen, where 55 percent of women are illiterate, 79 percent do not participate in the labor force, and just one woman serves in the 301-person parliament. Horrific news reports about 12-year-old girls dying in childbirth do little to stem the tide of child marriage there. Instead, demonstrations in support of child marriage outstrip those against it, fueled by clerical declarations that opponents of state-sanctioned pedophilia are apostates because the Prophet Mohammed, according to them, married his second wife, Aisha, when she was a child.

But at least Yemeni women can drive. It surely hasn't ended their litany of problems, but it symbolizes freedom -- and nowhere does such symbolism resonate more than in Saudi Arabia, where child marriage is also practiced and women are perpetually minors regardless of their age or education. Saudi women far outnumber their male counterparts on university campuses but are reduced to watching men far less qualified control every aspect of their lives.

Yes, Saudi Arabia, the country where a gang-rape survivor was sentenced to jail for agreeing to get into a car with an unrelated male and needed a royal pardon; Saudi Arabia, where a woman who broke the ban on driving was sentenced to 10 lashes and again needed a royal pardon; Saudi Arabia, where women still can't vote or run in elections, yet it's considered "progress" that a royal decree promised to enfranchise them for almost completely symbolic local elections in -- wait for it -- 2015. So bad is it for women in Saudi Arabia that those tiny paternalistic pats on their backs are greeted with delight as the monarch behind them, King Abdullah, is hailed as a "reformer"  -- even by those who ought to know better, such as Newsweek, which in 2010 named the king one of the top 11 most respected world leaders. You want to know how bad it is? The "reformer's" answer to the revolutions popping up across the region was to numb his people with still more government handouts -- especially for the Salafi zealots from whom the Saudi royal family inhales legitimacy. King Abdullah is 87. Just wait until you see the next in line, Prince Nayef, a man straight out of the Middle Ages. His misogyny and zealotry make King Abdullah look like Susan B. Anthony.

SO WHY DO THEY HATE US? Sex, or more precisely hymens, explains much.

"Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently. "But they all seem to. It doesn't matter what country they're in or what religion they claim. They want to control women." (And yet Clinton represents an administration that openly supports many of those misogynistic despots.) Attempts to control by such regimes often stem from the suspicion that without it, a woman is just a few degrees short of sexual insatiability. Observe Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the popular cleric and longtime conservative TV host on Al Jazeera who developed a stunning penchant for the Arab Spring revolutions -- once they were under way, that is -- undoubtedly understanding that they would eliminate the tyrants who long tormented and oppressed both him and the Muslim Brotherhood movement from which he springs.

I could find you a host of crackpots sounding off on Woman the Insatiable Temptress, but I'm staying mainstream with Qaradawi, who commands a huge audience on and off the satellite channels. Although he says female genital mutilation (which he calls "circumcision," a common euphemism that tries to put the practice on a par with male circumcision) is not "obligatory," you will also find this priceless observation in one of his books: "I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world. Anyone who thinks that circumcision is the best way to protect his daughters should do it," he wrote, adding, "The moderate opinion is in favor of practicing circumcision to reduce temptation." So even among "moderates," girls' genitals are cut to ensure their desire is nipped in the bud -- pun fully intended. Qaradawi has since issued a fatwa against female genital mutilation, but it comes as no surprise that when Egypt banned the practice in 2008, some Muslim Brotherhood legislators opposed the law. And some still do -- including a prominent female parliamentarian, Azza al-Garf.

Yet it's the men who can't control themselves on the streets, where from Morocco to Yemen, sexual harassment is endemic and it's for the men's sake that so many women are encouraged to cover up. Cairo has a women-only subway car to protect us from wandering hands and worse; countless Saudi malls are for families only, barring single men from entry unless they produce a requisite female to accompany them.

We often hear how the Middle East's failing economies have left many men unable to marry, and some even use that to explain rising levels of sexual harassment on the streets. In a 2008 survey by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, more than 80 percent of Egyptian women said they'd experienced sexual harassment and more than 60 percent of men admitted to harassing women. Yet we never hear how a later marriage age affects women. Do women have sex drives or not? Apparently, the Arab jury is still out on the basics of human biology.

Enter that call to prayer and the sublimation through religion that Rifaat so brilliantly introduces in her story. Just as regime-appointed clerics lull the poor across the region with promises of justice -- and nubile virgins -- in the next world rather than a reckoning with the corruption and nepotism of the dictator in this life, so women are silenced by a deadly combination of men who hate them while also claiming to have God firmly on their side.

I turn again to Saudi Arabia, and not just because when I encountered the country at age 15 I was traumatized into feminism -- there's no other way to describe it -- but because the kingdom is unabashed in its worship of a misogynistic God and never suffers any consequences for it, thanks to its double-whammy advantage of having oil and being home to Islam's two holiest places, Mecca and Medina.

Then -- the 1980s and 1990s -- as now, clerics on Saudi TV were obsessed with women and their orifices, especially what came out of them. I'll never forget hearing that if a baby boy urinated on you, you could go ahead and pray in the same clothes, yet if a baby girl peed on you, you had to change. What on Earth in the girl's urine made you impure? I wondered.

Hatred of women.

How much does Saudi Arabia hate women? So much so that 15 girls died in a school fire in Mecca in 2002, after "morality police" barred them from fleeing the burning building -- and kept firefighters from rescuing them -- because the girls were not wearing headscarves and cloaks required in public. And nothing happened. No one was put on trial. Parents were silenced. The only concession to the horror was that girls' education was quietly taken away by then-Crown Prince Abdullah from the Salafi zealots, who have nonetheless managed to retain their vise-like grip on the kingdom's education system writ large.

This, however, is no mere Saudi phenomenon, no hateful curiosity in the rich, isolated desert. The Islamist hatred of women burns brightly across the region -- now more than ever.

In Kuwait, where for years Islamists fought women's enfranchisement, they hounded the four women who finally made it into parliament, demanding that the two who didn't cover their hair wear hijabs. When the Kuwaiti parliament was dissolved this past December, an Islamist parliamentarian demanded the new house -- devoid of a single female legislator -- discuss his proposed "decent attire" law.

In Tunisia, long considered the closest thing to a beacon of tolerance in the region, women took a deep breath last fall after the Islamist Ennahda party won the largest share of votes in the country's Constituent Assembly. Party leaders vowed to respect Tunisia's 1956 Personal Status Code, which declared "the principle of equality between men and women" as citizens and banned polygamy. But female university professors and students have complained since then of assaults and intimidation by Islamists for not wearing hijabs, while many women's rights activists wonder how talk of Islamic law will affect the actual law they will live under in post-revolution Tunisia.

In Libya, the first thing the head of the interim government, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, promised to do was to lift the late Libyan tyrant's restrictions on polygamy. Lest you think of Muammar al-Qaddafi as a feminist of any kind, remember that under his rule girls and women who survived sexual assaults or were suspected of "moral crimes" were dumped into "social rehabilitation centers," effective prisons from which they could not leave unless a man agreed to marry them or their families took them back.

Then there's Egypt, where less than a month after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, the military junta that replaced him, ostensibly to "protect the revolution," inadvertently reminded us of the two revolutions we women need. After it cleared Tahrir Square of protesters, the military detained dozens of male and female activists. Tyrants oppress, beat, and torture all. We know. But these officers reserved "virginity tests" for female activists: rape disguised as a medical doctor inserting his fingers into their vaginal opening in search of hymens. (The doctor was sued and eventually acquitted in March.)

What hope can there be for women in the new Egyptian parliament, dominated as it is by men stuck in the seventh century? A quarter of those parliamentary seats are now held by Salafis, who believe that mimicking the original ways of the Prophet Mohammed is an appropriate prescription for modern life. Last fall, when fielding female candidates, Egypt's Salafi Nour Party ran a flower in place of each woman's face. Women are not to be seen or heard -- even their voices are a temptation -- so there they are in the Egyptian parliament, covered from head to toe in black and never uttering a word.

And we're in the middle of a revolution in Egypt! It's a revolution in which women have died, been beaten, shot at, and sexually assaulted fighting alongside men to rid our country of that uppercase Patriarch -- Mubarak -- yet so many lowercase patriarchs still oppress us. The Muslim Brotherhood, with almost half the total seats in our new revolutionary parliament, does not believe women (or Christians for that matter) can be president. The woman who heads the "women's committee" of the Brotherhood's political party said recently that women should not march or protest because it's more "dignified" to let their husbands and brothers demonstrate for them.

The hatred of women goes deep in Egyptian society. Those of us who have marched and protested have had to navigate a minefield of sexual assaults by both the regime and its lackeys, and, sadly, at times by our fellow revolutionaries. On the November day I was sexually assaulted on Mohamed Mahmoud Street near Tahrir Square, by at least four Egyptian riot police, I was first groped by a man in the square itself. While we are eager to expose assaults by the regime, when we're violated by our fellow civilians we immediately assume they're agents of the regime or thugs because we don't want to taint the revolution.

SO WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

First we stop pretending. Call out the hate for what it is. Resist cultural relativism and know that even in countries undergoing revolutions and uprisings, women will remain the cheapest bargaining chips. You -- the outside world -- will be told that it's our "culture" and "religion" to do X, Y, or Z to women. Understand that whoever deemed it as such was never a woman. The Arab uprisings may have been sparked by an Arab man -- Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire in desperation -- but they will be finished by Arab women.

Amina Filali -- the 16-year-old Moroccan girl who drank poison after she was forced to marry, and beaten by, her rapist -- is our Bouazizi. Salwa el-Husseini, the first Egyptian woman to speak out against the "virginity tests"; Samira Ibrahim, the first one to sue; and Rasha Abdel Rahman, who testified alongside her -- they are our Bouazizis. We must not wait for them to die to become so. Manal al-Sharif, who spent nine days in jail for breaking her country's ban on women driving, is Saudi Arabia's Bouazizi. She is a one-woman revolutionary force who pushes against an ocean of misogyny.

Don't Miss

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The Sex Issue

 

Our political revolutions will not succeed unless they are accompanied by revolutions of thought -- social, sexual, and cultural revolutions that topple the Mubaraks in our minds as well as our bedrooms.

"Do you know why they subjected us to virginity tests?" Ibrahim asked me soon after we'd spent hours marching together to mark International Women's Day in Cairo on March 8. "They want to silence us; they want to chase women back home. But we're not going anywhere."

We are more than our headscarves and our hymens. Listen to those of us fighting. Amplify the voices of the region and poke the hatred in its eye. There was a time when being an Islamist was the most vulnerable political position in Egypt and Tunisia. Understand that now it very well might be Woman. As it always has been.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Mona Eltahawy, a prominent US-Egyptian journalist, is pictured with broken bones in her wrists after what she describes as a brutal sexual and physical assault after being arrested by Egyptian riot police

FDC Women's League and A4C member Ingrid Turinawe

Uganda women

protest topless against

Police public groping

of female politician

April 23, 2012

 

On Friday, Ugandans witnessed another episode of police brutality. It wasn’t just the brutality we are used to seeing.  In this video ran by NTVUganda  a police officer was, publicly before the cameras, groping an opposition politician Ingrid Turinawe.

Ingrid has been at the forefront of various pressure groups in Uganda for the last 5 years. She was one of the leaders of the Activists for Change (A4C), a pressure group that led the famous Walk to Work protests that took place in many parts of Uganda for the greater part of 2011 as the Arab spring was going on.

The group has been banned because in our country where we still use very colonial laws to the advantage of a dictatorial regime, the attorney general has powers to declare a group illegal even without evidence of  the need to ban them. This law threatens even a blogger or writers who mention A4C as government could claim that they are  promoting an illegal group  with intention to ‘incite violence’. Already two journalists have been summoned by the police over an interview had with the head of the group. Human rights groups have warned on the dangers of the government-increased crackdown on freedom of speech, expression and assembly in Uganda.

Once the group A4C was banned, some of its leaders rebranded it into For God and my Country (4GC), taking after the country motto. It was after the launch of the new group that Uganda police brutality came back to our living rooms.

This time a male police offer publically groping Ingrid as another pulls her leg out of the car. The police officer didn’t grope her once, he did it repeatedly and in the video we hear Ingrid asking why the police officer was doing that. One other police officer warns his colleague but does nothing to stop this.

Storyful covered the initial reactions of Ugandans on twitter. On Saturday evening, in a move to do damage control Uganda police sent a tweet;

They didn’t even have the humility to describe the incident they were talking about. They wouldn’t even come close to mentioning this public sexual assault. Then later on the TVs came a junior police spokesperson to claim that the officer who groped Ingrid was a woman; as if a woman groping a woman is a lesser evil!

The  women’s movement in Uganda together with human rights activists wouldn’t let this pass. To be honest they have been quiet in the past regarding rights of women in the political sphere. Today over 15 women activist wearing only their bras staged a protest outside the Central Police station to call for the attention of the Inspector General of Police who has so far been quiet on the matter.

Photo via Urban Legend Kampala

As expected they were arrested but their message was loud and clear! “We respect our bodies and we expect to be respected.”

In a country where investigations into sexual violence usually don’t easily go through, when you have a person in uniform sexually assaulting a woman the public outcry can only be louder across political divides . Respect is earned and if the police are to get respect of Ugandans they better bring such officers to face the justice system! Resorting to internal disciplinary methods when it comes such sexual crimes will only condone such acts and Ugandan public will not be satisfied with that.

As one human rights activist Nicholas Opiyo  posted on his facebook said:

 The loud silence of senior police authority (forget the casual speaking ad insensitive spokespersons) in the face of the brutal affront at the dignity of women lends credence to the suspicion of their tacit approval or condonation of such acts. The same happened to Anne Mugisha at Jinja Road Police Station on April 11, 2011, Nabilah Naggayi Ssempala and many other women. Enough to this brutality. Kale Kayeihura is a shame to this country

Many Ugandans through Facebook and Twitter wondered , if the police can do that to a prominent politician publicly, who knows what takes place when women are taken into custody? Ingrid is a woman first and a politician later; when law enforcers choose to use sexually humiliating tactics to curtail women’s freedom to demonstrate and question their government, all of us are not safe. When a country has armed forces with a history of sexual violence, this act of public groping of a woman politician can only worry us and hope we are not going backwards in the fight against sexual and gender based violence.

In the past we have seen shootings of civilians in protests and no officer is brought to book. In cases when the police are investigating themselves we can only wait to see what they come up with.

In 2008, the Uganda police arrested Kampala Woman Parliamentarian Nabilah Sempala in a manner that was meant to humiliate her and no one was held accountable. The country watched images of police officers lifting up skirts of a woman Member of Parliament. There was a little noise and we didn’t see much accountability.

In 2010 I had interview with Ingrid Turinawe who was at time leading a group of women calling for peaceful elections and accountable electoral commission. Ingrid and some women who were part of the group had reported the indecent way the police arrested them and again no much followup was seen.

If women have to worry about being undressed, groped and many worse things in their attempt to participate in politics then Uganda cannot claim to protect the rights of women.

Who Will Revere Us?

(Black LGTBQ People,

Straight Women, and Girls)

(Part 1)

April 23, 2012

By Aishah Shahidah Simmons

 

The title of this four-part article is a metaphorical nod to the legendary jazz singer, songwriter, actor, and activist Abbey Lincoln (also known as Aminata Moseka) whose essay, “Who Will Revere The Black Woman?” is featured in the ground-breaking anthology The Black Woman. Edited by Black feminist author, screenwriter, and visionary activist Toni Cade Bambara, this all-Black woman anthology focused on the issues most pertinent to Black women and our communities. Originally published in 1970 and reissued in 2005 with a forward by Dr. Eleanor W. Traylor, The Black Woman was the literary wo/manifestation of the impact of the intersection of the Civil Rights/Black Power movements and the second wave of the Women’s Rights movement on Black women’s lives. In short, Ms. Lincoln’s ageless essay is a demand for justice and protection for Black women. In her concluding paragraph she writes,

[…]Who will revere the Black woman? Who will keep our neighborhoods safe for Black innocent womanhood? Black womanhood is outraged and humiliated. Black womanhood cries for dignity and restitution and salvation. Black womanhood wants and needs protections, and keeping and holding. Who will assuage her indignation? Who will keep her precious and pure? Who will glorify and proclaim her beautiful image? To whom will she cry rape?

 

In her 1983 prophetic and timeless essay, “There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression,” self-defined Black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet Audre Lorde writes,

I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the front upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.[1]

 

I am struggling to find the right time to discuss inter and intra-racial gender-based violence in the midst of the justified outrage about the rampant and virulent racialized violence perpetrated against straight Black boys and men.  Even with this being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, now doesn’t feel like the best time to write about the gender-based and state-sanctioned violence perpetuated against Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) people both inside of and outside of our racial/cultural communities. I fear that sharing what’s on my heart and mind, might be construed as my taking away from the “real” issue at hand in most Black communities, which seems to be solely white supremacist and/or state-sanctioned racist violence against straight Black men and boys.

Audre Lorde’s writings remind me, however, that discussions on oppression within Black communities should never be taken up within an either/or frame.  The diverse herstories/histories and contemporary realities of Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ people have consistently revealed that the issues that directly impact us often take a back seat, if they even make it into the metaphorical car on the freedom and liberation highway.

There is a collective understanding among many in multi-racial, radical progressive movements, that the white supremacist, patriarchal, heterosexist, imperial, and capitalist power structure is the root of all oppressions in the United States. While I believe that to be true, even in the company of other oppressed people, Black straight women and LGBTQ people are still under attack. Too often we are caught at the intersections of race, gender, and if we identify as LGBTQ, sexuality. In spite of our shared his/herstories of oppression, struggle, and perseverance against the odds, not enough Black people view sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, heterosexism and transphobia with the same kind of activist passion that we view racism, white supremacy, and state-sanctioned violence perpetuated against straight Black men and boys.

The reality is this: when Black straight men and boys are beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered as a result of state-sanctioned and/or white supremacist violence, it becomes (as well it should be) a national issue in the Black community and in a few, definitely not all, instances, the outrage moves beyond the Black community. Yet, when Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ people are raped, sexually assaulted, beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered as a result of misogynist, patriarchal, state-sanctioned, and/or white supremacist violence, it is too often the victim’s individual issue.

Illustrator: Shepard Fairley

There are so many egregious, known and unknown, cases of racial and gender-based violence perpetuated against all Black people, regardless of their gender, gender identity, and sexuality, that it is literally impossible to write about all of them. I want to highlight a selected few of the far too many, however, to ask Black/African-American/African descended people to consider our responses when any of us have been railroaded into the prison industrial complex, sexually or otherwise assaulted, or murdered. I want us, Black/African-American/African descended people, to consider our responses to issues that affect many as opposed to those issues affecting some of us based on our gender, gender identity, and/or sexuality.

 

Part 1

“Jena 6” and the “New Jersey 4”

 

We can look at the profoundly powerful and most appropriate national response in support of the “Jena 6” who, at the time, were six African-American high school students (Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw and Jesse Ray Beard). Originally, they were unjustly charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy counts for assaulting a white student (Justin Barker) in Jena Louisiana. The fight resulted from building racial tensions, which included three nooses hanging from a tree. In September 2007, in response to the charges, a virtual and on the ground mass mobilization resulted in a national protest led by Rev. Al Sharpton, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, radio personality Michael Baisden, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where thousands of protesters marched on Jena to demand justice and challenge the racism in the Jena, Louisiana criminal (in)justice system. The teens were facing a combined sentence of 100 years and were clearly being railroaded from school into the prison pipeline.  In addition, there were songs created by hip-hop and rock artists, numerous editorials and stories in the mainstream and alternative media, as well as congressional hearings.

 

In stark contrast, during this same time period, seven African-American lesbian identified women were arrested following a violent altercation with an African-American man in the west village of Manhattan. Three women (Chenese Loyal, Khymesha Coates, Lania Daniels) took plea bargains. The remaining four women (Venice Brown, Terrain Dandridge, Patreese Johnson and Renata Hill), ranging in ages from 19 to 24 years old, were convicted in 2007 by an all white jury, reportedly most of whom were women, and received sentences ranging from 3 ½ to 11 years in prison. Two of the women were parents of small children. As Imani Henry, writer and Anti Police Brutality activist, stated in his June 21, 2007 article in the Workers World Newspaper:

Their crime? Defending themselves from a physical attack by a man who held them down and choked them, ripped hair from their scalps, spat on them, and threatened to sexually assault them—all because they are lesbians.

 

Essentially, these African-American lesbians were viciously attacked, and in defending themselves, were convicted and sent to jail. Tragically, even with the egregious homophobic, racist and sexist, media coverage, there wasn’t a major national outcry organized by African-American Civil Rights organizations, African-American radio personalities, or Black (straight) leaders, not to mention mainstream white LGBTQ organizations. There were no congressional hearings organized by members of the Congressional Black Caucus to examine racism, sexism, and heterosexism in the criminal justice system and its impact on Black youth and young adults.

I can’t help but interrogate if it was because they were Black lesbians that no one in the Non-LGBTQ Black progressive establishment, the mainstream (white) feminist community, or the mainstream (white) LGBTQ community came to their defense and made the convicted “New Jersey 4” a cause célèbre.  In her article, “Case of Killer Lesbians,” sociologist Laura S. Logan gives an in-depth analysis of how the media coverage of these Black women played a direct role in creating false images of them as predators and perpetrators as opposed to victims based upon racist, sexist, and homophobic stereotypes:

Overall, almost two-thirds of the articles characterized the women as angry lesbians in one way or another, and nearly half also used animal imagery or language. They were ‘wild,’ a ‘wolf pack,’ and a ‘she-wolf pack.’ The women ‘pounced,’ ‘growled,’ and ‘roared,’ they ‘preyed upon’ the victim – and several of the articles used such terms more than once. The message is that these women were dangerously wild, masculinized monsters.

Fortunately, FIERCE, a membership-based organization, which builds the leadership and power of LGBTQ youth of color in New York City, provided organizational support including dedicated webpages on their website. FIERCE also partnered with other radical, grassroots LGBTQ organizations working on issues related to this case.

 

A Gang Rape in Cleveland Texas

 

Let’s now fast forward across many egregious known and unknown injustices to the gang rape of an 11- year old Latina girl child by 14 African-American men and 5 boys, ranging in age from 14-27, in an abandoned trailer in Cleveland, Texas in 2010. The multiple rapes of the former straight A student-girl-child were photographed, videotaped, and uploaded on to the web. And, if it can get any worse, in the name of objectively “covering the story,” New York Times reporter James C. McKinley, Jr., used quotes from members in the Cleveland, Texas community that covertly blamed the girl-child for wearing make-up and not dressing in “age appropriate” clothing for an 11-year old (as if that would’ve prevented NINETEEN men and boys from gang raping her). In addition, these quotes called the girl-child’s mother into question for not properly supervising her.  Ironically, McKinley’s article, “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town,” was originally posted on March 8, 2011, which is coincidentally International Women’s Day. On March 10, 2011, white feminist Shelby Knox, Director of Organizing, Women’s Rights at Change.org organized a petition to hold the New York Times accountable for blaming the 11-year old child for her gang rape. In less than four days this successful Change.org campaign resulted in 48,857 petition signatures and prompted the New York Times public editor Arthur S. Brisbane, to condemn the article for its lack of balance.

In response to the great number of individuals within Cleveland, Texas’ Black community defending the perpetrators of this most heinous crime, African-American feminist author and journalist, Akiba Solomon wrote several articles in her Colorlines Gender Matters blog. The first post addressed the multilayered atrocities of a community not wanting to hold the perpetrators of the gang rape accountable for their crimes. In her second post, Ms. Solomon stood in solidarity with the Latina girl-child as an African-American woman in an effort to show that she would not allow race to distance her from the victim. Equally as important, Ms. Solomon offered concrete insights and solutions on how Black men can (and must, emphasis mine) play pivotal roles in eradicating rape culture. The third post highlighted the impact of the horrific aftermath on this girl-child who may possibly never fully recover from these vicious and inhumane assaults perpetrated against her. Additionally, African-American journalists, scholars, activists, and theologians including, but not limited to L’Heureux Dumi Lewis, Kellee Terrell, Mark Anthony Neal, TaRessa Stovall, Rev. Nelson Jerome Pierce, Jr., Denene Millner, Crunk Feminist Collective, and What About Our Daughters, were the chorus for many who shared in the outrage and pain.  Unfortunately, these efforts didn’t result in a national outcry on the part of many noted Black Civil Rights organizations and public intellectuals. In fact, the silence on the part of these organizations and ‘leaders’ around all of the issues connected to this heinous crime in Cleveland, Texas was deafening.

Why wasn’t there an expressed collective pain and outcry demanding for justice for the “New Jersey 4” and this Latina girl-child? 

 

There are two answers that come to my mind. One, in both cases, the (alleged) perpetrators are African-American men and boys. Two, as non-monolithic Black communities, many (not all) of us have difficulty viewing both sexism and heterosexism as injustices that, like racism, must be eradicated. I want to be explicitly clear that I’m not advocating for an either “Jena 6” or “New Jersey 4” paradigm. I’m advocating for a both/and paradigm, most especially because both of these cases happened within almost the same timeframe. I would offer that there was a strong possibility that the “New Jersey 4” might not have been sent to jail had there been as much national attention, supported by Non-LGBTQ Black Civil Rights organizations and public intellectuals, on their case as there was on the “Jena 6” case.

(to be continued…stay tuned for Part 2 of this four part article tomorrow.)

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[1] Homophobia and Education (New York: Council on Interracial Books for Children, 1983). You can also read online here.

Kuduro from

around the globe:

"Bazzerk

- African Digital Dance"

The dancefloor movement that started off in Angola in the 80s has found homes in places as far apart as Brazil and France, but, wherever it lands, one thing that almost always happens is that the local artists and deejays start finding ways to add their own twist to the raw, energetic, Afro-techno sound known as Kuduro. Which makes African Digital Dance quite an interesting compilation: Kuduro in its original form - with the strong calpyso and soca rhythms and more vocals - plus Kuduro hybrids that are no less addictive than the sound from Angola, but with a slightly different flavour: instrumental, a bit more emphasis on Drum 'n' bass here, a tad more on Tribal House or Techno there. Long story short, a compilation on which anyone into electronic dance music will find something to like.

African Digital Dance was curated by Parisian producers Jess and Crabbe, who've been researching and promoting Kuduro genre for the last couple of years, and here they pull together tracks - "old" and new - from Angola, obviously, but also from Portugal, France and South America. Our favourites include O Babo by DJ Ketchup, the phenomenal Windek by Cabo Snoop (now almost a classic of the genre), Do Maiorão by Braulio Zp

and Mo Choro by DJ Patrick and featuring Black Power. There's also a delight tucked away almost as an afterthought towards the end of this twenty-seven-track double-album, the bonus track Instru Coupé Decalé by the Logobi music duo Zaza Twins, which sounds like the perfect blend of Afrohouse, Kuduro, Electro and Coupé Décalé (from which Logobi music is derived).

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://mentalgroove.bandcamp.com/track/zaza-twins-instru-coupe-decale-bonus" _mce_href="http://mentalgroove.bandcamp.com/track/zaza-twins-instru-coupe-decale-bonus"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Zaza Twins - Instru Coup&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;eacute; decal&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;eacute; (Bonus) by Jess &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Crabbe&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Have a listen to see which ones work for you the most, then pop over to Bandcamp, the Mental Groove shop or Boomkat.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://mentalgroove.bandcamp.com/album/bazzerk-african-digital-dance" _mce_href="http://mentalgroove.bandcamp.com/album/bazzerk-african-digital-dance"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;BAZZERK - African Digital Dance by Jess &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Crabbe&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

While we're on the subject, two you may have missed but which you definitely must download are Generation Bass vs. Akwaaba, DJ Umb's 30-minute mix of the compilation Akwaaba Sem Transport

and, once you recover your breath, Obroni Start Shakin. They both absolutely free, so couldn't be easier on the wallet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prize Essay Contest

The Society for the History of Discoveries announces its 2012 prize essay contest. Founded in 1960, the purpose of the Society is to stimulate teaching, research and publishing in the history of geographical exploration. We now call for essays on the topics embraced by the Society's name: the history of discoveries. Essays may deal with voyages, travels, biography, history, cartography, techniques and technology, or other aspects of discovery. The primary purpose is to enlighten the reader on some aspect of the exploration of our world.



Scott Vincent Hatcher was selected as the 2010 SHD Essay Contest winner for his essay titled, “The Birth of the Monsoon Winds: On the Existence and Understand of Hippalus, and the ‘Discovery’ of the Apogeous Trade Winds”.  He is a graduate of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia where he completed a B.A. with double majors in Music and History.  He went on to acquire an Advanced Graduate Diploma in Remote Sensing and GIS at the Centre of Geographic Sciences in Lawrencetown N.S. He will begin an M.Sc in Geography at Memorial University in St. John’s Newfoundland in September of 2010. His research will draw on his arts and science backgrounds in exploring the impacts of past and future climate change on Arctic communities and their cultures.  Congratulations to the winner and thanks to all the students who entered the contest.


No prize was awarded for 2011.

ELIGIBILITY: A post-secondary (college or university) student from any part of the world who will not have received a doctoral degree before May 15, 2012 is eligible to enter the contest. THE ESSAY: The essay (research paper) shall be original and unpublished, in the English language and of no more than 6,000 words, including footnotes or endnotes. Papers previously submitted for class assignments are encouraged. A reasonable amount of illustrative and tabular material will be welcome. The essay must be typed using a standard font (Times, Palatino, Century), double-spaced and printed on one side of the paper. Do not place the author's name on the pages of text. Include a cover page that lists the name, mailing address and e-mail address of the student, the college or university, and the student's current status, i.e., sophomore, junior, 1st year MA, etc. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Essays must be postmarked on or before May 15, 2012. By e-mail, send to: Professor Carol Urness, curness@msn.com<img src="/img/email.gif" border="0" height="16"><br>. By post, send to: Dr. Marguerite Ragnow, SHD Prize Essay Contest, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota, 309 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, U.S.A. E-mail submissions are preferred. Questions?: Contact Professor Urness E-Mail: curness@msn.com<img src="/img/email.gif" border="0" height="16"><br> Tel: (612) 788-6570 Fax: (612) 626-9353 Professor Urness and Dr. Ragnow are the prize committee co-chairs. You also may reach Dr. Ragnow at editor@sochistdisc.org<img src="/img/email.gif" border="0" height="16"><br> or 612/624-6895. The award-winning essay will be evaluated by a panel of judges from the Society for the History of Discoveries. The panel's decision will be announced after June 1, 2012. JUDGING CRITERIA: Primary consideration will be given to the essay's originality and its contribution to new knowledge and insights. Other considerations will be the author's demonstration of the relevance of the subject, the cogency of the presentation and the documentation, and the stylistic quality of the essay. In the case of a tie, two awards may be given at the discretion of the judges. If no submission is judged to be either appropriate or sufficiently meritorious, the Society reserves the right to make no award. NOTE: Submissions will be disqualified if: a) their subject is not relevant to the history of discoveries as outlined above or to the general history of geographic exploration; b) adequate and appropriate citations (foot/endnotes) are not included c) the author is not currently enrolled as an undergraduate or enrolled in or accepted to a graduate program at the time of submission. THE AWARD. The winner will receive a prize of $600. The winner will be invited to make an oral presentation about the paper at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries. The 2012 meeting will be held at the Huntington Library/Pasadena, California, from September 27-30. Additionally, the winner will be invited to submit the essay for publication in the Society's journal, Terrae Incognitae. Recent essay award winners and papers include: Paul W. Mapp, "French Reactions to the British Search for a Northwest Passage from Hudson Bay and the Origins of the Seven Years' War" (2000); published in Terrae Incognitae 33 (2001). Carol A. Medlicott, "Re-thinking Geographical Exploration as Intelligence Collection: The Example of Lewis and Clark's 'Corps of Discovery'" (2002); published in Terrae Incognitae 35 (2003). Robert D. Lukens, "Finding Themselves in the Arctic: Samuel J. Entrikin and the Peary Expedition of 1893-1895" (2003). Christopher Slogar, "Polyphernus africanus: Mapping Cannibals in the History of the Cross River Region of Nigeria, ca. 1500-1985 (2004); published in Terrae Incognitae 37 (2005). Alice Storey, "Layers of Discovery" (2005); published in Terrae Incognitae 38 (2006). Matt H. Voss, "'In this sign you shall conquer.' The Cross of the Order of Christ in Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Cartography" (2006); published in Terrae Incognitae 39 (2007). Antony Adler,  “Uncharted Seas: European Polynesian Encounters in the Age of Discoveries.” (2007); published in Terrae Incognitae 40 (2008). Gabriel Hill, "French Merchants and Missionaries on the Early Modern Slave Coast." (2008); published in Terrae Incognitae 41 (2009).

Click this link for recent SHD essay award winners and papers.

Submissions Submissions to Trio House Press are accepted during our awards reading period or during our open reading period. Trio House Press gives two awards annually: the Trio Award for First or Second Book for emerging poets, and the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence for a book of poems contributing in an innovative and distinct way to American poetry.   Each award winner receives $1000 and twenty copies of his or her book. Additionally, each winner must serve as a Collective Member of Trio House Press for twenty-four months after publication in order to assist with the press and bringing more Trio books into print.    We are an environmentally conscious press and only accept manuscripts through our online submissions manager below.  Our reading period for both awards is November 1st through April 30th.  Manuscripts received outside of this reading period will not be considered. Our submissions fee is $25 per manuscript for all award reading periods.     Our open reading period, for which no award is given, is July 1-August 1.  Poets chosen for publication during our open reading period must serve as a Collective Member of Trio House Press for twenty-four months.  Please include a detailed cover letter approximately two pages in length with your bio, publishing history, and marketing plan along with your manuscript. Manuscripts received outside of this period will not be considered. Our open reading period fee is $20.00 Use our online submissions manager below. Our submissions process adheres to and supports all ethical standards and guidelines outlined by the CLMP.  Judges are forwarded unmarked manuscripts for consideration.  Relatives and current or former students of judges are not eligible for publication.    Judge for the 2012 Trio Award for First or Second Book is Ross Gay.  See our home page for bio information.   Judge for the 2012 Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence is Michael Waters.  See our home page for bio information.

Guidelines for Trio House Submissions      The Trio Award for First or Second Book is only open to poets with less than two books published.   The Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence is open to ALL poets, regardless of publication history.   Manuscripts must be between 48-70 pages, written in English by a poet residing within the U.S.   Translations are not eligible for publication.   Manuscripts must be sent in a single word doc. or docx. file.   Include a cover letter with your bio as the first page of your file.   Include an acknowledgement page of individual poems published.  The manuscript as a whole must not be previously published.   Include two cover pages, one with the title of your manuscript and your name and contact information, and one with only the title of your manuscript.  Your name or other identifying materials must not appear anywhere else upon your manuscript.   Payment of $25 is required for all submissions during our award submissions period.   Multiple award submissions are accepted as long as a $25 fee accompanies each award submission.   Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as we are notified immediately if your manuscript is chosen elsewhere.   Relatives and current or former students of judges are not eligible for awards or publication during our contest submissions period.   Open reading period submissions must include a detailed two page cover letter outlining your bio, publishing history, and marketing plan along with your manuscript.  You may insert this cover letter at the beginning of your file in front of your manuscript.  Our open reading period fee is $20.00.   No edits can be made to manuscripts after you submit your manuscript.  However, if chosen for award or publication, edits can be made prior to final proofs.   All award winners and poets published  must serve as a Collective Member of Trio House Press for twenty-four months after publication.  They must assist with the press and bringing more Trio books into print. They must work on the Production and Design Committee, the Distribution and Sales Committee, the Educational Development Committee, or the Fundraising and Marketing Committee.     ***Submissions begin November 1, 2011.  SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!    CLICK THE LINK BELOW to access our online submissions management system.

Submit to Trio House Press

Call for Submissions:

Bakwa Art and

Culture Magazine

(West Africa)

Deadline: 15 June 2012

The second issue of Bakwa will be themed and its focus will be on conversations/interviews. We are interested in conversations with artists which will highlight the process of creation as well as its impediments and challenges. Our aim is to give an insight to the personality of the artist which is usually obfuscated by art and second-guessed by criticism and speculation. We intend to sort of set the record straight by hearing what the artist has to say, given that the notable Italian semiotician and historian, Umberto Eco, opines that interpretation is indefinite.

We would very much appreciate it if contributors queried us first to inform us about a submission concerning the interviews so that we can talk about the project. Nevertheless, we are still open to the regular features which include— poetry, fiction, photography, art, reviews, memoirs, journalistic pieces, travel writing etc.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries/ submissions: bakwaeditor@gmail.com

Website: http://bakwamagazine.wordpress.com/