Too Many White People Challenge: Thoughts on Finding Authors of Color

I’ve decided to do something I’m calling the “Too Many White People Challenge,” named for the simple fact that when I look at my bookshelves, there are far too many white people looking back at me.  When I think about the books I read in school, books I’ve read for fun, books I’ve read for research, the vast majority are unsurprisingly by white authors.  If I want to be an effective advocate against racism and for structural change, then I’d better start reading points of view that don’t come from white people!

The challenge is simple: no white authors for the next 100 books I read.  I’ve made a couple of exceptions for books I’m asked to review and for books I have to read for work, but otherwise, no white authors for the next 100 books.  If you’d like to join me, you can do so at this Goodreads group.  I’m not going to be blogging a lot about this experience here on Radically Queer, because I don’t want it to turn into a self-congratulatory thing, but I’ll check in from time to time.  The Goodreads group is where I’ll be a bit more wordy.

I want to start by sharing some observations I’ve made while looking for books to read.  These are mostly what I expected, but I’m sharing them here in case they’re thoughts that haven’t occurred to some:

1. It’s not necessarily that easy to identify an author of color.  For the sake of efficiency, I had to take some shortcuts that mean I’m missing some of the authors of color on my to-read list.  I went through all my Goodreads to-read shelf, checking off authors of color.  These were almost always authors that I already know, authors with a non-Western name, or books about a race-related subject.  I then went through for the latter two to get rid of the white authors that snuck in.  I’m necessarily going to be missing a lot of authors of color with whom I’m unfamiliar, who are writing about topics other than race.
2. Reading authors of color doesn’t necessarily mean you’re learning about race.  I kept this challenge simple because my goal wasn’t to learn about race, but simply to take white perspectives out of my reading for a while.  Some of the books I’m reading are novels, some are non-fiction, some are even self-help.  There are a few really silly looking chick-lit novels in there.
3. Race is (surprise!) a socially constructed category.  We all know this, but it’s interesting when compiling a list like this to see the principle in action.  I had to ask myself what the goal really was, and decide where I would draw the line for “of color.”  I decided not to include Israeli Jewish authors, for example.  I also decided not to include Turkish authors, though that was mostly for personal reasons, since I’ve studied Turkish and am pretty familiar with the culture.  I did include authors from other parts of the Arab world, but it’s possible I’ve accidentally snuck some white people in there, since you can’t actually look at someone and tell whether or not they’re white, so if a white person is from an Arab country I might not realize.

I’m looking forward to the challenge, despite the difficulties in coming up with a very precise definition of which authors “count.”  I hope some of you will join me?

Blogging Against Disablism Day: Rethinking Access

Over the past five months, my thoughts on access have shifted to such a degree that some friends wonder if I might be lying about how I experience the world.

Until this January, I never asked for access and I didn’t identify as Deaf or HoH.  When I did question the way I hear, I often dismissed my own concerns as lying to myself or being dramatic.  It’s hard to know, after all, how you hear relative to others.  I frequently make “silly mistakes” in interpreting another person’s words, and these mistakes have always been an embarrassment.  I’ve always hated phones.  I do a lot of “filling in” that I don’t really think about to get the full meaning of a sentence, and I hadn’t really noticed how that differs from others’ experiences.

It wasn’t until a conference in January that I considered asking for PSE (ASL signs in English word order, basically) interpretation.  I felt like such a fraud asking, and every other word/sign in my request was an apology.  Even as witnessed how much of a difference it made for my ability to understand without strain and frustration, I felt guilty.

One interpreter, though, said something that resonated with me.  He said that it doesn’t matter what your disability is, or even whether you have one.  You don’t need a diagnosis.  If interpreters give you greater access, and improve your experience, you have a right to request them.

I can’t say that my feelings on the issue have magically reversed in five months. I still ask myself if my hearing issues are “real,” or “enough” to ask for help.  I suspect I have an auditory processing disorder, and I feel fraudulent when I identify as HoH as a shorthand.  I don’t want to minimize anyone’s Deaf identity by using terms that imply a more difficult experience than I have.  But I have been learning to ask for access, to request interpreters without fretting over the cost to event organizers and to ask for friends to repeat themselves when I don’t understand.  I’ve also been attending Deaf events whenever I can, to surround myself with people who don’t see ASL as a “language of the disabled.”

One of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but one of the most important I think to fighting ableist attitudes, is to demand access and not accept excuses.  When an organizer says “no,” “it costs too much,” or “we can’t find interpreters,” I’m training myself to challenge that attitude and confront organizers about their hypocrisy as social justice activists.  I’m learning to stop myself from saying “it’s okay, I understand, I can hear enough to follow” and to instead explain that my access is limited and I’m getting less out of the event I paid for than other attendees.  Who knows what effect these protests will have in the future, but my hope is that they will raise at least some awareness.

This post is for the Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012 event.  Follow the link to read all the posts.

Intersex Athletes and the Intersection Between “Abnormal” Gender and Disability

A couple of weeks ago, I was somewhat perturbed by a discussion of intersex athletes competing in women’s sports.  The discussion took place on a National LGBT Bar Association call on intersex conditions and the law, generally, but it was the information on sports that I found most bothersome.  I’ve been thinking about the frameworks in which we approach trans identities and disability, finding interesting parallels, and the same is evident for intersex individuals.  In the context of women’s sports, athletes who live and identify as women can be disqualified for intersex conditions because they are thought to have an unfair advantage over men.  However, the line in the sand is far from clear.

A couple of months ago, in a dialogue with my friend Kyla on Girl w/ Pen around the classification of gender identity disorder, I mentioned the case of athletes with prosthetic legs being disqualified due to their “unnatural advantage.  In that post, I concluded that the distinction of “unnatural” vs. “natural” wasn’t as obvious as it might seem.  Other extreme body differences, for example being a very tall female basketball player or a very short gymnast, are not considered unnatural or unfair.  The basketball example was also mentioned on the intersex call, in explaining the use of androgen counts to determine who has an “unfair” advantage.

In women’s sports, chromosome tests are no longer used to determine gender, but androgen tests are.  The idea is that having more androgens does positively impact athletic performance, so it’s not fair to have athletes with “too many” androgens compete against women.  Of course, these athletes don’t compete against men, either.  At the same time, athletes with unusual height, lung capacity, or other advantages are seen as “fair” and “natural.”

This says a lot about the way we view gender, and the way we set norms.  We separate athletes by gender because, on average, male athletes and female athletes have certain differences.  But at the same time, there are huge variations within those two genders, so that a perfectly “even” or “fair” match would be difficult to find.  And really, why would we try?  If the point of high-level sports is to work to be the athlete with the most prowess, someone has to be better.  Many young people would love to play sports at that level, but their bodies don’t allow them.  We’re used to this idea.

What we say to intersex athletes when we do tests like this is that there is some line that divides the “normal” from the abnormal.  Folks with a certain number of androgens, like those who conform with their assumed gender, like those who have talents within a socially “acceptable range,” like those who run with legs made of muscle and bone rather than manufactured parts, are considered valid athletes and valid human beings.  Those who fall outside the range don’t get to compete.

It’s not just intersex athletes to whom this restriction applies, by the way.  My ears pricked when I heard that androgens were being used as the deciding factor, because I happen to have a hormonal condition that affects my own hormone levels and I do not have an intersex condition.  I asked whether women with PCOS, for example, who might have elevated androgen levels, but would not be considered to have an intersex condition, could be disqualified on that basis.  The answer is yes.  I’ll leave you to mull these thoughts over with me, and please do comment if you have anything to share on this topic!

White Feminists: It’s Time to Put Up Or Shut Up on Race

Listen up, white feminists.

We have a problem.  I’m including myself because none of us are immune from this problem.  We all fuck up.  And you can say “fucking up is natural,” and that’s true, but it’s time for us to start identifying our fuck ups, and not just learning from them, but acknowledging the hurt they cause other people.

We need to acknowledge that we cannot know what it’s like to be an oppressed racial minority.  Cannot.  The end.  Period.  We don’t know because we’re queer, because we’re disabled, because we’re Jewish, because we were the nerdy kid in school.  These things may have hurt us severely, but we need to stop playing Oppression Olympics and acknowledge that when we’re talking about race we Do.  Not.  Know.  No more metaphors.

Love Your Body Day: Complex Body Relationships

This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival

As feminists share tips, stories, and body love today, I am pleased to see that some are also highlighting the negatives of the body-love imperative.  While fighting body-negative messages is crucial, it is important to recognize that the goal should be acceptance of others’ bodies, not unqualified love of one’s own.  For many people, including transgender, genderqueer, and intersect people, people with disabilities, people with a history of eating disorders, and those with a history of sexual assault, body love may not be a comfortable or appropriate goal.  It’s important to realize that for some of us, a body is an inconvenience or a hindrance, and that experience is just as valid as body-love.  

So what tips would I share on Love Your Body Day?

1.  Speak to others in a thoughtful, compassionate way about bodies.  Recognize that people’s relationships with their bodies vary widely and respect that.  Don’t speak in absolute terms or offer advice when it’s not wanted or needed.  For example, don’t sing the praises of exercise–many feel that while it’s wrong to criticize someone’s weight, exercise is right for everyone, and that simply isn’t true.

2.  Be gentle with yourself if you have difficulty with body-love.  Sometimes our bodies are disappointing.  They might not function how we’d like them to.  It might be hard to gain or lose weight.  We might have health problems we can’t control, or a body that doesn’t feel right for our gender.  If nurturing your body isn’t appropriate for you, try nurturing your mind or your spirit.  A lot of body issues are mental health issues, and it can help to have a safe space to talk those out, even if they aren’t “fixable.”

3) Look for and give support where you can.  It might be helpful to share experiences with others who have similar body issues.  This doesn’t have to be a formal support group–I’ve seen plenty of this on Twitter and Tumblr.

4) Think of ways to visualize yourself or express your creative spirit–this doesn’t necessarily have to involve your body.  For example, you might design an avatar or a work of art to represent you, make a spirit wall, practice creative visualization to envision yourself in some way other than the embodied, or use fashion to cover your body or make it less noticeable than what you’re displaying on it.

5) Assert your right (and others’) to take up space in a way that works for you.  It’s okay to say that your body fucking sucks.  You have a right to be sad, hurt, or angry.  Anyone who insists that you love your body, get over your issues, or make more of an effort to love yourself is practicing emotional abuse.  You have a right to inhabit physical space as well.  You have a right to accommodations that you need.  You have a right to say no to anything that makes you uncomfortable.  You have a right to tell others not to say things about your body that they think are positive, and not to touch your body.  These are all parts of bodily autonomy.

The Islamophobic Right Uses the Muslim “Other” to Obscure Our Own Women’s Rights Record

Every day, a new piece pops up on my radar screen describing positive steps towards women’s rights in an Arab or Islamic context.  (Here’s the most recent as I’m starting this article, from Brian Whitaker on Tunisia.)  At the same time, the Islamophobes keep spouting the same tired rhetoric about how Muslim women are oppressed, using this oppression as a justification for Americans to fear and hate Muslim men.  Recently, I wrote at Gender Across Borders about how shari’a is perverted by the Islamophobes to argue for draconian laws and treatment of Muslims in the US, and why that’s ridiculous.  This fuzzy logic goes far beyond the creeping shari’a argument, however.

Islamophobic pundits have been in the news a lot lately, after the Center for American Progress released its Fear, Inc. report.  These right-wing commentators are doing a lot of harm in a lot of ways, but I’d like to focus today on how they use the idea of a Muslim “Other” to obscure the appalling US record on human rights for women.

If you’re a white middle-class person who was raised in the US, there’s a good chance that a soft form of this Othering rhetoric made it to your ears at some point while you were in school.  We see it all the time in visual depictions of Muslim women for NGO ads as veiled, sad, and repressed.  The veil is used as a powerful rhetorical tool to equalize Muslim women, nevermind the many women who wear the hijab by choice, nevermind the variety of traditions, schools of thought, and types of covering that exist under the broad umbrella of Islam.  Islam is portrayed as an anti-woman monolith, and Muslim women are portrayed as being in great need of benevolent Western help.

Let’s get a few things straight:

1. Islam is not a monolith.  There are several main schools of thought, and many, many interpretations of specific points within those schools.  Islamic jurisprudence and study is a vast body of work that you can’t even begin to crack with a casual glance.  The interplay of faith, law, and policy is also not identical to the way these things work together in the West.  Nor can you assume that the relationship between Islam and the state, or between the state and the people, is the same in every country.
2. Islam is not inherently oppressive of women.  Islamophobes do a great disservice to living, breathing women when they make broad claims about how women are being oppressed in the Muslim world without digging deeper.  There are Muslim women who are scholars of Islam and of shari’a.  There are Muslim women in government and politics.  In fact, in some cases, women have more involvement in the public sphere in an Arab country than they do in the US.  Muslim women are doing great things while holding a tremendous faith in the face of difficult challenges.  Many Muslim women who do live in oppressive situations are using Islam as a tool to fight against their oppressors.  This, by the way, includes Muslim women fighting oppression right here in the United States.¹
3. He who lives in a glass house should be really fucking careful about throwing stones.  I could go on for days about how dangerous it is for fundamentalist Protestant Christians to speak on the oppression women face under another religious system.  Instead, I’m just going to link one of many examples, and also recommend the book Quiverfull and the blog Are Women Human?  An Us vs. Them mentality on women’s rights, where fundamentalists in the US claim the high ground, is frankly ridiculous.  It’s also important to note that the US has typically lagged behind when it comes to support for international human rights, including women’s rights.  Instead of trying to be the world’s savior through our imperialism, perhaps we should turn inward and look at how women are being oppressed right here at home.

It’s always a good idea to be suspicious when a pundit paints an “Other” with a broad brush, whether that’s Muslim women, black mothers, immigrants, “LGBTs,” or any other group.  It’s convenient to use “do you know how they treat their women over there?” so-called humanitarian statements to pull the spotlight off abuses at home.  As activists, we need to be alert for these claims and quick to provide examples of how they harm rather than help.

¹It would be impossible to list all the amazing Muslim women and organizations that are doing work in the US and in the Arab world.  However, I thought it would be helpful for this post to crowdsource a list.  Here are just a few people and groups, some picked by me, some suggested by others, to illustrate the points made above (alphabetical by country):

Afghanistan

Dr. Sima Samar, chair of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Sudan, founder and director of Shuhada Organization in Pakistan.

Algeria

Cherifa Kheddar, outspoken president and founder of Djazairouna Association, which provides support to victims of the Algerian civil war, and 2009 winner of the International Service Human Rights Award for the Defense of Human Rights of Women

Austria

Waris Dirie, Somali-Austrian women’s rights activist and former international supermodel, best-selling author, appointed UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation, founded several organizations including the Waris Dirie Foundation to raise FGM awareness, builds awareness around the fact that Islam does not require FGM

Bahrain

Amira Al Hussaini, journalist and Regional Editor for the Middle East and North Africa at Global Voices Online

Bangladesh

Sheikha Hasina Wazed, Prime Minister of Bangladesh and president of the Awami League, focused on poverty reduction, daughter of the first president of Bangladesh

Belgium

Mahinur Ozdemir, Europe’s first hijab-wearing minister of Parliament, member of Christian Democrat party

China

Rebiya Kadeer, de factor leader of the Uighur social justice movement, formerly a successful businesswoman, now in exile in the US and publicizes the plight of the Uighurs in the US and Europe

Egypt

Jihan Al Halafawi, first female political candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood (ran for Egyptian Parliament in 2000 and 2002—the Muslim Brotherhood has long accepted women as members, but more recently has made gender equality a major concern)

Ethar El-Katatney, award-winning journalist and author, former staff writer for Egypt Today, promotes dialogue between religions and cultures

Indonesia

Dr. Tuti Alawiyaah, former Minister of Women’s Empowerment, current dean of As Syafi’iyah University, one of Indonesia’s oldest and most prominent Islamic educational institutions, prolific preacher who appears on almost all TV channels in Indonesia

Siti Musdah Mulia, chair of the women’s branch of the enormous Indonesian Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama, Muslimat Nahdlatul Uluma, first female professor at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (1999), helped produce the Counter Legal Draft, which would have revised the Islamic legal code to ban polygamy and child marriage

Lily Zakiyah Munir, founder and director of Centre for Pesantren and Democracy Studies, which educates Islamic boarding schools about human rights and political participation, only woman and only Muslim to serve on Monitoring Commission for the Afghan elections

Hajjah Maria Ulfah, internationally acclaimed reciter of the Qur’an and first woman to win an international Qur’an recitation competition, popularized Egyptian style of recitation, director of women’s department at the Institute for Qur’an Study in Indonesia

Iran

Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, founder of Children’s Rights Support Association, supports rights of women and children and lectures on human rights in Iran, has a liberal view of Islam that many Muslim feminists appreciate

Dr. Masoumeh Ebtekar, first female Vice President of Iran, founding member of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front and has been at the center of the revolutionary movement in Iran since 1979

Faezeh Hashemi, Iranian politician and social activist, Majlis representative, advocate of relaxing the dress code in Iran (though she wears the chador herself), and younger daughter of powerful politician and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Zahra Rahnavard, author, political advisor under Khatami, first female chancellor of Alzahra University, staunch critic of Ahmadinejad, and first woman to campaign in Iran (with her husband Mir-Hossein Mousavi in 2009)

Jordan

Queen Raina Al Abdullah, recognized for philanthropic work in the areas of education reform and microfinance, runs very popular YouTube channel and website

Malaysia

Sharifah Zuriah Aljeffri, artist and curator who incorporates Chinese brush style with Arabic calligraphy, also outspoken social activist who founded Sisters in Islam to focus on gender issues and increase respect for women

Zaynah Anwar, executive director of Sisters in Islam, journalist, and author of a book about Islam in Malaysia

Mauritania

Aminetou El Mokhtar, human rights lawyer, president of L’Association des Femmes Chefs de Famillie, and chair of the African Democracy Forum

Morocco

Fatema Mernissi, feminist writer and sociologist; has done sociological research for UNESCO, the ILO, and Moroccan authorities; currently lecturer and research scholar at Mohammed V University of Rabat, her work is lauded by Muslim feminists

Nadia Yassine, head of the women’s branch of Al Adl Wa Al Ihssane (the most powerful Islamist movement in Morocco), has promoted the movement in Europe, recently prosecuted for criticizing the monarchy in a weekly newspaper

Naima Zitan, playwright and drama teacher in the Faculty of Education and Professor of Animation at the National Museum of Science and Archaeological Heritage, president of Theatre Aquarium (organization that publicizes role of Muslim women in Moroccan society), and advisor to the Global Fund for Women

Niger

Dodo Aichatou Mindaoudou, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, and African Integrity, has written extensively about economic development and women’s issues, one of the most senior women politicians in West Africa

Pakistan

Mukhtaran Bibi, aka Mukhtar Mai, founded the Mukhtaran Mai Women’s Welfare Organization to educate young girls about women’s rights and honor killings after her own publicized sexual assault, which brought media focus to the issue of women’s rights; author of a best-selling memoir; featured in a documentary on sexual violence

Dr. Maleeha Lodi, journalist and diplomat, previously served on the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Affairs and as ambassador to the US and Britain, received President’s Award of Hilal-e-Imtiaz for public service

Tanveer Kausar Naim, director of Science, Technology Research and Training Institute of the OIC standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH), member of UNESCO Gender Advisory Board and UNESCO International Advisory Board for Reform of Higher Education and Science and Technology in Nigeria

 

Palestine

Khouloud El Faqeeh, first female judge in Palestine and one of the first female judges in the Islamic world for a shari’a-based court

Qatar

Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, advocate for women and children’s rights, was the driving force behind Education City and Al Jazeera Children Channel, wife of the ruler of Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Muna Abu-Sulayman, executive director of Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation, founding co-host of a popular TV show, and first Saudi woman appointed a UN Goodwill Ambassador (2005)

Norah Abdallah Al Faiz, deputy minister for women’s education and first woman to serve on the Saudi Council of Ministers, former principal of a girls’ school and director of the women’s section at the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh

Wajeha Al Huwaider, feminist author, poet, and journalist who is a staunch critic of Saudi policies on women and was banned from Saudi media in 2003; she has led high-profile human rights protests including against the driving ban

Lubna Olayan, Saudi Arabia’s top businesswoman, leading investor in the Saudi economy, and CEO of Olayan Financing Company; one of the most influential businesswomen in the world

Somalia

Hibaaq Osman, Muslim and women’s rights activist, Special Representative to Africa for V-Day, founder of Karama, founding CEO of the Arab Women’s Fund, and founder of the Center for Strategic Initiatives for Women (CISW)

 

Syria

Houda al-Habash, subject of an upcoming documentary, founded an operates a women’s Qur’anic school in Syria that empowers women intellectually and socially

Turkey

Hayrünnisa Gül, first Turkish First Lady to wear the hijab, appealed to the ECHR in the 1990s to overturn Turkey’s hijab ban, most visible headscarf-wearing person in Turkey

United Arab Emirates

Princess Haya bint al Hussain, wife of the Prime Minister, has developed initiatives in humanitarianism, sports, health science, culture, and business and advanced the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty

Dalia Mogahed, director of the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center and Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, co-author of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think

United Kingdom

Nimco Ali, co-founder of Daughters of Eve, a campaign and support charity dedicated to ending gender-based violence and female genital mutilation

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, British writer and commentator acclaimed for her blog spirit21, influential in British media as a commentator on religion and gender, author of popular book Love in a Headscarf, which demystified Muslim life to a non-Muslim audience as well as being very popular among Muslims

Irene Zubaida Khan, first woman and first Muslim to serve as Secretary General of Amnesty International, initiated a campaign against gender-based violence, also served in high positions for the UNHCR in Macedonia and India

Ruwayda Mustafah, British-Kurdish feminist freelance writer and contributor to the Huffington Post, writes on Kurdish rights as well as women’s rights and religion

 

United States

 

Assilmi Amina, president of the International Union of Muslim Women, was involved in a custody case that resulted in a change in Colorado state law to keep individuals from being denied custody based on religion, lobbied for an Eid US stamp in 1996

Sabina England, Deaf punk Muslim playwright and performer

Mona Eltahawy, award-winning columnist and international speaker on Arab and Muslim issues (website)

Fatemeh Fakhraie, editor of Muslimah Media Watch and contributor to I Speak For Myself who writes about Islamic feminism, Islam, and race for a number of different outlets

Suheir Hammad, Palestinian-American poet and performer (described by the person who recommended her to me as “Kick. Ass.”  Clearly you should check her out!)

Dr. Merve Kavakçi, barred from Turkish Parliament in 1999 for refusing to remove the hijab, is a symbolic figure for the headscarf issue in Turkey and an adovcate for Muslim women’s rights, lecturer on culture and international affairs at GW, has memorized the Qur’an

Irshad Manji, founder and director of the Moral Courage Project at NYU, creator of the Emmy-nominated film Faith Without Fear, and an advocate for reform within Islam

Ingrid Mattson, first woman and first convert to be president of ISNA, the largest Muslim organization in North America, also director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program and professor at Hartford Seminary

Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst at Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, director of the Muslim-West Facts Initiative, appointed by Obama to serve on the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, co-author of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think

Robina Niaz, executive director of Turning Point for Women & Families, active participant in interfaith and women’s rights events in New York

Farah Pandith, Special Representative to Muslim Communities, charged with executing Secretary Clinton’s vision for engagement with Muslims worldwide

Amanda Quraishi, writer, blogger, interfaith activist, technology professional, and creator of the 365 Muslim smartphone app (bio)

Asifa Quraishi, legal scholar specializing in comparative Islamic and U.S. constitutional law, writes on shari’a and feminism, former Public Delegate on the US delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women

Nadia Roumani, co-founder and director of the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (AMCLI) at USC

Linda Sarsour, director of the Arab American Association of New York, Advocacy and Civic Engagement Coordinator for the National Network of Arab American Communities (NNAAC), and community activist on issues including immigration, women’s issues, domestic policy, and the Middle East

Ilyasah Al Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, president and trustee of the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational, and Cultural Center, involved in New York community service and has a position of authority among black Muslims

Asma T. Uddin, founder of Altmuslimah, legal fellow with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), and international law attorney for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (profile)

Amina Waudud, an imam (Muslim scholar) who led an assembly of mixed-gender Muslims in prayer at an historical service and has done extensive work on gender studies in Islam (Wiki)

A Shameful Attack on an Intelligent Black Woman: Salon Goes Too Far on Melissa-Harris Perry

In my review of Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris-Perry, I noted how much I appreciated Harris-Perry’s coverage of misrecognition of the “strong black woman.” It seems that Gene Lyons and the editors of Salon could stand to read Dr. Harris-Perry’s book.

In a piece entitled Obama’s bridge too far, Lyons launches an out-of-the-blue attack on Harris-Perry, using language to suggest that she is a race traitor, a Jezebel, and a kind of reverse-Klansman. Shame on Salon for publishing the piece. My hope is that the inevitable backlash will open some more eyes to the intolerable misrecognition of black women in American society, and to the function of shame around black women in the political sphere.

It is almost laughable how Lyons follows Harris-Perry’s script for the shaming of black women in public life to a T. Rather than attacking her argument alone on its face, he suggests Harris-Perry doesn’t belong in politics–that she is “whining,” a PhD “trained to find racist symbols in the passing clouds,” and hyper-focused on race to the point that she can’t be taken seriously. Lyons dangerously frames race as a topic that is not matter for serious discussion, reminding the reader of conservative pleas to “colorblindness” in 2008.

“Furthermore, unless you’re black, you can’t possibly understand. Yada, yada, yada. This unfortunate obsession increasingly resembles a photo negative of KKK racial thought.” Black solidarity becomes an object of derision, a reverse racism in a colorblind (read, white-by-default) world. Harris-Perry’s legitimate substantive critiques of Obama, her nuanced way of looking at his administration, are ignored.

I find it particularly funny that Lyons calls Harris-Perry “a left-wing Michele Bachmann, an attractive woman seeking fame and fortune by saying silly things on cable TV,” in light of Harris-Perry’s comments at a recent Center for American Progress book discussion. She pointed out (to paraphrase) that despite derision, mocking, and the fact that nothing positive is ever said by the majority about it, black women continue to do amazing, beautiful, remarkable, creative things with their hair. There’s a parallel here–Lyons tries to shame Harris-Perry about her attractive looks, as if being attractive and intelligent were a mortal sin for a black woman, automatically reducing her words to silliness on a Bachmann scale, but I bet you anything Harris-Perry is going to go on being vocal about politics and being a snappy dresser despite Lyons’ attempts to shame her.

We cannot accept identity-based attacks like this in a supposedly progressive publication. As a long-time reader, I demand an apology from Salon–and suggest that its editors crack open a copy of Sister Citizen post haste.

Why Talk of the Obesity Epidemic and Calorie Counts is Actively Harmful

[trigger warning for eating disorders, suicidal thoughts]

I had a very painful experience yesterday that I’d like to share.  I thought about doing this privately, but I decided that it was worth talking about in public because my readers mostly come for a mix of queer issues, feminist, and human rights law, and you may not be aware of the insidious harms of body shaming and talk about the “obesity epidemic.”  There is a slim chance that the person I’m telling this story about could read this article.  I hope that if she does, she’ll understand that it’s not about her, and I’m not saying that I hate her as a person or that she’s a bad person.  I don’t want to shame an individual here.  I want to point out the context of her words, that we live in a society where vitriol like this is acceptable.  For that reason I’m not saying who she is or how we met, just that she’s someone I know in a professional capacity.

So here’s what happened:

We got into a discussion about the “obesity epidemic,” where I was arguing that a lot of the public health messages about obesity harm more than they help, and that children shouldn’t be shamed into diet and exercise.  Her position was very different, so I decided to disclose my personal history of eating disorders (probably EDNOS, I don’t really know how to categorize it yet) in hopes that my perspective might be one she hadn’t considered.  It didn’t really do much good in the abstract, but eventually we got around to talking about the calorie signs that many big cities now require to be displayed in restaurants.

Mental Health, Stigma, and Activism

This post has sort of been a long time coming, but it’s a challenge to gather my thoughts on what I’d like to discuss here.   For a long time, my identity has been heavily organized around sexuality and gender.  That’s where most of my activism goes, as well as most of my writing and academic work.  I’m sensitive to gender- and sexuality-based discrimination in my own life and in the lives of others.  But lately, I’ve been thinking about another kind of discrimination, and another kind of identity–one that it’s much scarier to claim.

I spend some of my blog-reading time each day on disability, a topic that’s of interest to me because it falls in with so many other oppression- and kyriarchy-related topics, because I don’t know enough about it, and because it affects so many of those near and dear to me.  I am a TAB (temporarily able-bodied) person, and so I have never really identified with disability, but that has been changing.

None of these things are diagnosed, partially because of the challenges in seeking professional assistance and the potential of community rejection, but I show pretty strong signs of depression, anxiety, social anxiety, and binge eating disorder.  I had to fight my urge, just now, to put the adjective “mild” in front of those words, because the stigma against them is so heavy, and I can practically see the judgment coming.

I’ve judged other people for their mental health problems.  I’ve used words like “crazy” to describe people, and as a brightline rule to apply to myself–”I may have some issues, but I’m not crazy.”  I’m ashamed to admit that.  By some definitions, I probably am crazy.

The fact is, normal is relative.

We live in a world that encourages mental unhealth.  Just sorting through the challenge of trying to find a good eating disorder recovery blog that is body-positive, supports HAES, and doesn’t use the language of control and oppression and restriction, is really tough.  That’s because we’re taught that it’s healthy to hate our bodies, healthy to restrict our eating, and if food controls our lives, it has to do with weakness and willpower and personal responsibility.  Similarly, anxiety is normal in a stressed-out world, as is depression.  Those things are “just what everyone has,” but if someone asserts that it actually is a problem, it actually is greater than normal, zie becomes stigmatized, unhealthy, crazy.

I’m tired of guilt.  I’m tired of all the fucked-up issues I have surrounding food and money.  I’m tired of feeling the burden of the constant pressure to maintain a reputation, an online presence.  I would love to write and be an activist for a living, but it’s not a profession that cuts people very much slack.  There’s pressure to constantly produce, not to have an “off” day.  There’s pressure to be able to be social and travel and do things whether or not you feel like it.  There’s pressure to present as healthy, calm, with it, in control.  Of course, there’s very little money in it, so it’s not a very welcoming place for folks whose mental health issues are exacerbated by not having enough.

I’m not going anywhere.  But I am starting to learn and accept that I may not be cut out for this career, for activist “fame,” for material success.  I’m going to keep writing and keep reading and keep talking to people, but I’m going to accept that my periods of disappearance due to social anxiety may mean that I lose a lot of people and am never seen as a member of the community.  The time it takes to tackle my “issues” may take away from the time I have to tackle the world’s issues.  I may be seen as “less than,” “not good enough,” or “unprofessional” by some people and organizations.  I’m going to learn to be okay with that, because the guilt and the shame and the pain of a world that I visualize in constant judgment is too much for me.

I wanted to put this out there because I know I am not the only blogger, writer, or activist in this position.  I want to let you know that you’re not alone and your struggle is valid and the stigma against you is shit and it’s not your fault. I’m not sure I can offer a very reliable ear, because the pressure of correspondence is often difficult for me, but I can try.

Class vs. Income and Claiming Identity

I was reading an old blog post the other day about the whole “it’s rude to ask what someone does for a living in Europe” thing, and I got to thinking about the difference between class/family background and income/occupation/career.  It is true that what you do is a pretty common way to identify oneself right off the bat here in the US, but what’s the alternative?  The most obvious one I could come up with is where you come from–hometown, family name, background.  The difference between those two identities, of course, is that one is dealing with class and upbringing (which you can’t control) and the other is dealing with income and occupation (which you, supposedly, can).

Part of our American individual responsibility rhetoric is the idea that it’s only up to us whether we succeed or fail in our careers.  Supposedly, occupation should be a more egalitarian way to define oneself, rather than speaking directly about class or family ties.  But is that really the case?  Personally, I feel a pressure around the occupation question, because I grew up in a middle to lower middle class family in the South, did very well in school, and was expected to far exceed my parents’ incomes.  I am more educated than any of my family members, and live in a large urban area in a more affluent part of the country now.  However, I make far less money than expected, and I find myself defining myself more by what I want to do than by what I am when someone asks about career.  I often define myself as a blogger, writer, and activist, obscuring my full-time paying job.  Sometimes I say that I work in the “non-profit” sector, but rarely mention my job title, because it’s more a means than an end.

I do wonder if the tendency to identify ourselves by our careers contributes far more to stress than some people realize.  How many of us use an aspirational definition of what we are, or speak about our education rather than our job, or our sector rather than our occupation?  How many feel ashamed by a job description?  I do think that there is a tendency to see what we do as a direct reflection on our job skills and what we have to offer as professional people, rather than an accident of circumstance, what was available in this economy when we applied, or what we grew into as we went from job to job.  I don’t necessarily think that defining ourselves by class is any better, but I do wonder what the attendant pressure of that definition would be.