Assuming she can read the site from where-ever she is. . . anyway, she has an anecdote about Ms. Steinem, which I mention before linking Time Magazine's 10 Questions For Gloria Steinem:
Some younger women seem to run from the Feminist label. How can you inspire them to be passionate about Women's Rights?If younger women have a problem [with the label], it's only that they don't know yet that there's a problem. The kind of radicalization that happened to my generation when we tried to get a job happens to them 10 or 15 years into the job, when they fail to get promoted. Women tend to be conservative in youth and get more radical as they get older because they lose power with age. So if a young woman is not a feminist, I say just wait.
I'd point out the word "tend" up there, but since the people who violently (in some cases, literally, violently) disagree with anything she says are so effective at that whole frothing-at-the-mouth demonization of enemies thing, there's not much point. Any adults care to discuss that quote, or anything else from the brief QA session, feel free.
And if any children want to toss out something pointless, the rest of you may safely ignore it, as I've adopted the "I don't feel like paying to host your stupid shit" approach towards comments these days. You might have noticed some vanish recently. Or, if I'm doing this quickly enough, not.
This is hardly censorship; there's lots of places where stupid shit is not only accepted, but actively encouraged. I'm showing a great deal of restraint in not linking those places, in fact.
Actually, fuckit, Glenn Reynolds (who, I point out, does not allow comments) sez:
Al Franken and Air America: "Silencing Minorities Since 2004!"
Wow. I wonder if Chuck D. knows about this.
Ignore the looney. This is another manifestation of that "The Left are the real racists" meme that white conservatives seem so desperate to push. I'd suggest it might go over a wee bit better if they could persuade some people of color of this first, but as we're all brainwashed zombie servants of the Democratic Party, they're not even able to convince us of how racist, um, we are.
(They don't count us as part of the Left, you see. Like how "Americans" are tired of having the Gay Agenda shoved down their throats, or Bush would'a won in a landslide if you ignore the Negro vote. They're pathetically transparent in their bigotry, which makes the accusations all the more amusing)
She makes some really basic points very clearly, which is probably a really good thing for most of the Time-reading audience, but for the most part Gloria Steinem really doesn't do it for me. I mean, she's really well-suited to dumbed-down mass-media stuff, but for anyone who's really interested in serious feminist thought, she's kind of a watered-down reformist with a checkered past (including being a CIA informant).
"Any adults care to discuss that quote, or anything else from the brief QA session, feel free."
Due to the fact that time and time again when I tell people (including sales people in my own company) I am a QA Technician people respond "A Question and Answer Technician?", I request you add an ampersand to the phrase to avoid confusion.
QA = Quality Assurance
Q&A = Question and Answers.
Thank you.
Or we could start repealing laws that keep idiots from accidentally killing themselves.
"How was I supposed to know the coffee was hot?"
"You mean I shouldn't stick my finger in there?!?"
Personally, I don't think you're a brainwashed zombie at all. But I do think you're smart enough not to give the left (not homogenous, I know -- using it for convenience) a complete pass on issues of race.
Of course, you and I have had this conversation before -- eventually the discussion became quite civil, if I remember -- so I hate to see you demonize the right in the same way you claim the left is being demonized vis-a-vis race.
Cue: "Ebony and Ivory" (preferably, as performed by Murphy and Piscapo)...
Jeff, it's not a matter of giving the left a pass on anything.
It's a matter of having been demonzied by the right, constantly, having trolls sicced on me, and recently getting called a nigger on my own god damn site by one of them. All of which, apparently, they consider to be perfectly acceptable behavior.
So this outpouring of concern on the part of the right for people of color being silenced by Air America strikes me as so much bullshit hypocritical posturing.
And I'm not sure where to begin with that passive construction, "the discussion became quite civil." Yes, discussions here have a tendency to do that sometimes, not through any effort on my part, of course. I don't ignore a stream of insults, baiting, condescension, being treated like a one-dimensional stereotype, no, none of that. They just "become" civil. By magic.
Eh, the passive construction I used was intentional; couldn't remember exactly how the discussion became civil, or on whose site, and it was close to two years ago. With the passive construction, neither of us gets credit / both of us get credit.
I read the response of many of those on the right to "people of color being silenced by Air America" differently than did you. The point to those posts, as I saw it (and I made one myself, though I attributed it to Michael Moore as part of an April 1 bit) is that the very people who make it a point of pride to separate people into identity groups for the purposes of political expediency are those (ironically) responsible for the "silencing" in question here, though they aren't doing it intentionally.
It's a cheap dig, but it's one not totally undeserved, and to be fair to "the right," it hardly generated outrage of fever pitch -- likely because those on the right who thought it fun to point to the irony also tend to be more sympathetic to market realities.
But I could be misreading it. At the very least, that was my reason for noting it.
Jeff, I should probably point out that I'm not reading your site -- or Michele's, or any right-leaning blogs, really -- because, at this point, I'm pretty fucking disgusted with the lot of you.
So if you could maybe refrain from posting comments in the political threads here -- the pop culture stuff, that's cool, think we bonded over Brazil/R&G are Dead/Tom Stoppard back in the day -- I'd appreciate it.
Sure thing. Your site, I respect your rules. Cordially, &tc.