State-sanctioned abuse is not 'discipline'

Last weekend, when I grabbed the newspaper from the little old man who is so gingerly perched on the island in the middle of traffic that I'm nervous to move too quickly lest everything topple over and throw him to his demise in front of a sugar cane tractor, I was alarmed. Not by the newspaper man - he's safe - but by the enormous front page photo and the story that accompanied it. And so I became caught up in a frenzied clack-clacking on my computer, filled with outrage and wonder, which I then had to suspend because of other work. And alas, the outrage has not returned in sufficient measure to pick up exactly where I left off. But here's the photo in question, with my own description excerpted below, as I began to write it last weekend.



(The front page picture of a senior teacher at a local secondary boys' school who made the decision to wait at the school gates and publicly flog any student who arrived late. Do you need to re-read that? I'll give you a minute. The photographer went one better than that, though. He included in the shot not just the teacher with his cane or stick or whatever it was, but him actually taking hold of a student and beating him. Another minute? Take your time.

The above shot was taken from the online version of the story, and was not the one used on the front page of the paper version. In this one, the child is taller than the teacher, and is glancing disdainfully at the man as if to say "dude, do you know how long it took me to fix my pants like this? You're really harshing my look here." So it's an offensive image, but not as immediately jarring as the front page photo of the smaller child who looks about 11 and taken quite by surprise.)

Since that story was published, the debate has opened up quite a bit about the legitimacy of flogging in schools. And you know what? I don't understand it. I don't understand how we get into heated arguments around whether it is an effective disciplinary measure to engage in the state-sanctioned beating of other human beings when we've already answered that question in the negative. Remember? We used to have this monstrosity called the cat o' nine tails with which we beat convicted criminals? And this and all other forms of judicial corporal punishment were formally declared inhumane and consequently unconstitutional by the Barbados Supreme Court?

Yet, in 2009, pastors and educators and Matthew Farleys abound, writing articles and giving interviews contrasting crime and social statistics and all manner of 'moral indicators' - whatever those are - in countries where flogging is banned with those where it is still practiced, and arguing on this basis that beating the crap out of children represents the yellow brick road to Utopia. And I used to get all caught up in those arguments myself. I used to yell from my side of the aisle about how Caribbean societies seemed so well-behaved because 1) children who are systematically beaten often don't manifest learned, violent behaviours until they are much older, making it harder (also because of high numbers of migration) to draw a straight line from a beaten child to his criminal behaviour; 2) becoming an offender within the judicial system is not the only manifestation of being generally screwed up; and 3) there are plenty other factors at work keeping our 'moral indicators' as the moral majority would like than corporal punishment - just give a glance to the 'crimes' still on the law books, like homosexuality and dressing like a woman, as opposed to those not on the law books, like marital rape. And on I would go blah-blahing within the parameters of reasoned insanity.

I once even got my bristle board and Sharpie out and picketed the headmaster's office at my school, because he was about to flog (behind closed doors and with no one else present) a teenaged girl who had filled condoms with water and distributed them to her friends to have a laugh.

FLOGGING OF FEMALE STUDENTS IS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN!!

That's what my sign said. I was 15 years old, and traumatized by the notion that a grown man was going to splay a 16-year-old girl across his desk and beat her, and we were saying that was alright because she happened to be on a school compound between the hours of 9 and 3 and he happened to be called Headmaster.

But these days, I hardly get that far into debates about whether flogging works as a disciplinary action, because I find it absurd that it is even an option. Sure it works in the short term to rule and silence a population with fear, violence and intimidation. We have countless examples of that throughout history, and even today; and we condemn them all. What changes when the population in question is below the age of 18? I would think we'd be more indignant and less willing to do harm to those we're meant to protect.

And how can we draw so neat a line between child abuse - with which this region is struggling more and more every year - and flogging in schools? I hear all kinds of silly little differentiators: "Flogging should not be done in anger, and only by principals and senior teachers." Because that's not at all inhumane. Let's pencil the offending student in for a 2:00 p.m. flogging, yet expect her to be academically productive in the meantime, and then march her off to headteachers' chambers at the appointed hour for a detached, methodical beating. Yeah, that's much better. Then there's the old "I was flogged as a child, and it didn't do me any harm. I turned out great!" Yeah, you turned out great alright. You turned out to be an adult who thinks it's ok to hit children. Well done, you.

I was flogged as a child, and it did me harm. It did me harm to realize that the people I trusted not to hurt me could not be trusted after all, and that their kindness and care were conditional upon certain behaviours that I was still learning. That horrified me. It did me harm to watch my neighbour and primary school classmate walking up the street from school, limping, and when we, concerned, pulled back her skirt, to see her fair skin black-and-blue and purple, bruised, swollen and tender from a teacher's bamboo rod. I cried for her that evening, and had trouble sleeping for days after. It did me harm to have to stand up for myself as an 11-yr old, to tell the principal I would not, in fact, allow him to hit me because I had gotten one problem out of 100 wrong (one strike per wrong answer), and then to feel the victory seep away from me after I sat down again and realized that no one was going to defend the students who had gotten 10 wrong, or 20, or 30. It did me harm to watch my sisters awakened in the middle of the night and struck for some newly-discovered transgression, like reading the wrong type of book, or saying hello to the wrong type of neighbour. I love my parents, and had some great teachers, but the fact that I'm not currently incarcerated for murder doesn't mean none of that did me harm.

Human beings have short memories. So sure, we feel fine now. But children's worlds are small, and the adults who occupy them very, very big. It's time for us to stop finding ways to justify organized, state-sanctioned abuse, get off our lazy asses and parent our children.

Can we be clear once and for all on who suffers most and worst from intimate-partner violence? Please?

I wasn't going to write about this, because this type of argument exhausts me, but here it is, stuck in my craw, and it doesn't seem to be moving. So onward.

Any discussion encompassing gender in Barbados seems to be permanently stuck on the old "but it happens to men too!" or "men suffer worse!" refrain. And the media seems quite happy to play that tit-for-tat game: every issue must be highlighted as having equal effects and repercussions for men and women, whether this be the case or not; and - I suppose through some naïve interpretation of equality - both 'perspectives' must be given equal column inches and presented with like gravity. Intimate partner violence has become chief among these.

Last week, the Nation devoted pages of coverage to the silent but apparently common scourge of woman-on-man intimate partner violence. Chairman of the Men's Educational Support Association, Ralph Boyce, who has become the self-appointed spokesperson for men's rights, was quoted heavily in one of several articles on the issue:

THERE ARE A LOT OF WEAK MEN IN BARBADOS.

That's the conclusion of the chairman of the Men's Education Support Association (MESA) about men who stay in relationships where they are verbally, physically or psychologically abused by their girlfriends or spouses.

First off, I would venture that further denigrating the character of victims of abuse by publicly classifying them as 'weak' is the wrong tack to take in offering them help. But further, if feels to me as if Boyce is conflating his outrage at violence against men with his general indignation that women should dare to speak on behalf of their male partners:

"In MESA, we have some cases, luckily not too many, where men say they can't come to meetings because their wives say they can't come.

"Or, it is a case where I call a man's home to invite him to a meeting and his wife or woman says he can't come and starts giving me reasons," Boyce disclosed, adding:

"We have some surprisingly weak men in Barbados and the women hate them for it. They call them 'twerps' and twits.

Controlling behaviour is often a serious indicator of systemic violence in a relationship, but I would hesitate to categorize the declining of an invitation on a partner's behalf as psychologically abusive. One gets the sense that Boyce is really saying "listen, man up and put your foot down, and no woman will overstep her place long enough to knock you around." This is clearly an oversimplification of the dynamic of intimate partner abuse. While Boyce asserts that the problem of female violence against men has gone unaddressed because "[w]hat prevented victims from coming forward was the perceived ridicule", he ironically spends much of the article ridiculing men who have been abused, while tossing out vague generalizations like "women like men who are strong."

And he also seems to confuse anecdotal evidence with data:

"One of our members who was doing some research into physical violence told me that a man told him his wife slapped him inside the supermarket in front of everybody and the member asked him what he did, and his response was that he went outside the supermarket and cried. This is a real case," he said.

I'm not sure what to do with that. Are we to be awed by the fact that a man might suffer physical abuse at the hands of his wife? Or that he cried? Or that he didn't retaliate with 'strength', however Boyce might define this. Because for all Boyce's purported rejection of "[t]he traditional belief [...] that the man is not supposed to show any kind of emotion", he seems to subscribe to it himself. Or is this merely meant to serve as evidence that such violence exists? In which case, I, for one, don't need much convincing. I saw one such case, in fact. That is, (and since we're basing conclusions on observed evidence) one case in my entire lifetime as against oh, say, a couple hundred involving women as victims. Boyce, though, is not convinced that the problem is so uncommon:

The verbal and physical abuse is very common. A lot of the time, women initiate the violence against men.

I would love to have that 'a lot of the time' qualified (in a lot of the cases involving male victims, or the DV cases in general?), and this is a huge part of my problem with this kind of irresponsible reporting on the part of people who should know better: a respected and recognizable public figure stands up and, speaking with seeming authority and one would assume the benefit of research, claims that "a lot of the time, women initiate the violence against men", and people run off convinced that not only is violence against women not the immense public health problem it actually is, but that women actually initiate this and other types of violence, and conversely, it is violence against men that constitutes the real danger in the Caribbean.

We know that there is likely to be chronic underreporting of all types of domestic violence cases, among both men and women, but this is not a sufficient condition to deduce that men are being abused as much as women, and it's just that they're not telling anyone because people, ironically like the MESA Chairman, will call them weak. And it isn't even necessary to prove that the abuse is as widespread as that against women in order for it to be flagged as a problem: no one should have to endure abuse, and if we can provide unique support for these men that they might not get from a regular victims'/survivors of violent crime support service, then we should (although I would suggest that given his tenuous grasp of the intimate partner abuse dynamic, Mr. Boyce not be the one to offer such support).

But let us not present violence against women, as the Nation has done by first telling the stories of men who have been abused and then in a subsequent issue those of women (the latter notably in fewer pages), as on equal footing with that against men. It simply is not true, and I'm not sure what purpose it is meant to serve. It has been a hard struggle in the Caribbean, this business of eliminating violence against women, and it seems very little headway is being made. For years, activists and Ministers alike have been highlighting the grossly exceeded capacity of shelters for women and children here in Barbados, while in Jamaica, domestic-related murders jumped 20 per cent between 2005 and the end of 2006 and continue to rise, with women and girls constituting (at least) over 70% of the victims in each year of reporting.*

It would be misguided to allocate public resources meant to reduce domestic violence equally (that is, equally; that is not to say no resources should be allocated to DV against men at all) along the violence against women/violence against men divide, and to lump them together both in our discussion and treatment of the issue is also a mistake. They are simply not the same: the persistent dynamic that keeps women in abusive situations both in homes and communities; its coexistence with sexual violence and women's exercise of their sexual decision-making and rights; the higher HIV infection rate of women which operates alongside a higher care-taking burden than that of men; all these things and more separate violence against women from violence against men. I am all for public resources being allocated to the elimination of all forms of violence against our citizens, but let's keep in perspective who the most emergent victims are, and stay focused in our advocacy to save women's lives.

*Jamaica Constabulary Statistics Department Report 2007

Bottle attacks are a real nuisance

When I wrote last week about street harassment, a skeptical male reader conceded that such attention could perhaps be considered 'a nuisance'. I suppose it could be characterized as a nuisance: vile insults, threats of rape, intimidation, being attacked with a bottle. Yeah...that could get annoying:

A WOMAN who was hit in the face because she did not take kindly to Dwayne Omar
Anthony Brathwaite dancing behind her will carry the scars from his bottle
attack, but will also get compensation from him.

A little heads up to the Nation's writer: she wasn't hit in the face because she didn't take kindly to Dwayne Omar Anthony Brathwaite dancing behind her. She was hit in the face because Dwayne Omar Anthony Brathwaite is a criminal who will not tolerate rejection from a woman and who thinks it acceptable to hit her as punishment for having the temerity to refuse him. But it's alright, because even though she's scarred, she gets oodles of money!

The magistrate ordered Brathwaite to pay Douglas $2 000 in compensation and
Forde $1 000 in compensation - by December 11.

Ok...maybe one oodle. Or..half an oodle?

During the trial, Forde told the court she and her friend Debbie were in
the Boatyard nightclub. She was dancing with a male friend in an area near some
steps when she noticed a man was in front of her.

People were also pointing at her friend and she then saw that man was
dancing behind her friend. That man was Brathwaite.

"I was concerned 'cause Debbie appeared not to welcome it and I asked
[my friend] to speak to Brathwaite," she said.

"I heard Debbie ask [Brathwaite] where he came from. [Brathwaite] then
walked away and [her male friend] walked over and spoke with [Brathwaite] and
asked him to leave Debbie alone," the witness added.

Forde further told the court that five minutes later she felt someone
approach her, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that person come next
to her.

"I put up my right hand to cover my face and I got hit on my elbow with
a beer bottle. When I looked to my right I saw [Brathwaite] holding a bottle,"
she said.

"[Brathwaite] then hit Debbie with the same bottle he hit me with and
said, 'Don't send nobody to tell me things.'"

Yeah. That's a real nuisance.

And here's another thing I want to know: is the content of victim testimony against violent offenders meant to be a matter of public record? Because it seems to me that this type of reporting is more about providing cheap drama for readers than about the public's right to know.

Threats and abuse are not my culture

When I live elsewhere, one of the things that I never miss about Barbados is the cat-calling. Of course, there's cat-calling everywhere. But I think a variety of factors combine to influence the amount a Black woman experiences in countries where she exists as part of a minority: the fact that Black bodies are so often othered and invisible (although this sometimes works with opposite effect, because though othered, Black women's bodies are often only visible long enough to be used for sexual consumption; aren't we lucky?); the notion that Black women are angry and crazy so who knows how they'll respond if you piss them off; urban vs. suburban vs. rural location; and the habits of the groups and societies in which we operate.

In the American suburb where I lived, there was hardly any, but it increased as I got closer to the city. In London, there was slightly more. In Santo Domingo, most of the interaction with strange men involved them taking your hand to help you on and off the sidewalk and then continuing on their way, a habit which was at once charming and really bizarre. But once the paranoid Bajan in me was sure they weren't carrying anthrax or hidden razor blades, I deduced that this was times better than cat-calling any day of the week. Leaving the city and getting closer to the coast meant more unsolicited remarks, though. And in Suriname, I had a particularly scary experience where some young men who had been shouting me down for some time got angry that I didn't respond to their questions - apparently it never occurred to them that people might be hearing impaired or, you know, not speak Sranan - and started following me. At that point, I started yelling in English to no one in particular, and they seemed satisfied that I had a legitimate reason for ignoring them - the fact that they were strange men hanging around a street corner in the dark clearly would not suffice - and moved along.

But every time I come back home, it seems like we've taken cat-calling to new levels of misogyny and lewdness. Growing up, men hissed at women; it was some version of 'psst', although not quite that. That soon developed into a sucking noise, the way you might call a dog, although I've always thought my pets too good for generic, non-specific sounds (imagine that) and always used word and noises they would associate with only me. Then by high school we were hearing what sounded like random bird calls, real 'In the Jungle' types of noises, and by this time we're not even trying to pretend that this dynamic is not one of predator versus prey. Men seemed to find it funny because the idea of women as prey, you know, ha ha etc. Then there came all kinds of references to women - and to strange women in particular: 'meat', 'food', I'm sure you get where I'm going with this. There was even a song called "Looka (Look at) The Food", filled with lyrics describing how women's bodies are gratifying to men.

Throughout, there continues to be no limit to what a man will tell a strange woman. Nothing is too intimate or lewd. And I mean nothing. Think of the vilest utterance you can imagine from the lips of a man and I have probably heard it addressed to some woman on the street. And, in accordance with the formula, failure to respond brings a barrage of verbal abuse, and in some scenarios, assault.

It's the kind of thing we learn to live with, although I don't believe we should. We're relieved when all we get is a 'hi, beautiful', and even though we may not feel like responding, we do, because we know it could be much worse and a part of us is grateful that it's not. We go out of our way to say 'thanks' to 'that dress fits you real nice, sweetie', almost as a reward for the fact that no body parts were mentioned, even though we hear the lechery in every word uttered. And we learn to ignore the rest of it, carrying on stepping high, as we say, as we're pelted alternately with 'flattery' and insults, sometimes all at once by several men, so that even if we wanted to, we couldn't respond to this gang assault, organized to intimidate us.

But as accustomed as we get to it, we should remember this: cat-calling has a clear purpose; it is to establish in women's minds that we exist for men's consumption, and there's nothing we can do about it, lest we get too uppity. It is a way for men who feel inadequate and threatened by the collective success and independence of women to keep us in our place, and have us believe that no matter how many degrees or homes we have or how big our salaries are, we are the property of any and all men - even and especially the ones with whom we might not choose to associate - and are subject to their whim.

There is a new weapon in the cat-calling arsenal it seems, and I experienced it the other day. It is not a call, but a silent action. I was standing in the corridor of a shopping center with a friend of mine as we decided on our next stop. Three men came around the corner, all in varying stages of undress and/or general dishevelment. They said nothing, but instead came right up to me so that our faces were almost touching, and looked me up and down, slowly and deliberately, each in turn. I could tell they were waiting for a response, perhaps anger or outrage, so they could have a reason to manifest whatever latent criminal pathology was there lurking. I don't imagine they could expect me to be flattered by such an assault. It was clearly threatening behaviour, meant to convey the fact that they need not even talk to me if they don't want to; they can act in some way that forces me to talk to them, since if I wanted to get away, I would have had to ask them to move. I ignored them, wholly and completely. Any verbal response would have been what they wanted, so with their faces and bodies inches from mine, I carried on talking to my friend, who even in her dismay and confusion followed my lead, and they slithered off.

This is the type of behaviour that exists even as male activists and legislators contend that we do not have a problem with sexual harassment in the workplace or on the streets. This is the type of violation that they would have us believe is a harmless part of our culture, and instead of being so uptight, we should embrace. It is the reason women are physically attacked for having the temerity to refuse to have strangers grind up against them in a party. What's wrong with me, you ask? Do I think I'm too good for you? Why yes, as a matter of fact, I am, at least insofar as I understand boundaries and personal choice, and you appear to be on the verge of criminal behaviour. I am not going to embrace this appropriation of my body, my space and my sanity. The personal action that I take every day will be a rejection of this institutionalized abusiveness, and the professional action that I take as part of a policy-focused, activist network will be towards the enactment of legislation that makes this type of harassment a prosecutable offence. I have no problem being engaged by anyone as a human being and an equal, but I will not be threatened and cower in response. This is not a part of my culture.

Voices in favour of marital rape

Marital rape is still legal in the Bahamas, and now there is legislation being proposed that would make marital rape a crime, overturning the current system in which consent to sexual intercourse is presumed in a legal marriage. "Under current Bahamian law, a man can be charged with raping his wife only if the two are in divorce proceedings or living apart."

Most news articles on the story begin thus:

Lawmakers are debating a bill that would make marital rape a crime in the Bahamas...

And even though I'm aware that each piece of legislation has its process, I'm forced to wonder what the opponents of this bill could possibly have to say. But I don't have to look far:

The bill already has caused debate on radio talk shows, with some islanders saying women could file false rape charges as leverage for alimony, child support or custody. Others have said the bill contradicts traditional Christian values.

Once again, women are cast as self-serving Jezebels who abuse the legal system in order to manipulate men. Are we still perpetuating this myth that women will easily subject themselves to rape trials in order to 'get even'? Especially when we know that often, women are made victims a second time by the indignity of some of our court proceedings and the victim-blaming found both within the court and in popular discourse? False charges of rape are sometimes made, as is the case with other crimes, but this is not nearly as common a problem as people seem so eager to believe. And in any event, this is the role of due judicial process: to uncover the truth. Are the opponents of this bill suggesting that we leave thousands of women unprotected from sexual violence on the off chance that some woman gets pissed off and tells a lie? Question marks abound in this paragraph, because i am confused.

And the opposition to the bill on the grounds that it contradicts traditional Christian values just makes me weary. Perhaps if your Christian values allow a man to rape his wife, they have no place in law or society.

I'm also a bit concerned by this:

The proposed law would allow a judge to decide the penalty for marital rape. People currently convicted of rape face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Because surely the legislation must include some sentencing guidance for presiding judges. The law fairly loses its teeth if someone can be charged with raping a partner and then sentenced to six months community service. If rape in a marriage really is rape, then why the need to go softer on the sentencing? I'd say this is one to keep our eyes on, because the mere existence of legislation does not in itself translate to fair protection under the law.

Racism and cultural insensitivity: the cornerstones of any carnival

So the Crop Over festival has just come to an end, and we're all in the process of shaking off the carnival vibe and trying to appear like normal human beings again. It was a good season, although I did think for a minute there that we would be doomed to party to the brilliant stylings of the likes of Salt and Stabby all season long. But eventually, the true talent of the festival became manifest, and musically, it turned out to be quite a productive year.

I have to make the obligatory disclaimer here: I like silliness in music too. I'm a Moxy Fruvous fan, after all. And my parents bred in us a healthy appreciation for the Clown Prince part of the calypso competition. Calypso music is not just about cutting, insightful, social commentary and pioneering mixes of steel, drums and brass; it's also about the comedy of clever lyrics, and sometimes just plain tomfoolery in the style of Malik, Cubba and even Contone and Pong at their best. But there's farce and then there's plain, old offensive idiocy. Salt was toneless and unremarkable, but at least brought back in his lyrics a bit of Bajan parlance that people seemed to really respond to: "see me and don't see me" is just one example of the sweet economy and poetry of Bajan English. Infusing the song with an actual melody would have been useful, but I suspect Salt knows his limitations in that regard. Stabby was...well...the man's name is Stabby. Let's not expect too much. I wasn't a fan of the work of these two, but I suppose there's a place for it, although I'd like us to keep that place very, very, very small.

Chow Mein, on the other hand, with his song The Chinese Connection, provided a healthy dose of that offensive idiocy we just mentioned. Here is this young man, dressed as what I assume he envisions a Shaolin master to look like, or at least to have looked like in 1972 when the film the Chinese Connection was made, complete with fake beard and a ridiculously sing-songy and mocking 'Chinese accent'. Now the premise of the song itself, in terms of some of its lyrical content, is not without merit, at least on the surface. He speaks as a Chinese man (the first glaring mistake, yes, but we'll come back to this) and sings of the disdain he encounters from people who stand in contempt of Chinese people. It's not an unfamiliar dynamic here in Barbados, where starting some years ago, we've been seeing significant numbers of Chinese workers mainly in the construction sector, along with quiet - and sometimes not so quiet - anti-immigrant rumblings among those who consider themselves newly disenfranchised as a result of this immigration. So his point is that while some may claim to want nothing to do with the Chinese, we still benefit from a large majority of imported goods from their country.



But his defense of Chinese people is weak and disingenuous, and is in fact only being used to encourage listeners to point and laugh at these outsiders with the strange outfits and funny accents. Were he sincere, he would have focused on some actual issues, or at least done a better job of satirizing the absurd reasons that people ridicule the Chinese. Instead, it is these very absurd reasons on which he relies for his punchline. with lyrics like "I don't eat dog," and "everybody knows that Chinese __ real small". The word that's missing there is penis, or some approximation. Because ridiculing an entire ethnic group based on the comparative size of their genitalia is the stuff of great comedy. The song is completely lacking in irony, which I'm actually hoping it was trying to achieve and simply failed. Irony would have made the bigots - rather than the object of their bigotry - the butt of the joke. Instead, he just comes off as a simpleton making fun of the Chinese, just another version of a black-face minstrel.

And even then, all the irony in the world does not give one leave to get into 'costume' as a Chinese person, because that act itself assumes stereotypes and makes a caricature out of a group of people based on nothing else but ethnicity, and a limited, racist understanding of the people and culture.

The chorus of the song manages to offend on other levels, because its not-really-Chinese hero is now exacting justice for the discrimination against him, with his battle cry being "you...want Chinese in you!" followed by the typical sound of kung-fu blows. So we should respect Chinese people not because they deserve respect and fair treatment, but because if we don't, they'll kick us to death. 'Chinese in you' in this instance seems to refer to a beating. But after the second verse, which talks about being scorned by women because of the size of his penis, the threat of "you...want Chinese in you" takes on another meaning, albeit a familiar one: a woman who rejects a man can expect sexual aggression as his response. A cranky, contrary, uninterested woman can be made agreeable by at least one sure thing: a penis, whether consensually or not.

And perhaps the most horrifying part of the whole fiasco is that the Bajan public has embraced this song with squeals of delight, even obeying Chow Mein's invocation at the start of his live performance to yell 'nyong', which to him means nothing in particular, but probably sounds Chinese enough. I suppose 'nyong' is the racially insensitive man's 'yeah yeah' or 'throw your hands up'. Some of my friends - my otherwise intelligent, socially conscious, culturally sensitive, beautiful friends - have been lost to fandom of this mess, and I must confess that I don't understand it. One of them said to me: "I don't think anyone believes he's really speaking for Chinese people." Well that's hardly the point. We know the man is not an ambassador for actual people from China, but that's the selling point of his joke; that in fact is the problem. He can't speak for Chinese people, because he's not Chinese. And worse, he's revelling in this false representation and using it to reinforce and glorify stereotypes. Others have said: "but it's funny!" To which I can only blink in response, because the act is so decidedly unfunny it makes me drool from boredom, once the incredulity has passed. It's an ill-conceived, poorly-delivered, racist, toneless, not at all clever portrayal, and I think those who find it funny should question the things that amuse them, and what that says about who they are.

Now it occurred to me that Chow Mein might be of Chinese heritage, in some part, and therefore feel justified in this. But really, that would hardly make it better. In fact, it would probably make it quite a sight worse. We have had comedic calypso acts get into character as people from other cultures; there's a way to do it, and this Chinese Connection of which everyone seems so enamoured is clearly not it. It seems we've become so comfortable with our intolerance of the Chinese, Guyanese and people from African nations who live with us that we now consider it something to be celebrated, rather than eradicated, and that realization has, for me, been the saddest part of this crop Over festival.
_______
ETA: A reader pointed out that he might be encouraging people to say 'ni hao', which is 'hello' in Mandarin. I thought that until I saw him live, and realized that (1) it doesn't really sound like 'ni hao'; (2) even if that were the case, no one in his audience understood that it means something; and (3) it still wouldn't make up for all the ching-chonging throughout the rest of the song. But yes, it could be 'ni hao'. In fact, I kinda hope it is.

Virginity scholarships

Salon's Broadsheet today discusses this news of university scholarships being offered to schoolgirls in Biriwa, Sierra Leone who can prove they are virgins. The scheme is aimed at reducing high rates of teenage pregnancy, and is being implemented along with a measure that bans "any schoolboy found guilty of impregnating another student from all educational institutions." Eligibility for the scholarships requires a virginity test administered by a community nurse.

Apart from the fact that a virginity test that examines the presence of an intact hymen is not reliable (a hymen may rupture at any point through regular physical activity and some women are born without them. And I hate that I even have to point all this out in the context of this article), subjecting a young woman to this type of test is grossly invasive and potentially shaming, whatever the result. But further prizing women's virginity and using it as a basis for a reward of education is very problematic. It creates an artificial relationship between the purity of women and their potential for academic attainment. Because even though in this setting, teenage pregnancy may interrupt young people's academic careers, with adequate access to birth control and reproductive health education, sex in itself need not. Even though one may argue that applicants subject themselves to the conditions of the scholarship, we all know the extent to which restrictions in opportunity also mean restrictions in choice, especially in a country with already limited access to education for girls.

And this type of measure also makes no distinction between young people engaging in sexual activity with each other and rape. Victims of rape are of necessity not eligible, so that these schemes not only stigmatize women's sexuality and pregnancy and prize virginity, but punish victims of sexual violence and reinforce the notion that the victim is to blame.

Boys are also being punished for their sexual behaviour, and incredibly, being permanently denied access to education. So while we may want to encourage young people who become pregnant and decide to care for their child to pursue education in order to better provide for themselves and their families, this measure advocates the opposite. It caps the educational attainment and future earning opportunities of boys as a punishment for the 'crime' of impregnating a young woman. I understand the desire to balance the responsibility of child care so that women are not disproportionately affected, but this is not the way to do it, and is essentially counter-productive, since it has the effect of limiting any potential financial transfers of father to mother for the support of the child, whether these transfers be voluntary or facilitated by the State. And if the motivation is to subject teenage fathers to the same 'punishment' as teenage mothers of being kept out of the school system, perhaps the answer is not to punish anyone at all, but to work towards a system that does not convert pregnancy into a lifetime sentence to poverty.

Some notes on the BNP or Look what you made me do!

The sky, moon, stars, a couple pianos and some anvils are falling over at Downing Street. A day before local and European elections, and amidst the colossal and ridiculous MPs' expenses scandal that has taken Hazel Blears as its latest casualty, rogue Labour MPs are seeking to unseat Gordon Brown, and I am about to do something I never expected to do here in this blog: expend even a few words on the BNP.

This article in yesterday's Guardian describes how voter discontent arising from the wanton abuse by MPs of taxpayer-funded expense claims has breathed new life into the nationalist, fascist, racist, xenophobic, misogynist and all-around hateful British National Party - enough life, at least, that it might gain ground in council elections, and even achieve its first European parliamentary representation.

Griffin himself [Nick Griffin, the party's chairman] may be a former National Front member with a conviction for inciting racial hatred, and the veneer of respectability on the party's candidates may be transparently thin, but however noxious or downright laughable the views they and their party associates hold, the truth is that the BNP is the fastest growing political party in modern Britain. Its support has risen sharply in successive elections since 1987, and it already has more than 50 local councillors, as well as Barnbrook's London assembly seat. A study co-authored by Matthew Goodwin, a research fellow at Manchester University who has focused on extreme right political parties, found that BNP's vote at the last European elections, in 2004, was an eightfold increase on 1999 and the largest vote for an ultra-right party in a British election.

Now this is a party one of whose London Assembly candidates Nick Eriksen was withdrawn last year after having been discovered to have written the following on a blog:

"Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible ordeal.

"To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence.

"A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched."

This is a party represented in the European Elections by Eddy O'Sullivan, a Salford-based BNP candidate who set his Facebook status to read "Wogs go home", and also wrote:

"They are nice people - oh yeah - but can they not be nice people in the fucking Congo or... bongo land or whatever?" O'Sullivan, who also joined an internet group called "Fuck Islam", denied that the comments were racist and insisted they were made in private conversations between individuals. "I also may have had a drink at the time," he added.

This Guardian article lists several other examples of the party's unapologetic racism. Yet, it seems to be gaining in popularity, and while this may be fuelled by the expenses scandal in the midst of people's recession anxiety, I wonder whether the alleged growing numbers of BNP sympathizers do not share their ideology anyway, but now have more of an excuse to openly show this support, hiding behind the fact of MPs misconduct in order to align themselves where they would really prefer.

Following BNP member Richard Barnbrook on his canvassing rounds in Hornchurch, the Guardian writer notes (emphasis mine):

Three workmen have stopped for a cigarette outside a house in Stanley Road, and are happy to be coaxed into a conversation about immigration by Barnbrook, who is sporting a red, white and blue BNP rosette, a gold party pin and a frankly alarming sand-coloured suit. "All the boys where I am are voting BNP," one of them says. "My mate lives in Chafford," offers his colleague, "and there's 10 Nigerians in the house next to him. Ten! And they are taking all the work. I have had enough."

Ten! They don't even have the decency to spread themselves out or come at the rate of one a year! Now this is blatant anti-immigrant sentiment, and while it might be exacerbated by tough economic times, this kind of intolerance doesn't simply materialize in the minds of otherwise tolerant individuals. Still, even though people who want to persist in their racist hate and ignorance will find a way to do this, Gordon Brown himself and his Labour government, and in fact politicians from all parties, also have themselves to blame if they are losing ground to the BNP. It is Brown's own incendiary "British jobs for British workers" slogan that has been appropriated by the BNP in order to advance its agenda of ridding the country of all 'non-indigenous people', i.e. of creating a White British nation through its 'immigration policy'. And when people see Brown's own slogan being used - to be fair in the right context - by an absurd far right party trying its best to appear mainstream, well, that certainly helps it appear mainstream. After all, it's Brown's slogan and he's currently in power.

The BNP has not become extinct, as it should have by now, because rather than have an open, transparent dialogue on immigration and racism, the mainstream parties have all carried on skipping nervously around the issue, being confronted more and more with blatant and growing intolerance in British communities, but preferring instead to behave as if it doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the media continues to paint immigration as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, to sensationalize it by having gulping, wide-eyed anchors fling about uncontextualized statistics and interview politicians who have no clue, no plan and worst of all, no message, and we wonder why this kind of hate is allowed to thrive.

And I feel compelled to remind people not to be fooled by the notion that the BNP represents British interests. The BNP represents the interests of what they call indigenous British people - yes, that means White. From their website:

On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years.

To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.

Now since 'British' is not an ethnicity, clearly what they're trying to say is that White people can stay, and everyone else should just go home. I find this important to point out to people like my friend of mixed race who, in conversation the other day, mentioned that 'some of the immigration policies of the BNP are useful'. This was in response to some frustration felt by her and some of her friends that policies meant to offer support to British people were being utilized disproportionately by non-nationals. And I understand that frustration; it indicates a system that might be improved upon, surely. But supporting the BNP, a party that if they had their way would see her shipped off with the rest of the half-breeds, is certainly not the way to go. It's important not to be fooled by these people's weak, transparent attempts to appropriate the votes of the very minorities they stand in active warfare against. This kind of hate does not pack up and go away on its own. It only becomes irrelevant when we, as a nation wholly affected and with unafraid leaders, take a stand to show that we have no use for it.

Crime, justice and policing: some mongoose updates

Here are some updates on stories we've covered here in the Chronicles in the last few weeks, brought to you by the gloriousness that is Benicio del Toro as he keeps my company on this Friday night in the crappiness that is The Hunted.







Back in February, I commented on the sloppy and purposely inflammatory reporting on the I'Akobi Maloney inquest. Three weeks ago, a verdict returned concerning the young man's death determined 'death by misadventure' as the cause, absolving local police of any wrongdoing.

A verdict of misadventure, as distinct from one of accidental death, indicates some "deliberate but lawful human act which has unexpectedly taken a turn that leads to death".

Interestingly, the coroner found that "Rastafrians [were] being profiled by the police, and [...] that the Royal Barbados Police Force needed to examine this problem". She also found that "Maloney did not commit suicide and that he was not engaged in any homosexual activities". Because clearly, the idea that he may have been gay is as important as whether his death was a result of foul play. The fact is, as ridiculous as this sounds as a finding of a coroner's inquest, it was probably declared in good faith as a way of 'preserving the memory' of the deceased. Such is the state of homophobia in Barbados, that an official inquiry feels compelled to clear victims of accusations of homosexuality.

Maloney's family remains unsatisfied with the verdict, and issued a written statement to that effect.

But the family said they were satisfied that the coroner had cleared I'Akobi's name from being associated with any homosexual activity.

So there's that.

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In more news of possible police misconduct, this time here in London, there has been no loss of momentum concerning the Ian Tomlinson G20 protest incident. Since then, we've learnt that members of the Met police may have embedded themselves within the group of penned in G20 protesters in order to incite them to violence. In the meantime, the Tomlinson inquiry gets underway by examining claims that the Met police deliberately misled the public over the events surrounding Tomlinson's death - charges which, if proven, could bring sanctions separate from those associated with the death itself.

Scotland Yard, in reviewing its policing of demonstrations following the G20 protests, is therefore questioning whether "London needs harsher, European-style methods that could include the use of water cannon. " So after a man has died, a woman has been attacked by a police officer and thousands have been left feeling dissatisfied and exploited by police conduct during the protests, we're considering whether we should blast people away with water cannons in future demonstrations. Do you see how that makes perfect sense? Because it does.

More on the Tomlinson case

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And finally, following new research suggesting that Britain has the lowest rape conviction rate in Europe, a statistic reported here in discussing police handling of the Worboys and Reid rape cases, a policing standards watchdog has undertaken an initiative consulting rape victims on why they feel that they are being failed by the criminal justice system.

The study’s author, Liz Kelly, an expert on sexual violence who has advised senior police and the Home Office, criticises a “culture of scepticism” among officers and prosecutors and says that too many people are wedded to the stereotype of the rapist as a violent stranger.

The project to ask victims about their own experiences will be conducted next year and is part of a nationwide audit of police forces and Crown Prosecution Service performance. It is a significant departure for HMIC, which has focused previously on policing procedures and performance. In another joint initiative by the Home Office and Association of Chief Police Officers, a group known as the rape support programme will begin touring the country this month advising police forces on how to implement the latest guidance on rape investigations.

Dave Gee, the former detective chief superintendent who heads the programme, said that Britain’s low conviction rates were partly due to poor evidence gathering and “indifferent attitudes” towards rape by police. “Too often, because of the negative mind at the outset, the case is undermined rather than built up,” he said.

I'm encouraged by this step. I'm anxious to see how it will be implemented and utilized, and what kinds of trends it will uncover.

Child protection: you're doing it wrong

A very disturbing case of child trafficking has been in the news recently. It seems that since March 2006, 77 Chinese children have gone missing from a children's home in London, and only four have been found:

Organised criminal gangs have exploited a children's home beside Heathrow airport for the systematic trafficking of Chinese children to work in prostitution and the drugs trade across Britain, a secret immigration document reveals.

[...]

Only four have been found. Two girls returned after a year of exploitation in brothels in the Midlands. One was pregnant while the other had been surgically fitted with a contraceptive device in her arm. Others are coerced with physical threats to work as street-sellers of counterfeit goods. It is thought that many work in cannabis farms.

The document reveals that the children are "absconding" at the facilitation of organized crime groups, and when a spokesperson for the home was interviewed on the news recently, he was very quick to point out that the care facility cannot restrict the movements of children, implying that if they want to leave to get involved in prostitution and other nefarious activities, then no one can stop them.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. If, as the news report suggests, these children are taken into care after they have arrived at Heathrow airport having already been initiated into a trafficking ring, the fact is that at the moment the local authority places them with this children's home, it is responsible for their safety; unless the UK government has now turned to state-sanctioned pimping. If these were British children who had been taken from neglectful parents, and had then ended up in the hands of traffickers, all of the UK would be in an uproar. But somehow, we seem to have no problem acting as holdover facilities for Chinese children being sold into prostitution and child slavery. And after these children are taken to this home, how is it that they have the means to subsequently arrange with the traffickers to meet them at pre-designated locations? And why in great googly-moogly, after seeing a trend of flight from this particular institution next to Heathrow, do the authorities still take children fitting this particular profile to this same home, facilitating the traffickers' access? If they do intend to process them through the system and get to the bottom of their unescorted arrival to the UK, why not undertake reasonable measures to see that they are removed from immediate danger?

I'll tell you what it looks like. And you might gasp, choke and splutter at the implication but feel free because here it comes anyway: they can't be arsed. These are Chinese children who as far as they are concerned have already become involved in a system of trafficking, and if they disappear just as easily and as suddenly as they show up, well then so be it. They aren't British. Let someone else deal with them. The very idea that an official from or representing this home would get on the news and suggest that they don't lock the doors so the children can leave to be sold into prostitution if they want is the part that is gasp-worthy. There is no agency here. Would you jump through a window to run headlong into a life of unpaid or underpaid harrowing physical labour if you had the choice? If you didn't feel threatened or coerced or desperate? If you are going to take the step, as a government agency, to 'clean up' the sidewalks outside Heathrow by clearing these wandering children from it, then you are also responsible for taking every reasonable precaution to protect them from threats that you know exist.

As if there weren't enough evidence of buck-passing, Julian Worcester, the deputy director of Children's Services, had this to say:

"There is still a large proportion who go missing but the total numbers are going down," said Worcester. "As a result of coordinated action, Heathrow is now seen as a more difficult airport to traffic people through. We think some of the activity has been displaced to other airports, in particular Stansted in Essex and Manchester."

Ah well that's much better, then. Keep all that nasty trafficking business away from the tourist hubs.

The UK government is at the moment struggling with providing adequate protection for children who merit social care attention. Cases such as the one involving Baby P are strewn all over the news and rightly inspire public outrage that is very slow in dissipating. The lives of these 73 children who have disappeared from this home aren't worth any less than they would be if they had been born here. But it seems the authorities don't see it that way.

Is the personal always (effectively) political?

Last Wednesday, women in Kenya, led by The Women's Development Organisation coalition, imposed a week-long sex boycott aimed at pressuring the country's two power-sharing leaders Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki into resolving their conflicts. Amid fears that current rows could see a renewal of the election violence of 2007, in which 1500 people were killed and 300 000 forced from their homes, the women's groups have solicited the support of sex workers as well as Ida Odinga (left, pictured next to Lucy Kibaki), wife of Prime Minister Raila Odinga (below left, pictured next to Pres. Kibaki).

Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida), one of the organisations in the campaign, said they hoped the seven-day sex ban would force the squabbling rivals to make up.

"Great decisions are made during pillow talk, so we are asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands: 'Darling can you do something for Kenya?'"

It is the kind of tactic that certainly draws attention to power-sharing tensions in the country, but how valuable is it as a feminist action, and how effective can it be as a political strategy? Writing in the Guardian, Lola Adesioye declines to comment on the latter, but offers that regarding the former:

..this boycott is significant as it says a great deal about women's progress, the way in which women are reconsidering their role in Kenyan society and how they are reclaiming power where they can.

[...]

Africans can be pretty conservative on topics such as sex. For the older generation in particular, discussing sex in public is something you just don't do. In addition, unlike in the west, you tend not to hear African women sitting around talking casually and openly about it. Within that framework, taking such a politically-motivated sexually-orientated stance – actively withholding sex for a week and announcing it to the world – is, actually, a very bold and radical move.

[...]

Will this strike achieve its aims? That's debatable. However, even if the government doesn't end its feuding, this modern-day version of Lysistrata has already had a useful effect. It has put the spotlight on women's roles, power and rights and is showing how national politics affects the individual.

For women, at least, a week without sex is worth that.

But even in the context of a society where polygamy is still practiced, where sex is seen as a woman's duty to her husband and family, and where open discussion about sex is considered taboo and un-African, this strike is still a double-edged sword, with perhaps one side sharper and therefore more destructive than the other. Yes, it does represent a big "suck it" to the patriarchy that Kenyan women can declare ownership of their bodies and their sexual agency in this way. But at the same time, it says that this is their only card to play, their only value and their only contribution. And I find that problematic.

Adesioye argues that the strike " has put the spotlight on women's role, power and rights", but has it really? It seems to cast this role, power and rights strictly in terms of their usefulness as providers of sex and nothing else. It does not advance a dialogue on all the cases where even this role, even this sexual agency which is the minimum a woman should be able to exercise, is removed from her in the country's many cases of marital and community rape. It does not associate the lack of political consensus with other realities of women's lives such as insufficient access to water, food, health, education and security. And while it is encouraging to see women declare that their sexual lives are theirs to control or reveal as they decide, if the discourse stops here, then it arguably has done very little to advance women's economic security, their true political engagement, and the overall stability of fair and inclusive governance in that country.

You're a man! You're going to drink Coke Zero and you're damn well going to like it!

They made it black and red (manleh!), used the word 'zero' instead of 'diet', and even threw in James Bond (who I could have sworn was just promoting the film. I barely realized they were shilling a drink). And still the odd, male targeting of a perfectly regular, low-sugar soda continues. It's amazing the amount of gender-stereotyped, hypermasculine bullshit you can fit into thirty seconds. To wit (possibly NSFW):



So this woman and man have just had sex, which, if you didn't catch it, was the point of the bare ass shot after she got out of bed and said she was going to take a shower - you know, so she can smell like cherry blossoms and marshmallow again. At that moment, her parents arrive. But while the mother (we assume? Since they don't bother to name her) gets a second in the background, only 'The Daddy' is given a title and is focused on in the shot, as he is the keeper of his daughter's sexuality and would apparently blow a gasket if he knew that his 'pumpkin' had had some big, smelly man in her vagina. (The partner also gets a title as 'Our Hero'. We won't bother to name the women. Just call them 'you there'.)

So the big, smelly man escapes SAS-style, but not before tidying her room and securing her admiration. Now, with all traces of sex duly washed away, she's free to greet her father while pretending to be a virgin. Because for women, virginity: good; sex: bad. But if you're a man: sticking around to meet the parents: bleah; sex: rawr; Coke Zero: arooooo.

In the full version below, Daddy is already pissed off for some unknown reason and finally manages to force his way into his daughter's apartment, where he then stands before her threateningly with clenched fists. Because nothing says 'healthy relationship' like a father who appears about to attack his daughter because she just had sex. And notice how many men are - consecutively and uninvited - violating this woman's space: a bunch of strange men in uniform and her own father. That right there is a great message. Seriously. They should show this in schools.



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(Update: I'm editing to include below a comment response in the body of the post. It's my answer to a reader's comment, which you can find in the comments section:

Well, if the message has been sacrificed to the laughs, I accept that responsibility. So let me clarify: the message is that this notion that women's sexuality is owned by the men with whom they interact - by their fathers, husbands, partners, brothers, sons, pastors, strangers - is a destructive one, and shouldn't be celebrated or made light of to sell soft drinks.

It is the same notion responsible for purity balls and the fetishizing and commodification of women's virginity, and further, to the shaming of women for engaging in sex and the inclination to punish them for it, whether by legally removing their reproductive choice or other means. It is the same one that leads to the sexual abuse of girl children by fathers who think it is their rightful place to take their daughters' virginity; to the abuse of sex workers by pimps who appropriate their bodies and pocket the spoils; to honour killings of women who have been raped or who have simply dared to express their sexuality. At the end of the ad, when the woman is left to face her father's wrath, we assume that it will not amount to much. But in reality, it can and does amount to emotional and physical abuse or death.

So that's your serious message.)

If it breaks your penis, it might not be a good idea

Explicit and potentially triggering content below.

I suppose I should be sorry that these fools are breaking their penises over this nonsense. But as I read the article, I think, if this sexual act is rough enough to fracture a man's penis against his female partner's pubic bone, it can't be any picnic for the woman. And even if no one is going to the hospital on a given occasion, how is it physically pleasurable for a woman to be violently and repeatedly 'stabbed' in this way? Well that's easy: it isn't.

"(So) during very rigorous intercourse, the penis slips out and in an attempt to ram it back in, the man hits the woman's pubic bone and pops the penis."

Ouch. There's rough sex, and then there's this.

For years, Caribbean music has reflected men's apparent belief that sexual prowess and - by their extension, masculinity - was defined by a violent approach to heterosexual sex. This has in some instances been encouraged by women DJs who competed with their male counterparts not on the basis of musical talent, of 'killing a sound' as the men have done, but by highlighting their own sexual freedom and bravado: their capacity to - in sexual and other implied terms - take whatever the men could dish out. So that while we've had songs like Cabin Stabbin from Super Cat et al, we've also had Stab Up Mi Meat from Lady Saw. Now arguably, the thrusting act that might be a part of sexual intercourse could be described as stabbing, if one were given to violent metaphors, which - given the prevalence of actual, criminal, sexual violence perpetrated both within and outside of relationships - I for one am not. But it seems like we're consumed with encouraging as much violence in sex as possible. 'Stabbing' has become too tame; now we have to call it 'daggering'.

And let's be honest: the whole stabbing/daggering sex simulation as a part of nightclub dancing* is nothing new. Caribbean dancing to calypso and reggae, while very creative, is very sexual in nature. Growing up, there was always the idiot in the club who - unsummoned - would decide to suddenly ram his pelvis against you, because somehow you blinked and this became acceptable behaviour in which two strangers might engage. It was odious, unacceptable, and what I would characterise as assault. At that time, though, and among my friends and most people present, he was shoved off, glared at by men and women alike, and in many cases removed by security. But there were too many times when in other instances, I witnessed other women being similarly treated, and their reaction was just to grimace and wait for it to be over, lest they be accused of being prudish or 'soft'. Now, though, it seems this kind of 'dancing' is being glorified more and more, causing officials in Jamaica enough concern to ban music in which it is featured.

Of course, two adults can decide jointly whether they want to engage in sexual behaviour that might break parts of their person. But I wonder how many women out there are grinning and bearing it just like those women in the clubs did those years ago, and still do.

*The videos below feature the music by RDX and Mr. Vegas that helped make this activity famous.
The final video features RDX live in concert, giving their own version of daggering. It is extremely explicit and this is a trigger warning.

Springing forward

I love my life. Even though it's sometimes hard, it's always mine, largely within my control and full of the wonderful people with whom I choose to surround myself. Sometimes I feel tired, and feel the need to determine exactly what's making me tired, so I can move forward, instead of moving around in circles; and so I can separate the things I can actively fight to change, from the things I might not be able to change but for damn sure won't be a party to, from the things I just have to release and let be.


Today, I'm tired of the definition of masculinity that maintains adult males as men-boys, always having to reinforce among themselves that they are still and always will be capable of attracting 'girls', 'girls' here being grown women that they cast as girly, perpetually young, oversexed beings who can never be complete without a penis. I am tired of phrases like 'stop being a little bitch' or 'are you some kind of pussy?' that equate these vulgar, singular interpretations of womanness with weakness, and are meant to reinforce male camaraderie by making women less than. I'm tired of the films and television shows that glorify this idea of camaraderie, that prize and celebrate the experiences of young, white, heterosexual males as if we are all meant to revel in their partying, beer-drinking, weed-smoking, ass-getting escapades while the experiences of Black men and women are reduced to Madeas and Norbits; and the realities of bright, complex Black men and women (oh will no one bring us another Girlfriends?) remain largely invisible. I'm equally tired of Seth Rogen and Tyler Perry.

And let's not even begin to mention all the straight up fake-ass 'Caribbean' accents that feature American actors who can't even be bothered to at least listen to a Beenie Man interview instead of every other sentence uttering absurdities like 'irie, mon', which no one says except maybe for Rasta caricatures on souvenir T-shirts. And episodes of TV series set in Suriname but featuring a language that can only be described as Trinidadian American English, because Sranan with subtitles would have been too expensive or no one bothered to Google 'Suriname language' before shooting. I'm tired of the Caribbean being exotic enough to provide fake settings for Friends (where 'Bajan' hotel staff are everywhere on set but amazingly none interact with the guests) and soundtracks featuring Rihanna, Shontelle and Rupee, but not important enough to merit the marginal extra effort to research an accent or find a Caribbean actor.

And I am way fed up of the ads suggesting that if your hipbone isn't jutting through your skin, you are not 'ready for summer'. Because apparently fat people aren't allowed outdoors in July, and must remain inside on pain of being electrocuted and having their large asses dragged back in the house and covered in a tarp. Bzzzt! That's called an electrified perimeter, fatty. Now eat your Special K lunch and then drop and give me a bazillion. The sunshine is for the pretty people.

I'm really tired of the term WAG, which conveniently rhymes with 'hag', 'drag' and 'slag', the final straw being a reference to the 'G20 WAGs'. I suppose these women do not merit actual, complete words, since they are in their entirety just the appendages of their far more important male masterspartners.

I am exceedingly exhausted of the women who aim to seek favour and align themselves with men by berating women who do not love porn; do not encourage lap dances and supply their partners with crisp dollar bills for the occasion; have slept with more than 2 and a half men (or women); have made something other than biblical reproductive and parenting choices; or were abused and didn't immediately pack, leave and write a book about it as soon as the bruise stopped throbbing. I am tired of women making claims to sisterhood when they really mean whitesisterhood or whiteAmericansisterhood or Westernsisterhood or sisterswholookandlivelikemehood. I am tired of watching my sisters hop and skip and dance around their relationship issues because they're afraid of pissing a man off and being labelled the angry black or brown or just plain woman. I'm tired of my girlfriends not learning our lessons collectively because we think we're above what happened to our friend next door - above being cheated on or abused or raped or disrespected. Because these things happen to the frigid or the weak or the slutty party girls but not to us. And I'm tired of being afraid to say, lovingly and respectfully, 'this is what I need from you' to my partner, or at least I would be if I still engaged in that ego-stroking bullshit we're told we must practice in order not to offend the overlords and end up (gasp) alone.

And then when I'm tired of feeling tired, I do something to renew myself. I take a shower and look at myself naked to remember who I am without clothes and hairstyles and titles and awards and boyfriends. I visit the communities of women who get what it means to support each other and to agree or disagree without destroying. I talk to my sisters and woman friends; and to my man friends who don't need to throw in a lame come-on to feel like they're men, but who can meet me on common ground, a woman with a heart and a brain and a vagina, and not let the latter dictate our exchange. I regroup, recharge, and remind myself that sometimes being tired is what gives you the energy and joy to continue.

A right to sound, dignified health care

*Also posted today at BelowTheBelt.

I suspended my work as an economist to, among other things, become the Programme Director of an NGO that I helped found, called the Women's Health Advocacy Network (WHAN). I sometimes get the sense that some people (apart from my family and close friends who are my biggest fans and think me something of a superstar, as I do them) don't understand that: they don't understand creating something because you think it should exist, because it is necessary. The conversation often goes like this:

Person: So what are you doing now?
A_D: I'm a writer, and I work with an organisation called WHAN - Women's Health Advocacy Network.

(The writing part does not register at all. I might as well have said "Oh I'm an eater...and a part-time cougher." So they just gloss right over that part to the other thing that sounds more like a job, with acronyms and such.)

Person: Oh! And whose company is that?
A_D: Well it's not really a company. It's an NGO that looks at issues of women's health and sexual and reproductive rights in the Caribbean, and educates women on their patient rights...how to be agents in their own health care.
Person: Right. And who runs that?
A_D: Well I do. Along with some other very bright women. We started it.
Person: Yourself? But who pays you?

This is where people start to look skeptical and confused. They seem to be puzzled by the notion that I could have the audacity to be dissatisfied enough with the way things are being done to get up off my ass and do something about them myself. They apparently expect me to take a regular job like everyone else, and then spend all my time complaining that I had to wait two hours in the waiting room at the doctor's office, and then another hour waiting naked on his table, after which he spent 30 seconds looking at my vagina and zero seconds looking at my face. Or they expect that if I step out on my own, it should be because I've built an online business or invented some device that I can hawk on QVC, which - don't get me wrong - is never out of the question. Or they also expect that WHAN must be a little group of forlorn women who park our behinds in front of supermarkets clanging our tins for some pennies, rather than the board-run, non-profit corporation that it is.

Now there's nothing wrong with a 'regular' job. I had one, and many people I know have one. In fact, I have one now, it's just that I created it myself because it is necessary, rather than waiting for someone else, someone presumably with more power and influence, to create it and then deign to give me a job. I've decided to first earn - through work I've previously done - and then own, my power and influence. And to seek to grow it on my terms. And also to help other women own theirs. Because that attitude that leads people to believe that I don't have the right to get up and do for myself, as my mother would say, is the same one that has women believing that they don't have the right to demand to be listened to by doctors, and to be treated with dignity and respect. It's the attitude that says that as Caribbean people, as Black people, as women, as Black, Caribbean women, we should only be takers of what is given to us: takers of someone else's job that they've created and offered, takers of someone else's economic policies, takers of someone else's health care that they administer in the way they think we deserve.

I grew up in a time when our mothers were so pleased to be accessing free government health care, that they saw doctors and nurses as gods, and seemed afraid to question them, in part - and this is true of most societies - because they had knowledge our mothers did not have. But they were also afraid to challenge them lest they withhold their care, time and medicine, which many of them doled out as if we were begging, as if it was their own to control, and not the state's. As people have started to do better, and private, paid care has become the standard, that attitude has been slow to change on both ends. Many of us still believe that we're lucky to be sitting in that doctor's office, so we'd better shut up, nod, smile, and try not to cause any trouble. And many doctors still act as if they are gods come down from on high to save the stupid natives from themselves.

Well that attitude is not only annoying as all get out, but it at best potentially delays healing, and at worst, kills people. WHAN now focuses very heavily on HIV/AIDS and other STIs; sexual and reproductive decision-making including abortion; and violence against women. But we were thrust into existence on the basis of patient rights and education, because I, for one, was tired of the assumption on the part of doctors that I had nothing at all to contribute to my own health care, and tired of hearing all the stories from my friends. One of how a doctor failed to diagnose her breast cancer because he saw she was in her thirties and therefore dismissed the lump she had felt; another who eventually almost committed suicide because when she approached her doctor about post-partum depression he asked her why she couldn't just be happy, she had a baby now, and why couldn't she just get over it. And yet another who had to beg her doctor for a prescription to help relieve the symptoms of her genital herpes. Because he said it was no big deal, it's just a sore, and the medication is expensive.

I could go on and on and so much further on. And I know people will sing the old song about patients not being knowledgeable, so doctors assume a blank slate in approaching treatment. In my experience, some doctors don't assume a blank slate: they assume a stupid one. And there is always knowledge to be had from a patient if you use your limited time wisely to get it. In any event,WHAN seeks to work on both ends of the relationship, but primarily to bolster patients' awareness of their own knowledge gaps, to help fill those gaps, and to give patients the tools to make their doctors fill those gaps. You have to know what you don't know, and then you have to claim the right to find out. It is for all these reasons, and so many more, that WHAN exists, works, and grows every day.

Institutionalized sexism in the Metropolitan Police Service gave rapists freedom to terrorize women

Two very high-profile, recent sexual assault cases have uncovered the immense failings of the Metropolitan Police in investigating and prosecuting rape. Two weeks ago, John Worboys was found guilty of 19 charges of drugging and sexually assaulting 12 female passengers, including one case of rape, and is thought to have attacked more than 500 women during his 13-year career as a licensed taxi driver.Worboys "was arrested by police in the summer of 2007 but was freed to attack scores more women, at least 30 while he was on bail." The case triggered an internal review by Scotland Yard, which found that the Metropolitan police failed to investigate dozens of rape allegations because officers did not record them as criminal offences. In the Worboys case, one of the victims was told by a police officer to "fuck off, black-cab drivers don't do that sort of thing".

In a more recent case, Kirk Reid was convicted yesterday of 2 counts of rape, 3 of assault by penetration and 21 indecent assaults. It emerged during his trial that

He had been identified as a suspect for a series of sex attacks in 2004 and crossed the police radar at least 12 times, but no one pursued inquiries into him. He went on to attack at least 20 women.

While most of these newspaper accounts treat the issue as one of bureaucratic failing from the perspective of the Metropolitan police, who sound duly apologetic but hardly outraged, another story in the Guardian follows the experience of Rebecca, a victim of rape who at the time was 15 years old. After her mother noticed her constantly crying, taking several baths a day, not sleeping and having nightmares, she told her mother that she had been raped and the two filed a complaint.

But as time went on mother and daughter became increasingly concerned that no arrest had been made. This was despite the fact that officers had been given a mobile phone number, address and car registration details for the alleged attacker.

Unknown to them, this was not the only failure. No attempt was made to obtain forensic evidence from the flat where Rebecca claimed she had been raped. No one went to the local shop where she had gone in a distressed state afterwards, and although both her mobile phone and the man's were sent away for examination, the wrong tests were carried out. By the time this mistake was recognised it was too late to obtain the correct information.

The defendant was found not guilty. [Following emphasis mine]:

Earlier this month it became clear just why the case had floundered. Having made a complaint about the police handling of the investigation, a damning internal inquiry revealed a string of mistakes that had been made by the inadequately supervised, overburdened and untrained police constable who was left - in breach of the Metropolitan police's own rules - to handle it. This showed that there weren't enough detectives in the elite Sapphire sex crimes unit; in fact, the unit's then manager was pleading with her superiors for more staff, pointing out that the car crime, burglary and robbery teams all had more detectives. Another senior officer in the Sapphire unit told the inquiry that it was "not at all" a priority for management, claiming the motor vehicle crime team had greater priority.

There can be no clearer statement on the way women are valued than the fact that the safety of cars is prioritized above the safety of women.

The [rape] conviction rate remains at a dismal 6.5%, compared with a figure of 34% for criminal cases in general. The government estimates that between 75% and 95% of rapes are never reported to the police, but of those that are, only a quarter end up in court, and complaints persist that women are not being taken seriously, witnesses are not being interviewed and potential evidence is going uncollected.

Representatives of Women Against Rape, which worked alongside Rebecca and her mother on their complaint against the police...believe that one way to change this is for heads to roll when specific failures are identified. "They won't solve anything until people are held to account," says the group's Ruth Hall. "It's not enough to say lessons have been learned - they've been telling us that for 30 years."

The group also suggests that there needs to be a distinct change in police priorities. "The problem really starts at the top and this report proves that," says Lisa Longstaff. "The priorities for downgrading rape and under-resourcing rape in relation to other crimes are set by the very highest in the police. It's about orders from the top that make it clear this is a priority crime to be investigated ... In many cases the police just aren't doing the job once someone reports a rape to them. They're not interviewing witnesses, they're not taking forensic samples, they're not visiting the crime scenes. They're dismissing a lot of reports because of who the woman is and the circumstances in which the rape took place - if she's been drinking, or she's young, or has a history of mental health problems, or is an immigrant."

More on Institutionalized sexism in the Metropolitan Police Service...:
Police took four years to arrest serial sex attacker
Metropolitan police accused of institutional sexism over serial sex attacker cases