**CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of sexual assault, misconduct and rape.**
Welcome to 2018!
I hope your New Year celebrations were...well....I hope they were whatever it is that you hoped they would be.
I personally,chose to not go out. This was not out of any moral superiority but rather a deficit in the discretionary funds in my bank account (ha!). I stayed in and posted lots of stories to Instagram and Snapchat. And in the first hour of 2018 I did what I said I would do and that is to take the necessary steps to begin this journey of "NO T.V. in 2018."
Evidentiary support to this claim can be found in this video below:
Video content (for accessibility): my T.V., DVD player, Roku box and all my DVDs are packed away in a dark hole about four feet deep and behind a large blue plastic storage bin that is about two feet high and three feet deep. The contents of this storage bin are of sentimental value and by extension, are infinitely more valuable than the electronics stored behind them. I also cancelled my Netflix account. Music by Jasmine Janai: Discretion
I discovered that I somehow still owned a copy of Woody Allen's Scoop. Given Allen's questionable relationship with his stepdaughter and his shitty statements in response to the Weinstein allegations in which he essentially asked for people to disregard the experiences of the women involved (Allen dismisses them as "poor women") in favor of compassion for the perpetrator, I threw the DVD in the trash. And yes, I know that Allen tried to clarify his statements, claiming ignorance to the severity of the allegations (how fucking nice it must be to not have to consider or be aware of such things) but I still refuse to support him.
I want to explain why I refuse to support him. For me, when someone dismisses the experiences of victims, and asks for the humanity of the perpetrator to be prioritized, that person is an apologist for the misconduct. By being an apologist you are saying that the experiences of the victim is secondary to remorse, so-called illness or humanity of the perpetrator and it forces people to focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim. Usually, victims are bullied, shamed and discredited making it very difficult for them to come forward. And depending on the gender of the victim there can be deep social stigma that makes it impossible for them to come forward at all based on how they see others in society or in various circle (close or distant family or social circles) being responded to when coming forward- or even treated with regards to discussions about sex or sexual agency.
This apologist narrative forces me to pose these question, "Why is the humanity of the perpetrator so much more important than that of their victim? Why was the humanity of the victim not considered important enough to not engage in the assault, and why is the humanity of the victim not considered worthy of love, support, compassion, understanding and care once they came forward? Why is the perpetrator deserving of these things over the victim?"
That's some fucked up shit. And a line I don't tow.
In her new book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Roxane Gay is painfully frank about her rape and how it changed her relationship with her body. This is the first book of 2018 that I am reading. I had been waffling on whether or not to buy the book, I have so many unread books, and I love Roxane Gay. But the San Francisco Feminist Book Club is reading this book for their January meet up, and when I discovered this that was the clincher. So I bought the book and put my name on the waitlist in the off chance I would be moved up into the discussion group. I figured if I wasn't the worst thing that could happen was I read something by an author I respected- and there are worst things in the world. On New Year's Day I got an email saying I had been moved off the waitlist (I naturally did a happy dance) and I am very much looking forward to finishing this book. In the first forty pages, I've cried twice. I will naturally write about it. And I hope ya'll will read it or any of Roxane's other books, buy local if you are able to support.
LISTENING:
I'm at least ten minutes late to everything, and I'm always late to the party when it comes to podcasts. But these are my 2018 podcasts
- 2 Dope Queens (they about to drop a TV special)
- Beat Latino with Catalina Maria Johnson
- Bitter Brown Femmes
- In the Thick
- Invisibilia
- My Dad Wrote a Porno (Oh Belinda)
- Political Reactive
- Serial
- Snap Judgement
- The Combat Jack Show (late to the party, Rest In Power)
- The Hilarious World of Depression
WATCHING:
You might be thinking- wait, what!? Aren't you NOT watching TV?
And the answer is- you are correct I am not. However, a dope clip came up on my Instagram feed about this project http://www.wearemanenough.com and I encourage you to watch it....and tell me how it is...maybe? Please...
I know that I just dumped on Woody Allen and the refusal to acknowledge the humanity of predators. But, if you look at that section carefully I did not assign a gender to the predator.
Did you?
Violence is not unilateral and too often the misnomer exists that patriarchy is a system to is violent only towards women and girls and propagated exclusively by men. Now, don't get me wrong- it IS violent towards women and girls. But it is also violent towards men and boys.
And I'm of the opinion (and it's not a popular opinion) that part of the work of feminism is to dismantle patriarchy and toxic gender norms (to start). And I think that holding people accountable for their shit behavior and believing in them and teaching them that they can do better and show them how (usually the narrative is simply that they should and this narrative is absent of modeled behavior) will help us smash patriarchy.
This project also features my cis-het-white male feminist crush (at least I think that is how they identify....I've never met the person...😳) Matt McGorry. I only know them from Orange is the New Black and their activist work on social media. But...I like how they represent themselves, hence the crush.
Anyways- the project We Are Man Enough has a lot of articles I can't wait to read, and I will put their video on "things to stream when I dog sit."
AND IN THE CATEGORY OF OTHER:
- Cleaned 80% of my apartment (still have a literal mountain of laundry to do)
- Had lunch today with my friend Kristen & Carmen at VeganBurg today. I ordered the "Creamy Shrooms" Burger on gluten-free bun. It required some mustard, but it paled in comparison to their garlic fries and strawberry lemonade.
- Went back to work today.
- Am collecting ephemera for my "vision wall."
Whew...well...that is a fair amount. Not all posts will be like this. I'll prolly post my top 10 songs from 2017 tomorrow. Won't that be exciting? 😃
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