In the early morning hours on Friday, I was channel-surfing and stopped briefly on Family Feud. A white family with strong Texas accents were competing with a Latino family, and both teams had only one male in the line-up. The mother of the white family won the play for her side by answering the question "What is Ellen Degeneres best known for?" with "She's gay." (Uh, no, she's LESBIAN, but since Ellen shies away from the L-word, I didn't scream that at the TV screen.) It was the number one response, and the family hopped up and down, starting play. There were three daughters in a row, all blond, perky, and sporting names that began with H. In quick succession, they got three right answers: "She likes to dance", "She has a talk show", "She's a comic actress." Play returned to the father, and John O'Hurley, the host, said "You have a chance to make this a clean sweep."
Dad said, with a nervous smile: "She's known to not care for our country."
What?!!!
John O'Hurley is extremely good as a host. He gets along with everybody, he laughs with them instead of at them, he seems to actually enjoy human foibles and eccentricity in an unsupercilious way. He's a professional. But this visibly jolted him. He managed to keep his smile, even as the rest of his body went stiff and formal. The audience with their frenzied cheering at nothing much sensible also went quiet. O'Hurley turned to the board, and of course that answer wasn't up there, total zero. He went on wordlessly, back to the mother, who said "She's married" with no overtones at all, simple statement of fact. And ding ding ding, they had now swept the board and won that round. No thanks to dad.
The thing is, he wasn't just taking a pot-shot because he couldn't resist. For one thing, twenty grand was at stake. But mostly it was his expression, his tone, which indicated he actually believed Ellen Degeneres hates America, that it's a commonly known reality, and while he wasn't going to pretend it was okay with him, he had to speak the truth in order to win the question.
Epic delusion. I mean, has he ever watched her show? Her shtick is talking to Americans from every walk of life with interest and connection. She raises endless money for charitable ventures of all kinds, she's great with kids and animals and old ladies (especially old ladies), and I personally wish like hell she'd be a lot MORE political, a little less everybody's token darling.
It bothered me so much I couldn't shake it. Was this code for saying if you're queer, you hate America? Is that the way "their" logic runs? Or was that he's heard her at some point object to oppression, to George W. Bush, to some obvious flaw, and from that he deduced she must hate America, because if you find anything at all wrong, you're a traitor?
I deliberately don't watch the elite white boys who fill mainstream media because they don't know what the fuck they are talking about and listening to them actually lowers my energy, clogs up my brain. I don't want to hear this kind of shit coming at me from a game show, of all places. I'll bet you anything O'Hurley calls Ellen at some point and apologizes for it having occurred on his watch, I think he's that kind of guy. Drew Carey sure wouldn't, but O'Hurley still has a conscience, I think.
This incident became linked in my mind with the hearing this week about mandating photo ID, where Texas State Representative Betty Brown (R - District 4, Henderson and Kaufman Counties) was interacting with Ramey Ko, representing the Organization of Chinese Americans. Ko was eloquently explaining that because not all alphabets use the same letters as English, or use letters at all in the way we define them, transliteration of names is difficult and inconsistent, leading to different versions on various documents. Brown responded, in a genuinely empathetic voice, "Do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown later expounded on this by stating she was suggesting the adoption of a name "just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”
Okay, brief rundown of racism 101: "You and your citizens" is racist when you are talking to another American from a different ethnicity. "They" are "Americans" too. And "their" names deserve the same respect as anyone's name at a polling site. It is the JOB of poll workers to "deal" with names; that more or less sums up the job. It is not the work of government to ensure poll workers do not have to encounter names which are ethnically distinct from what they perceive as the dominant culture.
Various folks began insisting Brown apologize, and eventually she did. It wasn't the best apology in the world, but it wasn't the usual Republican "You are making this shit up, I'm no racist because I like Michael Jordan" dodge, either. It's certainly a better apology that the kind I always got from one smooth-talking ex of mine, who could say "I'm so sorry you got upset over nothing" in such a convincing manner, I bought it for several years. I've watched this clip several times, the whole exchange, and I believe Brown was actually not meaning to be offensive.
Just as dad on Family Feud wasn't trying to make up something about Ellen, either. He believed what he said.
Now, don't get worked up, I'm not about to excuse white supremacy or lesbo-hating. I'm not going to argue that we need to credit people for good intentions, because I believe in actions and behavior over intentions (it's a recovery-based philosophy). I believe in demanding accountability and respect at every turn.
But when we are dealing with the Right, there are those who deliberately lie, deliberately try to create division and fear, and there are those who are ignorant/scared. The former are constantly manipulating the latter for their own gain (power and money). I don't think we have to try to rescue the ignorant and frightened. Still, the schism has deepened drastically under my observation as an adult, and now the "culture wars" is becoming an armed conflict in growing instances. I am raising the question: If we ourselves don't espouse eliminationist rhetoric, if we refuse to condemn the ignorant/fearful to oblivion, then what do we do with them? How do we set an example of respect, how do we explain their delusion in a manner which may (at some point down the road) sink in enough to allow them to change?
Even more, obviously Betty Brown exists in an environment where no one ever points out the racist underpinnings of her language, her assumptions, her world view. Calling her a hate-monger won't encourage her to renovate her environment. I think a distinction should be made (by those of us who self-identify as progressives) between those who are intentionally, by design, fostering hate versus those who are adding to the pain accidentally. The "accidentals", the nonthinkers, the delusional are not necessarily lost causes, you know? Women are raised to believe men don't mean to be pigs. People of color are raised to ignore as much of white shit as they can. The contradiction to this upbringing, this conditioning, is not living with raised hackles but, instead, living with complete awareness of what's going down AND assuming your ability to enact change around you, in every instant.
On a good day, of course.
As always, it's fine with me if you don't want to consider these questions or do this work. Just don't hurl frustration at those of us who are willing, at times, to assume this burden, okay? I absolutely have days where if I have to hear one more dick make a joke about bitches and leg hair, I will want to sharpen my axe and slip ricin into tubes of Cruex. But writing from that place is not helpful, doesn't advance me one iota toward the world in which I'd like to live, and "venting" simply redistributes foul air, in my opinion. I won't muck up your space and I ask you don't muck up mine.
P.S. I switched away from Family Feud, because I was so upset, but went back before it ended to see who made it to the final round. It was the Latino family, and one woman by herself got 191 out of 200 possible points. They won $20,000 and I cheered, you bet I did.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Monday, April 13, 2009
HATEFUL IGNORANCE VERSUS HATE AS A SWORD
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
LESBIAN/GAY VIDEOS OF 2008
(Postcard from Stella Marrs)
Jennifer Vanasco, editor-in-chief at 365Gay.com, has compiled her list of the "8 top gay (sic) videos of 2008", stating "This year, gay videos were viral." I'm not going re-embed them all these (we've already covered some of them in GNB posts), but I will list them below with links.
1. Prop 8: The Musical! [covered by me in Civil Rights, Baby: Complacent No More.]
2. MSBNC talk show host Keith Olbermann devoted his "special comment" on November 11, 2008 to the issue of lesbian/gay marriage, asking those who voted for Proposition 8 and similar measures, "Why does this matter to you? What is it to you?".
3. When Sally Kern, Oklahoma State Legislator, thought she was speaking off mic and compared lesbians/gays to terrorists, The Victory Fund responded.
4. Talk show hosts -- Ellen Degeneres takes on John McCain
and Jon Stewart takes on Mike Huckabee
with bonus round Ellen Degeneres discusses Sarah Palin's stand on marriage.
5. In a PSA for ThinkB4YouSpeak, Wanda Sykes jumps on the hateful jeer of "That's so gay". [Note: This was before she came out at an anti-Prop (h)8 rally.]
6. Rachel Maddow discusses the "black vote for Prop (h)8" in California. [Note: I posted about this in No Racism: African-Americans Are Not Who Funded and Passed Prop (h)8.]
7. During the Vice Presidential debate, Vice President-elect Joe Biden said that lesbian/gay marriage rights are enshrined in the Constitution. And, as a bonus
SNL/Tina Fey re-enact the debate as only they can.
8. On BloggingHeadsTV, law professors Jack Balkin and Ann Althouse debate whether heterosexuals should lose marriage rights, too.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
LESBIAN POP CULTURE NEWS THIS WEEK
(Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, pioneers of lesbian liberation; photo by Jill Posener)
I don't usually do pop culture on this blog, unless it's got a political connection, and the love scandals of sapphic celebrities do not count as lesbian liberation news. But I've had more down-time than usual and have watched some trash TV, so guess what: I'm going to share!
Ellen Degeneres announces on her show that she and Portia di Rossi are going to get married. She got a standing ovation. I watched it, and got verklempt.
Anne Heche pleads to the divorce court that she cannot afford $15,000 monthly spousal and child support to the guy she dumped Ellen for, because her series Men In Trees got cancelled. No comment.
According to reports, actress Jodie Foster and her longtime partner Cydney Bernard have called it quits. Foster and Bernard began dating in 1993 after meeting on the set of Sommersby. The pair have been together for 14 years and have two children; 9-year-old Charlie and 6-year-old Kit.
Erica Hahn and Callie Torres kiss on Grey's Anatomy. Mostly this seems to just be appealing to the twisted het version of what lesbians are (secretly wanting to be with men). But the kiss is good, Erica has a good chance of being a REAL dyke trying to deal with Callie's lesbo panic, and Callie -- well, she felt that kiss, kids.
Oprah Winfrey recreates the office and apartments sets for the Mary Tyler Moore Show and the entire cast (minus Ted Knight, who died in 1989) reunites so Oprah can gush on about how much Mary meant to her. Well, Mary gave a LOT of us permission to stay home on Saturday nights, and a reference to her influence appears in at least one dykiest of dykes songs. Five points to anyone who can make the lyric connection. (Not you, Liza, for obvious reasons.)
When I used to do radio, I made it a habit to play Joan Jett's rendition of the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme, "Love is All Around". Here's a YouTube version with a montage of Joan and Mary pix. You can never get too much Joan Jett.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
ELLEN IN ACTION
Okay, it doesn't get more effective and elegant than this.
In yesterday's post, I listed some of the steps involved in Mussar, a method of confronting social wrongs that doesn't involve shame. Step number one to was to try a dignified one-on-one first.
Ellen Degeneres does just that when she places a call to Oklahoma GOP Representative Sally Kern, who went off on an anti-gay tirade that was recorded without her knowledge. This clip is all over You Tube and Alternet, but in case you've missed it, I'm embedding it here, too. BRAVO to Ellen.
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