god damn everything texas (redux)

no words.

A Friendswood mom says she was offended by what her daughter says happened Monday in ninth grade algebra.

She said, "The teacher told the student that 'I bet you're grieving.' And she basically looked at him and said what are you talking about? And he said I heard about your uncle's death and she said wow, because she understood that he was referring about Osama bin Laden being killed and was racially profiling her."

the teacher has suspended pending investigation, and he damn well better end up fired.

but seriously, what's with today today?

new unofficial slogan for the state of texas: It Gets Worse.

god damn everything texas

minor plaintiff in east texas ordered to pay $45 thousand in court costs after supreme court refuses to hear her appeal of a court decision that her school district was justified in dismissing her from the cheerleading squad after she refused to chant the name of her rapist at a basketball game.

this. this is why i get so fucking angry when people accuse me of looking for things to be offended about, as though i have to fucking look.

i'm seriously. i am shaking with anger over this.

the court's decision rests on the principle that by voluntarily participating in an activity in which she serves as a mouthpiece for the school, the girl voluntarily ceded her first amendment right not to cheer on a basketball player who was convicted of sexually assaulting her.

a friend pointed out that in isolation, there wouldn't be a problem with this principle; the girl has the right to free expression, but the school likewise has the right to choose who they want to represent them. but the thing is, that's only applicable in isolation. what, for instance, do you think the court would have decided if she'd been dismissed over her right to pray? or for her right to engage in political speech out of uniform?

it's east texas, y'all. i guarantee you that if the problem had been her wearing a cross or demonstrating in front of planned parenthood, she wouldn't have had to sue the district. she wouldn't have had anything to sue over, because the district probably would have fired the coach.

fuck double standards, fuck the supreme court for letting this stand, and fuck east texas.

her rapist gets the rape charge conveniently dropped so that he is still eligible to play, and she gets punished for refusing to adhere to the fiction. once again, apparently it's worse to stand up to rape apologism than it is to actually, y'know, rape someone.

and to think that people ask me what i mean when i start going on about rape culture.

i'm trying to find out everything i can about this case -- here is the appeal that SCOTUS declined to hear, and here is a link to onpoint's reporting on the case, with links to many of the documents. having a best friend who is an attorney = great

fun fact: apparently after she was raped, the survivor petitioned for and received an injunction against her rapists which required their removal from the school. the DA apparently let this injunction lapse so that bolton could play basketball.

In fact, SISD weighed its basketball program’s and
Bolton’s interests against H.S.’ welfare and psychological interests, and during the week of February 16, 2009, gave greater weight to its basketball program and Bolton, and added Bolton to the High School’s Varsity Basketball team, where H.S. as the cheerleader would be forced to interact and cheer for the five man team including her rapist.

funner fact: there's this.

On February 17, 2009, C.S. and his plaintiff’s attorney met with Sup’t. Bain and when asking about the forced exposure of H.S. to Bolton and Rountree, were told by Bain that he and his lawyer considered there to be two sides to the rape, and that Bain was not going to take any action to insulate H.S. from Rountree and Bolton.

if you would like to register your displeasure, since setting the superintendent and district counsel on fire is not an option, here is the contact information for silsbee independent school district and for the firm that represented the district in court. i called both of them this morning just trying to verify the facts reported in the independent and got stonewalled, but i feel like making the calls was important.

silsbee ISD
richard bain, superintendent
415 hwy 327 west
silsbee, tx 77656

telephone 409.980.7897 (press 4 for administration)

wells peyton greenberg & hunt, LLP
century tower, 550 fannin, ste 600
p.o. box 3708
beaumont, tx 77704

tanner t. hunt, jr. (attorney representing the district)
telephone 409.838.2644

please call. we might not be able to obtain justice for this girl, but at least we can let them know that this shit is not acceptable, and it's not going to fly.

now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to call the girl's attorney and find out if there's a fund for her to help her pay the settlement. i don't want my money going to the fuckers at SISD, but i want this girl's family to be financially ruined because of her courage even less. (laurence w. watts, 281.431.1500)

another day, another rage blackout

this is all the fuck over, but: vicious assault shakes texas town:

The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions.

well, i know i'd have some questions, if 18 dudes i knew kidnapped an eleven year old girl and filmed each other raping her! for instance, "would it be possible for us to take those dudes out back and shoot them?"

just kidding, i don't believe in the death penalty.

however! read on, plucky adventurers!

Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

"It’s just destroyed our community," said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. "These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives."

...

. . .

. . .

and the rest of it goes on like that. she dressed like a much older girl, so it's her fault. (and apparently 20-year-olds deserve to be raped for...dressing like 20-year-olds?) her mother didn't keep an eye on her, so it's her fault. these "boys" (the eldest is apparently 27) were "drawn into" this business; they didn't make a conscious decision to abduct and repeatedly rape a child.

this is truly atrocious on so many levels that i barely know where to start. didn't stop me from calling the NYT correction/retraction line (888-NYT-NEWS) and demanding an apology in writing, but there have been good responses elsewhere:

This is the point at which, as the writer's editor, I would send him an email. "Dear James," it would say. "Thanks for getting this in! I have some concerns that we've only got quotes from people who are worried about the suspects ('The arrests have left many wondering who will be taken into custody next') and think the girl was asking for it, especially since, even if she actually begged for it, the fact that she is 11 makes the incident stupendously reprehensible (not to mention still illegal). We don't want anyone wrongly thinking you are being lazy or thoughtless or misogynist! Please advise if literally no other kinds of quotes are available because every single person who lives in Cleveland, Texas, is a monster."

here is a post i meant to make yesterday!

so yesterday was not a good day for me. this article was the second thing i read after i woke up. but as i was reading my news feed and contemplating what to write about it, this article came up on my news feed. and, granted, that is much less unexpected, i think, since it's about creationists also being homophobic bigots, but i figured i could get some amusing cheap shots in.

and then this showed up, and i pretty much had a rage blackout at my desk and didn't write anything or get any actual work (for which i get paid) done for the rest of the day.

but! today i am, in fact, going to discuss that slate piece, or at least point to this one part of it:

As Baumeister and Vohs note, sex in consensual relationships therefore commences only when women decide it does.

seriously, though, this whole article is just precious. you usually know it's going to be a doozy when a dude is posting to double-x (blog subtitle: what women really think about news, politics, and culture), but this is really a gem of absolute fail.

in case you have been living on a different planet for the past half-century and/or lack even the most rudimentary understanding of statistics, marriage as we know it -- one man, one woman, unequal incomes, 2.5 kids, picket fences, etc. -- is On Its Way Out. but even if you don't note things like the divorce rate or the steady increase in nuptial age, the amount of nonsensical, offensive, and desperate pushback against a changing view of heterosexual relationships would tell you that something is definitely Up.

what i find most interesting about this is the flat refusal to look at direct evidence of change as...evidence of change. at least where ladies are concerned. and i get that all of that is wrapped up in gender essentialism, which just about everyone with any sort of say in media or pop culture is heavily invested in defending, but the vehemence of it still surprises me sometimes.

if more ladies are engaging in relationships to pursue sexual satisfaction rather than lifelong companionship and financial security, so the conventional narrative goes, it must be because men have changed. women can't possibly have realized that, by and large, in an economy that is finally beginning to recognize and reward their willingness and ability to work just as hard as men, marriage doesn't actually benefit them anymore.

the misogyny inherent in these assumptions is pretty staggering! and also pretty pathetic. but it's also inevitable, given gender essentialism! because if all ladies are desiring of this one gold-standard sort of relationship -- which neither gender really seems to want all that much nowadays -- then the decline of this kind of relationship must actively disadvantage ladies. if relationships are trending shorter in duration, lower on commitment, higher in turnover, and more focused on sex, it must mean that men are...what? yanking on puppet strings in order to get what they want out of women?

funny how the cited national longitudinal study of adolescent health wasn't consulted as to relationship trends as reported by actual ladies. almost all of the statistical evidence in the article is focused on men, and all they could get out of ladies, apparently, was anecdata from college students. is that because the numbers don't exist, or because they don't support the columnist's thesis? you make the call.

the author is definitely right that somebody here is pulling our strings, but it certainly isn't dudes sitting at home on their couches. maybe we should start pointing fingers elsewhere.

SO.

there have been lots of things happening lately to piss me off. in fact so many things to piss me off have happened lately that i could have made every word in that sentence, as well as every word in this sentence, into a link to something that pissed me off!

frankly, i'm afraid to open up my news feed. i still do it, but there's that shameful little moment of hesitation before i can click the "reader" link, wherein i wonder if i wouldn't be better off if, maybe, just this once, i could take a day off from caring so goddamned much.

yeah, yeah, i'm such a martyr.

anyway, in lieu of choosing one thing from the very, very many things that make me angry to talk about, i'm going to write about this:

She's her district's pony-tailed, 112-pound champion wrestler, boy or girl, kangaroo or camel. She's not a tulip, isn't a Jane Austen character, and doesn't wilt in the heat.

So why did her first opponent in the Iowa state high school wrestling tournament default rather than wrestle her?

Because "wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times," said 16-year-old home-schooled sophomore Joel Northrup, in a statement. "As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner."

it's a good column, and the columnist is unlikely to fill you with rage. go read it.

anyway, i very unsurprisingly have thoughts about this. first among them is: man, that dude's dad must be a real piece of work. because sixteen-year-old star athlete dudes, no matter how devout and gentlemanly, as a rule do not come up with that shit on their own, and the fact that said star athlete dude left the tournament literally in tears would seem to lend credence to my highly scientific (not scientific) theory that he cares more about winning than he does about engaging girls in appropriate ways.

second among them is: man, i have never heard of someone saying "she's my son" about a (presumptively) non-trans child. actually, come to think of it, i don't think i've ever heard of someone saying that about any child with pride or affection.

it would seem to me cassy herkelman is one lucky kid. maybe her family wouldn't mind taking in one more? i think that joel northrup needs new parents.

also, i hope that they meet again in the tournament next year -- she's a freshman and he's a sophomore, so they've both got years of high school competition left. i can't tell you what would happen, because i know next to nothing about wrestling in general and absolute jack SHIT about iowa high school wrestling in particular, but i'm willing to bet it would at least be an interesting match.