Imagine going out on a first date and being mercilessly grilled and hectored about whether your views conform to Regressive Leftism. Of course partners on any first dates vet each other from the outset, but it’s usually far more subtle than the strategy recommended by Lara Witt in her Everyday Feminism piece “10 things every intersectional feminist should ask on a first date” (first published at Wear Your Voice). I won’t go into all the details, but she recommends to all woke peeps asking their dates (whether or not that date is of your gender or not) ten questions. If any of the answers aren’t right, you should ditch them.
Here’s how she starts the article (notice that the very first words give her “identity”), and then a list of the questions (all come with her explanations, but I’ve put down only the stuff for question #1). Take my word for it, these aren’t just things to suss out about your date, they are things you should explicitly ask about.
As a queer femme of color, I keep close relationships with people who go beyond allyship; they’re true accomplices in the fight against white supremacy, queerphobia, and misogyny. If you’re not going to support marginalized folks, then we can’t be friends, let alone date. The personal is political.
Beyond the lovely cushioning, happiness and support that we receive from our platonic relationships (which are, in all honesty, soul-feeding and essential), feminists also date! But there are questions we have to ask before we get close to someone.
The following list of questions is applicable to all relationships — certainly not just cisgender, heterosexual ones:
- Do you believe that Black Lives Matter?
Yes? Wonderful. Let’s start here. There are three categories that are non-negotiables for me: an understanding of race, class, and gender. Not everyone understands how these three can be insidious, systemic and intertwined, but anyone who doesn’t take the time to learn how systemic racism works isn’t going to care about how racism affects me or people who are darker-skinned than I am.I don’t want to have to have laborious discussions where I have to prove to someone that white privilege or non-black privilege exists. If they are willing to learn and listen and make the space to decenter their whiteness (if they are white), that’s a good place to start. - What are your thoughts on gender and sexual orientation?
- How do you work to dismantle sexism and misogyny in your life?
- What are your thoughts on sex work?
- Are you a supporter of the BDS movement?
- What is your understanding of settler colonialism and indigenous rights?
- Do you think capitalism is exploitative?
- Can any human be illegal?
- Do you support Muslim Americans and non-Muslim people from Islamic countries?
- Does your allyship include disabled folks?
This is truly the date from hell. In fact, I’d run away about two or three questions in.
Witt used to write for Teen Vogue and Feministing, a slightly more mature version of Everyday Feminism. As for being “of color,” well, her mother is half-Kenyan and half Indian, and her father is white, and she explained at Feministing why she hates whiteness (note her privilege):
On paper I am a minority, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that when you see me. I come from a upper middle class family, I grew up in Switzerland, I got to travel a lot and I speak fluent english and french. In person, I can perform whiteness. I portray European-ness. But I know nothing else.
For years I have struggled with my mixed ethnicity because I don’t feel either Kenyan or Indian at all. I visited Kenya multiple times, my mother regularly made us chapati and biryani and painted our hands with henna. But at school I hung out with my friends of whom 80% were white. I could eat hundreds of chapatis, but that didn’t make me feel more Indian. I could spend time with a Maasai tribe and bead colorful necklaces for tourists, but that didn’t make me feel more Kenyan.
I have struggled with my ethnicity because although on paper I am a minority, I wasn’t taught that I was. I wasn’t taught my mother’s cultures. I don’t know how to speak swahili or punjabi. This means that I cannot communicate with my grandmother and some of my relatives. I know little about being Kenyan or Indian, I have little in common with the maternal side of my family. My mother made me white, she denied me half of who I am.
This is a rupture of my identity. I only know my whiteness and I feel guilty about this. I hate that I can only perform whiteness.
She’s clearly twisted up with confusion and hatred, which is why she tweeted this In March:
https://twitter.com/Femmefeministe/status/843123002451656704
Apparently her white husband (a male?) is an exception:
Witt’s Twitter feed is a compendium of Regressive Leftism. All I can say is that I’m glad I don’t have to deal with people like this. But apparently she doesn’t want to deal with people like me.
My nightmare is that some day a sizable number of Americans will be like this. I’m all for progressivism and anti-racism, but not when it’s as full of hatred as Witt is.
One way in which I help dismantle sexism is that I try to break down obligatory gender roles of both men and women, and traditionalist thinking of men and women (men are doers and emotionless brutes who are disposable and women are infantalized and valued more than men). I suspect she would disagree with me.
I also try to fight against misanthopy, which includes both misogyny and misandry, and this partly involved fighting against both regressive leftism, traditionalism as mentioned and religious beliefs (including Islam). Islam is misanthropic, imo (not just misogynistic) but it seems feminists are of 2 completely different mindsets on Islam. So they will almost entirely disagree with me since I fit into neither category of thought.
I can’t imagine people who behave like this get much attention or what they want because they can never be satisfied.
Why fight against misanthropy? To me, that may be the most rational, most egalitarian, and least prejudiced stance to take … When I look at the voting patterns of Americans (see, for example, the White House and Alabama), the most prevalent cultural norms (look at the most popular movies, music, “books”, etc.), I think that anyone who is NOT at least a bit misanthropic is simply not paying enough attention! Though they each had their own flaws, articulate misanthropes like Hitchens, Mencken, Twain, and the like were probably on to something!
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. … On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H.L. Mencken.
(Sorry, cant provide the reference)
That’s a list of questions that will ensure there is no second date.
What a pinched miserable person she is. A pimple on the ass of humanity.
At which point, the people who ask such questions will write a post for their blog about how racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever the other person was for walking out.
Don’t let the bill trouble your bank account.
Perhaps that list should be sent before the first date is arranged. It would save a lot of time and effort.
If you still went ahead with the date where would you meet? At a restaurant (organic, vegan, Indian, Kenyan, European)? At the cinema (nothing mainstream of course)? At an art gallery (run by a collective of feminist immigrants protesting about cultural appropriation)? Nightmare.
That actually sounds like an awesome date, but yeah if someone has such a huge list of potential dealbrakers the more efficient and courteous way would be to make them known before you actually agree to go on a date.
A by-the-hour motel would probably be a good start.
“That’s a list of questions that will ensure there is no second date.”
Agreed, but that’s probably a good thing. If you were out on a date with the sort of wacko pomo who would make your relationship contingent on agreeing with all that shit, isn’t it just as well to find out right at the start, before you’ve wasted too much time and restaurant checks on her? 😉
I prefer people who accept that nobody’s perfect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGBJg4GceHQ
cr
As a 67 year old male, married for forty-one years plus, I cannot remember the last date, let alone the first. My only question would be, Do you become unhinged at the idea of Trump. If yes, then we are okay.
sounds like you 2 would get along 😉
Does that mean you can’t remember your first date with your future wife? Seems a little sad to me, though I’m only 34 years in.
“We met at nine”
“We met at 8”
“I was on time”
“You were late”
“We dined with friends”
“We dined alone”
“A tenor sang”
“A baritone”
“Ah yes, I remember it well . . .”
“I come from a upper middle class family”
Says it all.
The most important of all privileges (because it is the most predictive) is economic privilege and this one is downplayed the most, but this is no surprise because it is mostly those from such a privileged background spouting all this intersectional nonsense to begin with.
I think the questioning would go like this. If you are in the top one percent economically, when do you want to get married.
Ha! Indeed.
For the joke thread: My most successful pickup line is “Hi, I’m Bill Gates Jr.”
I find this whole identity politics stuff refuses to acknowledge economic privilege against all evidence that economic privilege is indeed a biggie.
It is the biggie. But that would hurt the reputations and hierarchical positions of many regressives, so it’s best left ignored.
Worth remembering. As a needle for the pricking of egos.
And social class too.
Her list is literally a worksheet for a man who wants to seduce an intersectional feminist.
Good d*g, what kind of man is that? Would he even qualify?
That would be a self-loathing masochist.
They can be found in some abundance at Freethought Blogs, BTW.
I’n a self loathing masochist, and I would NEVER date a woman like that.
But then I am quite adept at keeping my self loathing masochistic part separate from the normal human part. I disengage from the former about thirty seconds after the self loathing sex ends lol
To paraphrase Mr Allen, the d*ck wants what the d*ck wants.
Sorry for the duplicate. I tried to edit it in progress. 🙂
Her selection process can be made much simpler and, therefore, more efficient. She should ask one question:
“Are you willing to agree with my worldview 100%?”
I would hope she asks it on the phone so I could skip the date altogether.
What? Nothing about whether or not you eat lobster?
good thing I retired from dating 20 years ago.
I totally agree that her followers should ask these questions on their first date. It would make my son’s life much easier – leave before dessert.
…and without the bill.
Before dessert? If a woman had put questions like that to me in my dating days, I’d have left before the first g-and-t’s arrived.
I’m not one to leave a drink unfinished, but I’d make an exception in the case.
I have a hard time skipping dessert. Should probably order it first.
Ah yes, the old adage: “Life’s uncertain. Eat dessert first.”
This is the thing that really floors me: She can shout on at the top of her lungs that she hates white people and at the same time self-righteously believe (apparently) that she is not being racist when she does so.
My question (to her*) would be: Do you judge people by their ethnicity? Or, maybe – snarky version – do you judge people by their choice of parents?
(* Incredibly grateful this situation will never arise.)
And it’s her mother’s fault she didn’t learn Punjabi. What’s stopping her now? If I, a white girl, can know several people who speak Punjabi, I’m sure she knows some too and she can find a way to learn Punjabi.
Too cruel! Wasps have stripes, snakes have rattles, the ctrl-left has “lists”. They all perform the same function https://houseofhank.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/how-nature-says-do-not-touch.jpg
When you said “wasps have stripes” I thought you meant WASPS the acronym and it was a way of saying we aren’t all that white. LOL
That would also be a potentially useful warning signal! All I’m saying is that large parts of nature want to predate on you and large parts want to warn you off treading on them. Heed the growls, rattles, angry buzzes, stridulations, nazi-salutes, facial tattoos, cries of “check your privilage” and all for much the same reason.
“privilege”. I have just lost my spelling privilege…
I would just hope the woman asks these questions before the waiter brings the bill.
It would at least save a lot of time dancing around issues, and you wouldn’t get to having a meal to pay for. But that with her views she should at least be buying the drinks…..
With the emphasis on the plural
Unsurprisingly, nothing about attitudes towards or treatment of other species. Anthropocentrism uber Alles!
“She’s clearly twisted up with confusion and hatred…”
Yes, and a large part of it in her case is clearly self-hatred (for being partially white) and hatred of her mother for not immersing her in her own heritage but preferring to acculturate her to the place she was living, something her poor mother no doubt thought would give her the best chance in life. Ingratitude is an unattractive quality. Over-privileged, whiny, solipsistic ingratitude is even less appealing.
As a white person who grew up poor and fought for everything I’ve ever head, I see her as a whiny privileged spoiled brat. Boo hoo I got to live in Europe and learn French and not in India and learn Punjabi. My parents were mean to me! Oh FFS!
I’ve ever had not I’ve ever head though my head is important to getting what I’ve had since I had to get educated first.
Sorry Diana, I can’t understand that sentence?
Though I quite agree with your view of Ms Witt. Un-fricken-believable.
cr
In the previous I wrote “head” but I meant “had”.
Oh. Some punctuation would have helped, as in “‘I’ve ever had’, not ‘I’ve ever head'”
Your original comment caused me no trouble at all. It was your correction that confoozled me utterly.
🙂
cr
I’m almost always typing on a phone or iPad so I get lazy with the commmas.
Here:
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Free commas!
🙂
cr
Thanks.
Maybe this site instead of any of that one
or of any of Huffpo:
Pieces as of
http://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/12/05/montreal-massacre-reminds-us-male-entitlement-comes-many-forms-always-dangerous or those of
https://twitter.com/feministcurrent .
Blue
Thanks, Blue. That was an enlightening read.
Yes a much better representation of feminism. Canadian universities still mark the anniversary of the shooting of the women at L’école Polytechnique. I was in university myself when that happened and was utterly scared and horrified.
What you mean, Diana and Blue,is that those sites better represent YOUR view of feminism, as there are almost as many different representations of what the term means as there are women (think of the battle about transgender women among feminists or gender vs. equity feminism). I agree with you, of course, as it also represents mine: no bigotry against women as well as treating them them with the same civility as everyone else and giving them equal opportunities from birth. (Well, that’s my view, at least!)
Yes, I am actually making a qualitative judgement. It’s a better representation of feminism simply because it’s better feminism. It’s better feminism because it’s coherent in many ways.
I’m confused, are you saying that the site linked above (feministcurrent) is a better representation of feminism? From the article I just read it seems to be 100% victimhood culture and it’s dropping with misandry.
They also seem to be TERFs and make excuses for Julie Bindel who is truly a hateful person. Hell just this week she put out an article saying women are better than men.
I’m honestly not going to engage in a discussion like this because I can sense it going to a dark place. I just don’t see the execution of several women st L’école Polytechnique as misandry ans victimhood and I think we should leave it at that.
Of course I said nothing like that. The rhetoric throughout the article is what I’m referring to (and comments). The massacre has nothing to do with misandry.
as to … … “representations” of something
one analogous to that in re feminism: https://twitter.com/FFRF/status/940261082488365062
No data & I don’t care about that
cuz six decades’ direct observation
and experiences:
hugest – ever resentment by very many men:
… … their EVER having to, or being forced to,
l i s t e n … … to women.
Blue
“Radical feminism is the term for that
component of the second wave of feminism (in
the United States, the phase of the movement
that emerged in the 1960s) that most directly
confronts men’s sexual exploitation of women. In the three decades that I have been
involved in radical feminist projects, this
analysis has become more useful than ever in
explaining an increasingly corrosive society, the mainstreaming of sexual exploitation, and
the epidemic levels of sexual intrusion.”
— — Professor Jensen Texas
hwww.feministcurrent.com/2017/12/10/radical-feminism-solution-mens-ongoing-sexual-misconduct
Blue
I’m sorry but you don’t write very coherently. It’s hard to understand what you’re saying, but I outright reject the notion that “radical feminism” is merely a term for feminists who fight sexual exploitation of women. That’s complete nonsense.
The article you link posits patriarchy theory as an explanatory social model but it isn’t a very powerful one.
Intersectional feminists are an enigma to me, they see ‘patriarchy’ as the root of all evil, but at the same time embrace -or at least defend- the most blatantly ‘patriarchal’ extant ideology we have, ie. Islam.
Is it surprising they are not taken seriously by anybody having a brain larger than that of a parrot?
Well frankly I think feminists in general support one half of patriarchy: the over-protection of women and disposability of men. They don’t like the part where men have power, though.
The intersectional branch is even crazier as you say, because it does support Islam. I think the problem is more to the core than just intersectional feminism, though. Take a look at what any mainstream feminist with a platform or political power says and you’ll see similar behavior, though not quite as insane.
Feminist Current is often just as ridiculous as Everyday Feminism.
https://ronisez.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/dating-advice-ignore-everyday-feminism/
https://ronisez.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/lesbianism-is-under-attack-by-the-usual-suspects/
I imagine a date with her would be of the modern kind I see in pubs & restaurants, young couples with blank faces bathed in the light of their smartphones.
If it restores your faith in humanity, I regularly see young couples visiting the state capitol on dates. Pretty much the nicest thing ever.
That reminds me, I should meet up with my friends more on the outernet without our phones.
You had that Banksy in mind, didn’t you? 😉
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1739876/thumbs/o-MOBILE-LOVERS-570.jpg
cr
Whether you agree with her or not, I would think the first date would be a turn off because of all the aggressive questioning.
It is important to have similar principles, though I don’t think they need to be exactly the same, but her idea of a relationship doesn’t sound very comfortable.
I doesn’t leave much room for potential personal growth, either. If the target audience is young people (late teens, early twenties) I wouldn’t assume they’ve all got fully formed and cemented world-views. Think of how many people are just escaping the ideologies of their homes or locales, I certainly don’t think the same things I did at 18. I wasn’t a skeptic then, nor an atheist, and I was probably kind of a jerk in some of my ideas, and foolishly naive in others. As is to be expected when you are young.
Good point. I wasn’t an atheist either at that age. In fact I had quite a deep personal faith (though I wasn’t religious).
I thought online dating profiles took care of all that sorting through potential mates based on shared ideology already? I think that dating people of wildly different opinions is actually a good thing, especially when a young adult.
–
I think back fondly, for example, on time spent with a ‘political vegan’ anarchist – I read the books they shared, talked about interesting things, etc. I didn’t become the same as they were, I simply had more information about people and the world.
I’ve thrice been ambushed liked this on first dates.
There were no subsequent dates.
So, what were the potential deal breakers? If you hadn’t been ambushed thusly, would you have still liked to date those people? The closest thing I’ve experience to this was at a client’s, and they asked me if I had a ‘personal relationship with Jesus’. Awkward.
Well…I pay him when he mows my lawn, and sometimes we talk sports.
I was subjected more to recitations of credos, rather than thought-purity interrogations. Even if you share views, anyone who aggressively injects theirs into a first date is bound to be disrespectful and impossible to deal with.
As scatteredthoughts observed: “If you’re relying on a checklist to meet your soulmate, you’re probably going to miss him or her.” I learned to not even bother with anyone who included in their profiles a long list of what they did not want in a mate.
And I’ve happily dated a vegetarian, a conservative christian, and even a couple of Yankees fans.
Indeed. Also, I do not want to date me. I want to date someone who I can learn from, learn with and grow forward alongside. Stagnation is no fun, and we are all dynamic, no?
My concern is not for the lunatic fringe like Witt, but that every person who reads this insanity doesn’t recoil in horror.
My fear is kindled whenever the press, or a university, supports this kind of regressive, racist, hate.
2 or 3 questions in? That’s being very generous. I’d be out the door at question number 1.
I understand the importance of having things in common for dating. However, there’s a lot of ground between being a true Trump fan and marking off every item on her checklist. If you’re relying on a checklist to meet your soulmate, you’re probably going to miss him or her.
yeah, how about replying to Q1 with: “I’ll call that and raise you: What’s the best book you read this year?” 🙂
The worst is when someone asks you what book you’re reading at the moment and it’s The Walking Dead comics. LOL that has happened to me….I wasn’t ashamed either but the sort of people who ask other people those sorts of questions often think you should be.
I tried to read some “graphic novels” in recent years. ones highly recommend my online interlocutors.
I could not. I found the same problem with these that there was with much of the “Classic” SciFi I tried to reread as a middle-aged adult: The dialogue was just too lame to tolerate.
Just not my thing. At all.
I recently re-read some very early Asimov, and was appalled at the puerile dialogue and cardboard cut-out characters. His later stuff improved immensely.
“The dialogue was just too lame to tolerate.”
What, as in “Zap! Pow! Biff! Take that, scum!!” ?
I agree that Sturgeon’s Law applies (95% of anything is crap). In many sci-fi short stories, it’s the concept or the situation that is the important thing, not the characterisation. But I do agree – if the writer has no skill with words, I find it heavy going and I just can’t be bothered reading.
cr
Why have a date? Email the list beforehand. Besides, can you imagine how stuck up she is about food? Is it politically incorrect to say “high-maintenance”? This brings to mind Brydon’s Second Epigram: The principle of natural selection suggests that there is not, in fact, someone for everyone.
” Is it politically incorrect to say ‘high-maintenance?'”
I’m sure that. not only would she find that politically incorrect, but that she’s also the kind who thinks any boyfriend should “worship” her.
Imagine if they went to a fusion restaurant?
LOL
“This dish is culturally appropriating that dish!”
I suspect it would be akin to nuclear fusion.
She isn’t just giving her questions. She is saying every “feminist” should ask these same questions.
Is it any wonder there’s a market for sex Bots? Oh, pardon me, I should say sex-worker bodies of silicone?
One of the things I like about this site is that most of the users know the difference between silicon and silicone.
😎 😎
Apropos of nothing, I ran across this ridiculous pseudo-science con job. Organic silicon? Why isn’t this kind of advertising illegal? https://www.regenerativenutrition.com/organic-silicon-p-126.asp
What the hell is ‘organic silicon’?
Silicon is an element, not known to contain carbon chains. Silica doesn’t either. So, not organic.
The other principal (mis)meaning of ‘organic’ means, apparently, grown in some greeny-wooish fashion without the use of nasty ‘chemicals’. Not sure how you’d grow silicon, though.
Anyway, at 45 Ozbucks a bottle I’m not likely to find out, it’s an even bigger ripoff than toothpaste or bottled water.
cr
Without wasting my eyeballs on the advert, in the UK it probably would be illegal. Advertising must be “legal, decent, honest and truthful”, and both respectable and disrespectable organisations fall foul of it on a regular basis. For a printer to then repeat the advertising copy runs the risk of losing their license.
I gather that America is not so business-hostile?
Do you believe that Black Lives Matter?
Yes. And I note the attempt to complicate the issue further, and reject it. Fuck your intersectional bullshit that would have you quietly agreeing to the death of the black homophobe, or the racist gay guy.
What are your thoughts on gender and sexual orientation?
Gender? I’ll call a person by their preferred pronoun. I don’t find trans people sexually attractive, but I’m no catch either.
I despise the trend in trans activism that views a lack of sexual attraction to trans people as being bigotry – it is an attitude that speaks of a very warped view of what men and women are like.
I do not find all women attractive, very few women find me attractive, the idea that becoming the opposite gender magically entitles you to sex isn’t reality, its pornography,
I’m straight, and figure anything between consenting adults is pretty much up to them.
How do you work to dismantle sexism and misogyny in your life?
I frequently point out that trying to figure out the other gender is largely utter bullshit. The idea of men are like this or women are like that is an attempt to stick people in little demographic boxes intended to make them easier to control.
I do not seek to control people, I find everyone does better when everyone is doing their own thing.
What are your thoughts on sex work?
Personally much like on the issue of sexual orientation what happens between consenting adults is none of my business. I haven’t personally used the services of a prostitute, but I’ve no moral compunction against it, I just haven’t done it.
That said it pisses me off when people refer to it as commoditising sex. It is first and foremost a service industry, much like a waiter or a barista, and if you see either of those two jobs as turning the people doing them into a commodity then you’re an asshole.
And hey there are a lot of assholes around, look at how people treat service staff.
It further pisses me off that attempts to ban sex work invariably result in the police harassing sex workers, often to the points of rape.
It absolutely infuriates me that we live in a society where the Catholic Church, which has a history of covering up child molesters and rapists, can happily have a priest teaching classes, but if a teacher is found out to have a porn channel on the side she’s fired.
One of the things my late father used to do that I despised was refer to the black political leaders of my country as “garden boys” and “maids”. Of course for as long as I remember he had never done a day’s work that didn’t end up costing my mother money.
My mother, who became a CASA, was raised working class English, my grandfather on my mother’s side worked as a cook in a mental institution.
To judge someone on the basis of them having done a job you hold in low regard – that is not something I respect whatever the job in question.
Are you a supporter of the BDS movement?
No. As a movement it way too often falls into outright anti-semitism apart from the Israel issue, including assaulting Jewish students.
I also don’t think it is a good thing to allow terms like “Pinkwashing” – I’m not going to sell out gay people for the sake of the Palestinian cause, I will give credit where it is due.
Plus, BDS at one point launched a protest against one of our local grocery chains because it imported Israeli goods, like Israeli tomatoes. Except those tomatoes weren’t from Israel, they were from the Western Cape, Israeli was just the cultivar.
BDS are clowns, and frankly Pennywise is funnier.
Finally while I think all states should be secular, including Isreal, I’m an outspoken atheist, in Israel I’d be called an asshole. In Palestine I’d be killed.
I cannot side with my oppressor, even if they are themselves oppressed.
What is your understanding of settler colonialism and indigenous rights?
I come from Africa, to the north of my country there are nations which strove to kick out the colonialist population. They have all suffered massive corruption, civil war and starvation.
Worse they are all still basically colonial economies. They produce raw materials and import manufactured goods – the precise economic system that the colonial powers were trying to build.
Vengeance and tribalism has done less than nothing for the bulk of the population, only once those nations started dealing with the present has progress really begun being made.
The wounds of the present do not allow the luxury of bitterness and hate, we must deal with them using everything and everyone at our disposal, colonial or indigenous.
You have human rights, or you have no rights. To speak of colonialist rights or indigenous rights is to deny everyone’s human rights, which invariably leads to catastrophe.
Do you think capitalism is exploitative?
Capitalism is an idea, on its own it isn’t much of anything. The question is are people exploitative? Very often yes. That’s why we have regulations on what people can get away with, and that’s why totalitarian systems invariably work out to being pretty much the same – they’re all overbearing shitholes.
In oligarchy – where business takes over government workers are screwed. In communism – where government takes over business, workers are screwed.
You have to have some separation of powers, with a strong private and public sector, in order to keep everyone honest.
That’s true whatever economic system you point to, and we often give ideas labels like capitalism or communism in order to set up this neat little “goodies and baddies” concept in our heads, so that we don’t bother asking the real question “Is what we’re doing working?”
Can any human be illegal?>/b>
Of course any human can be illegal. I’m an atheist, there are twelve countries where I am very much illegal, and they’d be quite happy to kill me.
What this question tells me is that you don’t see the difference between law and morality. You don’t see the difference between is and ought. Just because something is the law doesn’t make it right, and just because something is right doesn’t generally translate into it being the law.
Ideally I’m an internationalist, and hold that free movement of goods is a recipe for disaster without free movement of people. The world as it ought to be would be one where people are free to work wherever, with international trade unions protecting their economic rights and an international government assuring their civil rights.
That said, what I am ideally has no bearing on what is possible regarding law as the world actually is.
Do you support Muslim Americans and non-Muslim people from Islamic countries?
It depends on what they’re doing. They’re people, people can be shitty sometimes.
Does your allyship include disabled folks?
I’m no-ones ally.
The entire concept of allyship is toxic to its core, it is exactly how you get feminist men who sexually harass – because they think that being pro-feminist gives them some leeway.
As a concept it breeds that kind of entitlement, worse what is often defined as a “good ally” is meaningless shit that has no bearing on attaining the goals of the alliance.
Being nice isn’t being a good ally, helping the person you’re allied to win is what makes a good ally. My good ally is someone who helps me win.
And doormats, the precise sort of person described in every good ally list, aren’t great at winning.
Finally allies come with a price tag attached, otherwise they wouldn’t be allies, they’d be friends.
So no, my allyship does not include the disabled, I don’t think they owe me jack shit.
You mad bro?
More irritated with the whole “woke” nonsense.
Yes, I see this guy gets lots of dates?
TL:DR
I did
Should have, though. It was great (which, of course, means largely that he agreed with me. Sigh).
“Also white people are evil. Whiteness is evil.” – twitts Witt. Wit is Dutch for white. Nice.
Luckily in The Netherlands there’s a workshop available: “Help me, I’m white!”
Discussing topics like racism, white privilege, white fragility, white innocence and color blindness.
Whatever that means.
Do you believe there should be word limit for comments ? Better comment rather than writing a phd thesis !
“I have a deep understanding…”
“Educate yourself …”
“If they are willing to learn and listen [to me]…”
The actual topic hardly matters at this point does it?
My first question: Do you cook? Perhaps, there is a generation gap.
Seriously though, it can be hard to love someone who has different political views. This woman is just being honest (and pushy and demanding and whatnot). Which might save a lot of grief
She’s a loonietoon of the stark raving variety. A pushy, demanding, whatnot stark raving loonietoon. Run, don’t walk, from the likes of her.
Kinda like a woman I almost dated but had to cancel out on to bring my father to the ER. She couldn’t understand my priorities.
I would love to be asked about this on a date:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/12/08/black-vegan-movement-tackles-health-and-social-issues.html
1. Do you believe that Black Lives Matter?
Yes.
2. What are your thoughts on gender and sexual orientation?
I’m in favor of it. 100%.
3. How do you work to dismantle sexism and misogyny in your life?
What’s wrong with being sexy? (in English accent)
4. What are your thoughts on sex work?
Nice work if you can get it.
5. Are you a supporter of the BDS movement?
As long as it’s between consenting adults.
6. What is your understanding of settler colonialism and indigenous rights?
I’m all for them.
7. Do you think capitalism is exploitative?
You betcha!
8. Can any human be illegal?
Only if they break the law.
9. Do you support Muslim Americans and non-Muslim people from Islamic countries?
Yes.
10. Does your allyship include disabled folks?
Some of my best friends are retards.
Retards? I don’t know that I can go along with this dismissal of people with disabilities.
My Sweetie is in a nursing home. The Social Worker there is a woman in a wheelchair. (I get that there was a horrible accident years ago.) Back in October I fell and broke my knee and ended up in a wheelchair for five weeks. I got a bit of a taste of what it’s like to have a disability. I found out in a hurry about barriers that I’d never had cause to think of, and I had quite a good talk with the Social Worker. It was a learning experience, and I don’t want to belittle disabled people.
And some years ago when I was working in a dairy store, one of my customers was a woman who had had polio and was on crutches and drove a car that had been modified. She’d overcome hurdles to become a school teacher (and she was a very good one). Some of the worst hurdles came from her own parents who tried to shelter her and protect her and in so doing, inadvertently prevented her from accomplishing – until she rebelled and said she was going to college and was going to have a car modified and was going to live. And she did it.
“retard” is a vulgar, vernacular term for people with intellectual shortcomings, not a general reference to people with disabilities.
Oh, I understand that! I know it’s not the general term for disabled people. I also know that many if not most intellectually challenged people count as “disabled”.
And I also know it’s a really cruel insult and it hurts to be yelled at and called a “f*ck*ng retard”.
And while none of my best friends are, to use your word, retards, I did work alongside a boy in his late teens who had Downs. That kid was a delight and had such a cheery disposition.
I also worked at a volunteer job with a woman who was quite disabled intellectually. It took her all morning to do a task that someone else would do in fifteen minutes. And oh wow! The ecstatic joy she showed when she finished the task, you’d think someone had given her a million dollars. I thought, I’d sure like to be able to be that happy. Seeing her was like getting a gift.
All this said, I wish we could rehabilitate the word, “retarded”. It’s become a slur rather than a neutral description.
Weirdest first date I went on, I was home for the summer after my sophomore year at college, and I took out one of my sister’s friends, a prim young thing who’d just graduated from a local Catholic high school. I dragged the poor gal to see the local premier of Last Tango In Paris, mainly because I was big Bertolucci and Brando fan, although I didn’t otherwise know the skinny on the flick. As you know if you’ve seen it, Last Tango is pretty graphic. The infamous stick-your-fingers-in-the-butter scene was especially cringe-inducing to sit through next to a nice girl you’d met for all of 15 minutes once before (and who’d probably feel herself compelled to go to Confession the next morning).
She told my sister later that she’d had a good time and would like to go out again. Who says Catholic girls start much too late?
I use to date my sister’s friends a lot. She was one year older so from 7th grade on I was what might be known as the opportunist. Why go out hunting when there was a pretty good selection coming right to the house. In those pre-driving days it was a relatively safe event.
Ah, an ambush predator!
I’m still single, but the past girlfriend I liked best and with whom I shared the longest relationship was a slightly conservative Catholic (her Catholicism really just extended to a belief in god and the occasional visit to church). We had an awesome time together and the relationship ended only because we ended up with different jobs in different places. I’m less concerned with someone’s politics than with their personality and intelligence, so long as they’re not pushy about or extreme in their views and take a more-or-less levelheaded approach to things.
So she was a nice Catholic girl who had a little (half)Jewish in her from time to time? 🙂
Oh, Ken, you rascal!
I once went on a first date to the movie Wild At Heart & I thought that was awkward.
Billy Joel ?
“…but sooner or later it comes down to fate…” Such a good song. The worst date I ever had was with an Indian man. We went to an Italian restaurant and he actually ordered for me. I also was on a date once with a person from Afghanistan. It was okay but his English was sort of broken. He was more into it than I was and was about to ask me out for a second date. He said sort of in this way trying to be really sweet, “I know I don’t own you yet, but….” And my eyes widened and I looked at him. I could not believe that’s what he said. He was being genuine and immediately realized upon my reaction. I did sort of smile in disbelief. I think that’s how that culture actually is, though. I didn’t go out with him again. Culture really does make a difference sometimes.
Lol!
I don’t get why she doesn’t go learn Punjabi and Swahili instead of sitting home tweeting about intersectional feminism and how horrible white people are.
What’s the purpose of spending your life complaining and doing nothing to address even the simplest of your grievances?
Then she wouldn’t be a “slactivist”, would she ?
A curious notion: “In fact, I’d run away about two or three questions in.”
I mean, how would you find yourself on a date with a queer femme in the first place?
I’m Gender Fluid ???
She could be bisexual?
Sigh…..ugh….white people are evil? Okay, there are some evil white people, and I see some when I look in the direction of Washington DC.
I’d be more inclined, though, to say that a lot of white people are well-meaning and ignorant. In this category I include myself. I want to do the right thing and I’m eager to learn. The fact is that there’s a huge lots of much stuph I don’t know about being Black or in another minority group.
Yes, it’s my responsibility to learn. But I also have to be able to learn from marginalized people.
Some years ago I do believe it was Sister Soulja who said something to the effect of “It isn’t Soulja’s responsibility to educate white people!!!” And yes, it’s a pain in the butt to always have to explain and explain and explain to people who don’t understand and always have to assume the responsibility for another person getting educated about something. OTOH, I am not going to learn if people aren’t willing to talk.
And that means taking a risk. Years ago I was in a group with a woman who was clearly racially mixed. She could have been East Indian, Latino or Puerto Rican, American Indian, or have some Black ancestry. At some point I put my foot in my mouth, intending to be comforting and supportive, but I was wrong and without intending to, I invalidated her.
For some time she said nothing. Eventually she was talking with another woman in the group and said that she thought I might be a racist because of what I’d said. The other woman said, “Oh no! She’s not a racist at all! She wouldn’t want to hurt you! Talk to her and tell her why you feel hurt and what was wrong with what she said!”
It took courage on the part of this woman to approach me, because she didn’t know if she’d get a snotty angry denial or what. It took me courage to listen, too, because it hurts to realize I was ignorant and had inadvertently wounded someone I like, and I had to acknowledge that I’d been wrong. We both were crying and hugging each other. It was painful, but it was so good to bring it all out into the open. She realized I was not her racist enemy but her friend, and I learned something important.
(She identified as Black, I found out, but it had its difficulties. As she told it, she was too white for the black community, but too black for the white community. And we bi people have been heard to say that we’re too het for the queers and too queer for the hets. In the middle can be a weird place to be.)
Ceiling Cat, forgive me the sin of a long post.
Not TL;DR.
Thanks for sharing.
I am sure I am late to the table with this idea, but I believe this topic reflects a recent phenomenon. There have always been people with wacky ideas and we hardly noticed. But now social media amplifies and broadcasts and rebroadcasts these wacky ideas and they get far more attention than they deserve (which, in this case, is none.)
This raises some questions in my mind. 1) Does this phenomenon yet have a name? 2)What is its impact on social cohesion? 3)Will it (hopefully) be self-correcting in the fullness of time?
I’m guessing the correct answer to #8 is “no.” In which case the Israeli settlers in the West Bank will be relieved to learn that woke folk think they have as much right to be there as anyone has to be anywhere.
I’m confused about some of the terminology. In the article, Ms Witt claims to be a “queer femme of colour”. In some of her tweets she talks about her “white husband”. I think she also uses the “he” pronoun to refer to her white husband.
So, firstly, has the meaning of the term “queer” changed? I thought it meant “gay”. It certainly did back in 80’s Britain where it was originally a pejorative term that the gay community took ownership of.
Secondly does her husband know that she is still dating?
She is not sane.
I am interested in “femme”. Why is it acceptable to use loan words from such a two gendered language as French?
Urban Dictionary says:
“Mainly used to refer to a feminine lesbian, and especially a feminine lesbian who is attracted to masculine, or butch lesbians.”
So maybe her ‘husband’ is a butch lesbian. Or maybe not. Who knows, when she’s so screwed up?
cr
I personally use “queer” for “not heterosexual”.
I’d say that if you can realize the problem and run away before the waiter has brought your drink, that isn’t the date from hell. Because you can pay for the two drinks and escape. The true date from hell is the one where the crazy isn’t apparent until you’ve ordered your full dinner and thus can’t politely escape. 🙂
“So sorry, but I must go. I think I left my pet yak in the drier.”
LOL
“Gotta go. I forgot – this is the night for washing the dog.”But you’re a cat person?
“For you, I’ll find a dog.”
Fuck that noise… I’d take PRIDE in getting up in the middle of dinner and leaving that bigot with the bill.
Most common phrase heard in the Witt household: “Honey, you seem stressed out. Why don’t you take some me-time to chill?”
She is the perfect PUA victim. He will give all the right answers, screw her and run.
But what *are* the right answers?
It’s academic anyway, I’d have trouble getting it up, so no loss if I got some wrong.
cr
Only when he’s in an infective phase of his STI. Or hers.
No point in getting your gonads dirty with things like this … humanoid (probably ; it’s safer than trying to parse it’s description) if you’re not going to pass on something sociable.
I’m disappointed that you didn’t make space in this article to explicitly call Lara Witt out for her stance on BDS. I read her article for context before finishing yours, and I had to take a moment to center myself after witnessing that level of narrow minded bigotry. I genuinely think that this article/exposé would have had more gravity if you had taken the time to go through some of the more egregious points Witt raised. All the same, thank you for taking the time to call out this femme’s repugnance.
I’ve written about and criticized BDS before, and I have only a limited amount of time to write these posts. Had I gone after every one of her assertions, it would have been a very long post!
She blamed the parenting of her mother. She blamed the culture. She didn’t blame herself. Unless she’s seriously brain damaged, she can still learn, grow and change on her own. What she is now is up to her.
I get so tired of patriarchy being blamed for the sad plight of women. Patriarchy seems to have come about when the leading deity or deities became male Gods. Prior to that when god was a woman, the female life-giving principle was all. She selected a male as consort on a temporary basis. Then killed him. Gods and Goddesses, patriarchy and matriarchy have entrenched flaws due to the knowledge bases of the humans who created them. Let’s have no gods or goddesses and a humanity-arch.