Saturday, December 14, 2024

Talking entry

That's Benjamin Dixon and this is a talking entry and we're going to talk about media.  I don't feel good tonight.  Thursday morning, there were no early morning posts.   Some wondered about that.  My eye -- the one that keeps getting worked on in the last weeks, was hurting so bad.  I thought I was taking a brief nap.  I ended up sleeping.  Woke up unaware that I hadn't loaded up videos to be published throughout the night.  


Some of you wondered, some of you were concerned, thank you.


And then there was one e-mail.  


I don't work for you.  That's my reply to the e-mailer.


I have a life and I give way too much time to online.  


But this e-mailer was upset that his YOUTUBE video did not go up at this site and tells me that I usually post throughout the night so I had no reason not to note his YOUTUBE video and --


I'm just not in the mood.  I don't work for you and I don't owe you a damn thing.


We've now been here for 20 years.  Just realized that.  And since the start, I've had this problem.


And it's always the same people.  Sorry to stereotype, but it's White men.


I've never had a woman e-mail and ask to be noted -- I'm not talking about when Naomi Klein releases a book, for example.  That's fine.  I'm interested in reading the book and I'll happily note it here.


Men of color also don't do that.  


And if you're a White man who does that and we know each offline, that's fine, we have a relationship of some form.


But every week, the inbox is flooded with requests from White men to have their article noted or their video noted or this noted or that noted.


If I think it's pertinent and have the time, I'll probably note it.

But don't think you give me marching orders.


I don't work for you.


More to the point, this same e-mailer was whining that I noted him only once that week.  


Only once.


I'm sorry when did I ask you to do one damn thing for me?  Oh, that's right.  Never.  So you've got a lot of nerve asking for favors to begin with.


But that only once should clue you in on some reality.


You talk to men.  White men.  Straight White men.


So, in other words, you're not doing anything.


You're not doing anything that couldn't have been done 20 years ago.  Or 40.  Or . . .


If you're left, why are you unable to speak to women or men of color or the LGBTQ+ community?


The answer is that you're not left.  


And this is not a new complaint from me.  Go back to 2020 and you'll see me calling out Katie Halper here for her lack of female guests.  Or go back to when Ava and I did our study on FAIR calling out PBS for its lack of female guests.  Yes, PBS had an awful ratio.  But you know who featured even less female guests?  COUNTERPIN.  FAIR's weekly radio program.  That's right, FAIR's calling out PBS for what FAIR is doing itself on COUNTERSPIN.


We've tracked this over and over.  With Katie we kept publicly pimping for her to invite on Margaret Kimberley -- someone whose politics lined up with Katie's.  Eventually, Katie did bring her on.  And maybe if we spent months and months calling Katie out and suggesting the same guest over and over, Katie might be able to add another woman to her rotation. 

When we focused on Iraq, I would do a post like this noting to whichever White men felt they were being ignored that they weren't covering Iraq so why do I need to note them?

Again, it's always straight White men.  And maybe that's something against the rest of us?  Maybe the rest of us should hawk our wares in the same manner and e-mail strangers demanding that they note us.


They do get, these men, that their voices are not missing -- and have never been missing -- from the national dialogue. 

So they've got a platform and all they focus on is themselves.  They're not bringing on voices that actually do need to be uplifted. 


"It is going to be this sanewashing, this idea that this man... has created an entire broligarch and it's taking over our country but you're not going to hear about it... because the media has signaled that they're on his side." @daniellemoodie.bsky.social on the media's coverage of Trump.

[image or embed]

— AYMAN on MSNBC (@aymanmsnbc.bsky.social) December 14, 2024 at 7:43 PM

Danielle Moodie is a voice that needs to be uplifted.  She's one of many.  Olay, TABITHA SPEAKS, Coach D, Keith Boykin, etc.


BLUESKY.


An angry e-mail tells me I'm promoting a porn star on BLUESKY.


Really, which one?

It's actually not a porn star.  It's a woman who takes racy pictures of herself.  But I do know Conner Habib, who used to be a porn star, and I have no problem -- hold on.  Yep, he's on BLUESKY.  I just clicked "Follow" on him.  He's a nice person and he's very political.


So now I've made your e-mail true, I'm promoting a porn star -- or a former one.  He's a sweet guy.  


Here's the thing with BLUESKY -- I am pimping that online and offline.  I've never done link trades here at TCI.  If you follow me on BLUESKY, I will gladly follow you to give you one more follower.  But I'm really not on BLUESKY.  I went on this week because Valerie Simpson was on with Sherri and did a great interview and I thought, "That's something BLUESKY would be good for."  I'd already reposted the interview here but I did a comment or something on BLUESKY as well.


When I got on, I saw that a few people had followed or replied and I went and followed everyone back.


I am not trying to build a BLUESKY following -- I have no details in my profile, not even THE COMMON ILLS website listed.  

I am trying to build up BLUESKY.  


So, yeah, as long as you're not a racist, sexist or homophobe, I'm fine with following you.  And hold on a moment.  Just went and followed Alyssa Milano and I really don't like her -- that's not a new development nor the first time I've noted it here. 


But I did call her out for not being on BLUESKY -- called her out publicly -- and now she is on it and I was happy to hit "FOLLOW" on her account just now. 


And I'm not a star f**ker.  Diana Ross is a good friend of many years and I love her to death.  I just did a BLUESKY search on her and the people doing the three latest Tweets on her got followed by me just now.


We're responsible for the world.  We can take a hand in creating it or not.  We can make a difference or not.  Alice Walker has long spoken of how she writes to create the world she wants it to be.  Imagine if, as a collective, we had worked on that nationally for the last twenty years. 


Instead, we've spent far too much time with men doing podcasts, articles and videos about this or that man in the Senate (yeah, that's a slap at old Bernie and his worshipers) while shutting the rest of us out. 


I can tell you one thing, if left or 'left' White, straight men had made an honest and sincere effort to bring the voices of Black women into the discussion, Kamala Harris would not have been targeted with sexism and racism.


"The right would still have targeted her!"


I'm not talking about the right.  Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) and Katrina vanden Heuvel (THE NATION) are not the right.  They're supposedly the left even though they can't picture a Black woman as anything but a Maid or a Mammy.  And they ensured that the coverage at their outlets made that clear.  That message was also sent by THE PROGRESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES and COMMON DREAMS.


It's 2024.  


Why are your guests all White males?  


The point with media should always be not to just consume it, but to challenge it, to critique it and to demand more from it.  Jon Stewart's THE WEEKLY SHOW shouldn't require me having to use my time to call it out for the lack of color.  But I've had to.  And we should all be doing that.  


They want us to be their audience, then they need to represent.


Stan calls out Lisa Kudrow all the time (most recently "The FRIEND I won't be there for") and I'm more than fine with that even though I know Lisa.  She needs to stop being so damn stupid.  

She tried to Lena Dunham it on FRIENDS' lack of characters of color.  She offered, as Lena had, that there were no Black writers on the show.


She offered that not as a critique of the show -- which it absolutely is.  Why in the world do you not have Black writers on a TV show that last ten seasons and was set in NYC?  

But, as I pointed out when she made that ridiculous defense, she produced a TV film in 2019 with Black characters.  She, a White woman.  But her defense on FRIENDS was that no Black writers on the show made it hard for them to have Black characters.  We're supposed to be the same species.  I don't understand why a White writer -- especially on a sitcom -- can't write a Black character.  But then, I also don't understand why a sitcom would last seasons and never hire a Black writer.  


Everybody's got an excuse for continuing White supremacy. 


Imagine where we'd be as a country if people stopped making excuses and started pushing inclusion?


Instead, we get more and more hate.  Back on December 6th, I noted:


The Supreme Court is probably going to deliver a severe attack on trans rights.  They heard the case this week.  We've noted many videos here about it -- and no one laid it out better than Danielle Moodie -- that's why we included her video in yesterday's snapshot.


I haven't written about this case here (but did two pieces for community newsletters) and the reason is, I just can't.  I don't know if it's a scene from a film I'm recalling or something from news footage that's blurred in my mind long ago.  But it's black and white when I dream and it's a child and they identify as female so some hateful thugs -- adults, not peers -- shaves her hair and beats her up.  And it was popping up in dreams and I've not been able to sleep and now carry it over to waking moments.  This isn't a topic I can address right now myself.


Today, John Russell (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

The ACLU of Florida is suing the state’s Department of Corrections over a new anti-transgender policy that will restrict trans prisoners’ access to gender-affirming medical care as well as their ability to express their gender identity.

According to a report from The Marshall Project and the Tampa Bay Times, a federal judge in Tallahassee held a preliminary hearing in the case on December 9. The ACLU of Florida has asked the judge to block enforcement of the policy, calling it an unconstitutional ban on gender-affirming care. A ruling is expected in the weeks ahead.

[. . .]

In court filings and interviews, incarcerated trans women in Florida prisons also reported being subjected to breast examinations to determine whether or not they would still be allowed access to bras.

“It felt like I was being treated less than human,” Josie Takach, a trans inmate at a Florida men’s facility, said of the examination. Takach said her undergarments, now considered contraband, were confiscated. “I feel like I’m 12 years old again, sneaking around wearing a bra.”

Sara Maatsch, who is also incarcerated in a Florida men’s prison, said that her gender dysphoria diagnosis was now considered a serious psychiatric illness. She was told she would have to be moved to a more restrictive facility with fewer work and programming opportunities to continue receiving treatment.

Mariko Sundwall told The Marshall Project that after spending 10 days in solitary confinement for refusing to cut her hair, a prison barber buzzed her hair short while she was handcuffed.

“I’m very sad and depressed. I feel like they’re taking away my identity,” Jada Edwards, another trans inmate, said of the buzz cut she was forced to receive.


Ron DeSantis should rot in hell and there are a lot of other faux 'Christians' he should be taking along with him.



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