You are not judge, jury, or executioner.

The logic that an individual is innocent until proven guilty is a pivotal component of any fair criminal justice system, and is enshrined in American law.  This is, of course, a principal that must be maintained in the criminal justice system.  As wildly corrupt, racist, sexist, and unjust as the system may be, the ideal that one remains innocent until proven guilty remains of great significance.

And hey, you are not the criminal justice system.  And social media feeds are not the criminal justice system.

Here's the difference... in a system built upon law, the criminal justice system is granted the authority to remove an individual's rights to liberty, property, and, in extreme cases, sometimes life (fuck the death penalty though).  The implementation of such punishments should only be allowed in cases when we have reason to be confident that the person being tried has actually committed the crime in question.  You, as an individual citizen, have no such rights!  If you deny someone access to their property, you are stealing; if you deny someone access to their liberty, you are committing kidnapping or hostage taking; if you deny someone access to their life, you are committing murder.  Because you are not granted the authority to implement such punishments, you do not need to be held to the same standard as a system of justice.

All of this is most important in the context of believing the survivors of sexual and physical violence.  Too often, when someone comes forward claiming to have been physically or sexually assaulted, some people (almost always men) do not want to believe the survivor, or they want to protect a friend who is being accused, or they like the celebrity that is being accused (see the debacle around the vocalist for punk band The Casualties being a rapist; or the Bill Cosby nightmare).  These folks will say something to the effect of, "Well, I don't know what really happened, and so I can't take a side."  This will almost always results in an eventual reference to the idea that one is "innocent until proven guilty."  But we, as individuals who are not a criminal justice system, have no ability to prove someone guilty, nor can we implement punishments.  All we can do is take in whatever is presented to us, form opinions, and act on them.  The worst punishments we can implement is the refusal of a friendship or the denial of access to our own property, such as homes or concerts at private venues.  This means that we can easily choose to believe survivors because, first of all, there is no evidence that there is an epidemic of false accusations.  On the contrary, almost all accusations are real.  And, secondly, with the minimal punishments that we can implement, we do not need the same standards as a criminal justice system.

We can choose to believe survivors without committing a severe injustice.  This should be obvious, but so many conversations that I see taking place on social media, that I hear anecdotally from women in my life who attempt to converse with their assaulter's friends, and in other places tell me that it is not at all obvious.  So, please, BELIEVE SURVIVORS!  If you do not do so, you are contributing to rape culture and you are making it even more difficult for survivors to come forward.

PS - None of this should be read as espousing support for property or the criminal justice system.  I instead am simply pointing out that to the degree that these systems exist, as unjust as they are, we can assess certain aspects of them.

Visibility as a Revolutionary Act

In my last post I explained why the idiotic demand for a "Heterosexual Pride Day" is just that, idiotic.  This week, I want to expand upon that by arguing that because oppressed peoples are always told to be invisible (examples here: segregation, sodomy laws, the closet, etc.), the very act of insisting upon being seen, of being visible, is a radical act.

Seriously, this is how absurd
heterosexuality in advertising is

Growing up, it was common for me to hear older people, including parents, say things such as, "I don't have anything against gay people, I just don't want to see it.  Why do they have to rub it in my face?"  Of course, if any sexuality is omnipresent in American society and rubbed in the face of everyone it is heterosexuality, which is the basic background assumption of almost every TV show, movie, and song in American culture.  But also consider the claim itself: it effectively means, "It is maybe (MAYBE!) OK for you to not die, but at least be socially and publicly dead."  In a culture like ours, built on the premise of a separation between "The Public" and "The Private" spheres of society, this effectively denies an entire class of people access to society, limiting them to their homes; or dare I say, their closets.  (In fact, our society is so hetero when I Googled "Fuck The Closet" hoping to find queer images rejecting secrecy, all I found on Google Images was pictures of straight, white people fucking in closets.)  With that being the case, refusing to hide, refusing to be shamed into the closet, refusing to remove oneself from the public sphere--actively working to be visible when told to be invisible--is a radical move.  In fact, as the Orlando Massacre shows us, like other acts of revolution, one may even be killed in the act of creating a new and better world.  Especially in light of Orlando, refusing to be invisible, refusing to hide, becomes even more radical.  LGBTQ+ and other people who exist outside of the heteronormative matrix know damn well, and always have, that some bigoted asshole could choose to murder us any day, but Orlando, especially for those who do not pass for straight or cis, makes this especially clear.

I mean, I honestly do kind of hate cops, but the point still matters

So this is an extension of why nothing like "Heterosexual Pride Day" is ever necessary and why it is, in fact, offensive (and the same could be said for bullshit such as "All Lives Matter" or fucking "Blue Lives Matter").  Heterosexuals are already visible.  As I said above, heterosexuality is the omnipresent background noise of our culture.  It is everywhere, all the time.  Even something as simple as a Burger King ad often includes blatant ploys to heterosexuality and misogyny.  In other words, Heterosexuals are never shamed for being heterosexual.  Heterosexuals are never told to be anything but proud of their sexuality.  Thus, the very idea of needing to further remind straight people to be happy with themselves is ridiculous.  Heterosexuals are not committing suicide due to harassment based on their sexual identity, they are not being murdered, kicked out of their families, bullied, and so on for being straight.  These are simply things that are not happening.

So, I'll say it a second time, fuck your heterosexual pride.  But this time I'll add the following: people who are part of any marginalized, subjugated, or oppressed community should be as visible as they can safely or comfortably be.  I recognize that not everyone is capable of doing so.  Sadly, and this is part of the point, many risk violence, harassment, or other negative consequences for their identities and cannot be open about them. But for those who feel able to be more open about who they are, be as open as you feel able. It is a radical act and it gives strength and support for those who feel they must be forced into the darkest recesses of their closets for no other reason than the simple fact that we still live in a bigoted society that would prefer straight, white, middle-class men feel comfortable than that queers, people of color, the poor, or non-male identified peoples have a space in public. And fuck that.

Fuck Your Heterosexual Pride

Please, go troll this guy.

On Twitter, an ignorant asshat named "Sam" has started calling for a "Heterosexual Pride Day."  This is, of course, nothing new among the ignorant asshats of the world.  During Black History Month and Women's History Month one can often hear idiotic calls for a "White History Month" or a "Men's History Month" (also known as the other 11 months of the year).  When there are marches for Black Pride, Hispanic Pride, or Gay Pride we get similar reactions.  One can easily imagine that when, during The Civil Rights Movement African-Americans declared that "Black is Beautiful," had Twitter existed these idiots would have readily derailed the conversation, asking, "Well, isn't white beautiful too?!?!?! #WhiteIsBeautiful."  We see something very much like that in the absurd rise of the phrase "All Lives Matter" in response to the necessity of "Black Lives Matter."

The problem here is that just because two things sound the same does not mean that they are the same.  It is obvious that statements like, "Gay Pride" sound a lot like statements such as "Heterosexual Pride," and it is equally obvious that "Black Power" sounds a lot like "White Power."  This linguistic similarity is actually a confusion though; they sound the same, but they are not!

One of the many significant differences is their role in democracy.  The Feminist Movements, The Civil Rights Movements, The Gay Rights/Pride Movements, and so on were each efforts on behalf of oppressed peoples to increase their rights and expand the confines of democratic institutions to include more people.  "White Power" groups and others like them systematically work toward the opposite: the exclusion of more people from our institutions, the strengthening of boundaries between peoples, and further limits on who can be included in the public body.  Furthermore, this system was built by and for white, heterosexual men.  Though the poor among white men were once disenfranchised, and thus a Poor People's History is perfectly logical and reasonable, white people and men were never excluded as white people and men (though they may have been excluded based on their class, sexual identity, nationality, etc).  Therefore, a "White Power Movement," a "Men's History Month," or a "Heterosexual Pride Day" is not only completely and obviously unnecessary, but it is also regressive by its very nature, as it seeks to recenter the already dominant group at the exact moments when previously oppressed groups gain greater freedom, liberty, security, and equality.

And it is exactly that which makes these things that sound so much alike actually so different from one another.  Gay Pride, like Black is Beautiful before it and Black Lives Matter today, is a reaction from an oppressed group of people claiming that they do not have to be oppressed; that they do not have to be shamed, that they do not have to live a closeted, secret, or endangered existence for the comfort of the dominant majority.  These movements seek to expand democracy, increase freedoms and security, and make us more equal to one another.  Their opposite, no matter how it sounds, is just that: the opposite.  And as such, it must be fought, not supported.