take these hands...: March 2013

"I don’t want to be a designer, a marketer, an illustrator, a brander, a social media consultant, a multi-platform guru, an interface wizard, a writer of copy, a technological assistant, an applicator, an aesthetic king, a notable user, a profit-maximizer, a bottom-line analyzer, a meme generator, a hit tracker, a re-poster, a sponsored blogger, a starred commentator, an online retailer, a viral relayer, a handle, a font or a page. I don’t want to be linked in, tuned in, ‘liked’, incorporated, listed or programmed. I don’t want to be a brand, a representative, an ambassador, a bestseller or a chart-topper. I don’t want to be a human resource or part of your human capital.

I don’t want to be an entrepreneur of myself.

Don’t listen to the founders, the employers, the newspapers, the pundits, the editors, the forecasters, the researchers, the branders, the career counselors, the prime minister, the job market, Michel Foucault or your haughty brother in finance – there’s something else!

I want to be a lover, a teacher, a wanderer, an assembler of words, a sculptor of immaterial, a maker of instruments, a Socratic philosopherπ and an erratic muse. I want to be a community center, a piece of art, a wonky cursive script and an old-growth tree! I want to be a disrupter, a creator, an apocalyptic visionary, a master of reconfiguration, a hypocritical parent, an illegal download and a choose-your-own-adventure! I want to be a renegade agitator! A licker of ice cream! An organizer of mischief! A released charge! A double jump on the trampoline! A wayward youth! A volunteer! A partner.

I want to be a curator of myself, an anti-preneur, a person.

Unlimited availabilities. No followers required. Only friends."

-- Danielle Leduc

Here is the quote from a Lindy West that I posted:

“To put it simply, I AM TIRED OF TRYING TO EXPLAIN THIS SHIT TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT. Especially “jokes” like MacFarlane’s, which, to the layperson’s ear, barely register above microaggressions (if the kind of people who see no problem whatsoever with “We Saw Your Boobs” were the kind of people who used the term “microaggressions”). I am tired of trying to have an intellectual discussion about dog-whistle sexism in a culture where prominent politicians are still trying to grasp what rape is, and in a world where little girls are shot in the head because they want to go to school. Asking people to think critically about some hacky jokes from a dancing cartoonist? You might as well wear a sandwich board that says, “Yell at Me With Bad Grammar.” I am tired of being called a shrieking harridan for pointing out inequalities so tangible and blatant that they are regularly codified into law. I am tired of being told to provide documentation of inequality in the comments sections of a website where a staff of smart women documents inequality as fast as our fingers can move. Like, you might as well write me a note on a banana peel demanding that I prove to you that bananas exist. I am tired of being asked to “cite sources” proving that sexism is real (that RAPE is real, even!), because there is no way to concisely cite decades and decades of rigorous academia. Allow me to point at the fucking library. We can’t cite “everything,” and our challengers know that. It’s an insulting diversionary tactic, it’s an attempt to drag us all backwards, and fuck it. Do your own research like the rest of the grown-ups.”
Lindy West, “Sexism Fatigue: When Seth MacFarlane Is a Complete Ass and You Don’t Even Notice” on Jezebel.

Responses: that, yes, I took the time to copy & paste, grammatical and typographic errors in place because I find them to be a pretty good example of what Ms. West is talking about:

JL: "Sth macfarlane is funny as fuck and nobody flipped out on Dave Chappell for his racial humor so in my intelligent and insightful opinion, having been raised by feminists and political activists, people need to chill out and have a laugh. This man's jokes have do not encourage rape and his career is in no way related to anybody being shot in the head. Way to steamroll over a perfectly valid, simple statement like "sexism is wrong, equality is right" with a bunch of ranting and over the top personal attacks. Anyway, that's my layperson's thoughts after intellectually listening to this woman ruining a good point. Yay for Ted and Family guy and anything that pisses people off who are too uptight to get a joke."

BPC: "my biggest problems with mcfarlane's humor is that it doesn't mean much of anything. it is blatantly offensive with very little insight. dave chappell's humor obviously focuses on race a lot, but he is black in a racist ass country. how could he not focus on race? also, his "racial humor" is very poignant, and contains a deeper social analysis of race and what it means in america. i would say a similar thing about louie ck. he talks about race and gender a lot, but it is mostly in the context of saying how fucking absurd all of his privilege is and how fucked up the world is for giving him (a straight white male, like mcfarlane) a ton of social benefits he in no way deserves. these benefits, he points out, come from specifically from the oppression of other groups of people (women, people of color, queer folks, the poor...). in other words, he frequently addresses that straight white men would not be the ones ruling the western world if those who were not straight white or male were not being marginalized and oppressed. mcfarlane's humor does not address these things. it just says racist, sexist, and homophobic things to shock the viewer, with no greater analysis of what they mean."

KC: "To uptight to get a joke" is one of the many battle cries of the oppressors. What's next " I know lots of women who think its funny" or one of my personal favorites " I know I a (woman/POC/other oppressed person) so I'm not apart of the problem". Seriously? You're dictating to a person of an oppressed group how they should deal with their oppression! You as a member of the privileged group will never fully understand what it is like to survive day to day life living with this kind of oppression. Don't you see the harm of further trying to invalidate and silence the women around you? That's all I'm gonna say, can't correct every mansplainer…"

JL: "Seth m makes a lot of fun of how privileged white men are, that's a huge role in all of his humor. Beavis and Butthead also liked making fun of the fact that the average viewer is too stupid or uptight to understand when a tv show is making fun of them. I think that angle of things also flew over some people's heads here. But whatever, my view on life is bitch about the dangerous stuff and laugh about the stupid stuff. There are multiple interpretations to all humor, as with everything. Ever meet a white power idiot who thinks e movie American History X is pro white power? Stupid/scared/sensitive people always can find ways to turn harmless things evil, and that is harmful. I'm gonna go laugh at family guy now but maybe I just enjoy the show because I already I like to spend my time laughing at the stupidity of human nature and society instead of reaming others for getting the irony. Anyway I hope I'm connecting more dots than just disagreeing but Seth macfarlane makes the same comments that Louis ck does about his white male privilege, however he does it in a way that is clever enough to piss off a bunch of people who can't even watch the material long enough to get where the root of the humor is because he has disguised it so cleverly. Like Matt stone and trey Parker with South Park. Ppl didn't get it. Tom green, same thing. The joke is them being paid to go on tv and say "you are all fucking stupid enough to pay me for telling you this in a way you can't even understand". So seriously this lady should be ashamed of herself for taking an entertainer who doesn't promote hate and drawing connections for stupid people to some girl getting shot in the head. If that isn't praying on white guilt-ridden knee-jerk political wannabes I don't know what is honestly."

JL: "Hahaha Kate hahahaha ok you poor starving Ethiopian I apologize omfg that was great I just read it haha yeah Seth macfarlane is responsible for children being shot that's a nice progressive fair stance to take, i give up you are all right and we have canines to chew on leaves also. Jesus people are too shortsighted to win their battles I am truly sorry for that"

JL's comments never showed up in the thread because he deleted his FB account for an afternoon. But, reactivated to check in a leave one last gem before "un-friending" me.

JL: "I didn't delete shit besides my Facebook profile to avoid reading sorry ass threads like this but if that deleted these comments I guess I'll leave my dumb comments up assholes. Grow a sense of humor, eat some meet, shed your white guilt, I'm from Oakland bitches, west side. Criminalizing entertainers and stripping first amendment rights is stupid and socially irresponsible and dangerous, chew on that you fake-ass wannabe political because its cool right now hipster douchebags. Guy who keeps it real and doesn't tiptoe around on eggshells, out. Transgender bathrooms are also dumb, HA! Also, I haven't tried to invalidate or silence anybody, you are doing that so you are a hypocrite and overly-sensitive. I've done enough work on these in person, you'd get a lot more done if u quit bitching and crying about non-hateful satire comedy. Delete that, ya fucks! Don't call me a fucking oppressor either u don't know shit about me ya fuckin shithead"

And finally, I leave you with this: How to Deal with being Called Out.