Brooks and Wax, bff

UPenn law professor Amy Wax is coming to UNC on Monday to talk about her latest book, Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century.

At first glance, it sounds like something progressive and cool. But.   

Wax argues that discrimination against blacks in the U.S. has dramatically abated and that the most important factors impeding black progress are behavioral: low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, drug use, criminality, paternal abandonment, and non-marital childbearing. [Event page]

It doesn't sound like she has changed her tune much from the 2007 paper she wrote, Engines of Inequality: Class, Race, and Family Structure (which, once again, that title is totally progressive/pc/feminist bait, and you think it is going to be all awesome and about intersectionality and systemic oppression and lingering institutional racism, but NO):

The article concludes that society-wide changes in economic conditions or social expectations cannot account for these patterns. Rather, for reasons that are poorly understood, cultural disparities have emerged by class and race in attitudes and behaviors surrounding family, sexuality, and reproduction. These disparities will likely fuel social and economic inequality and contribute to disparities in children's life prospects for decades to come.  [Abstract]

Maybe Wax influenced that David Brooks column on Haiti that got Matt Taibbi (and everyone else) outraged. According to Taibbi's translation, Brooks was basically saying:

Haitians are a bunch of lazy niggers who can’t keep their dongs in their pants and probably wouldn’t be pancaked under fifty tons of rubble if they had spent a little more time over the years listening to the clarion call of white progress, and learning to use a freaking T-square, instead of singing and dancing and dabbling in not-entirely-Christian religions and making babies all the fucking time. I know I’m supposed to respect other cultures and keep my mouth shut about this stuff, but my penis is only four and a third inches long when fully engorged and so I’m kind of at the end of my patience just generally, especially when it comes to “progress-resistant” cultures.

See? This is what Wax will probably be getting at. I wonder why students aren't all outraged about this like they were when Tancredo came to campus. Maybe because Wax's bigotry is better veiled/buried in boring ass law review articles?

Anyway. What is the Federalist Society thinking? I don't see how she is relevant to their so-called organizational aims. Not really sure how this has anything to do with a more fundamentalist/originalist (is that a word?) interpretation of the Constitution. And did they think other faculty members/students here wouldn't get wind of this and judge them? Or am I naive, is this acceptable and cool with most law students?

So I will be there on Monday to hear this. I  am looking forward to an uncomfortable q+a session wherein some of our faculty, or any of our other students, ask this lady where the hell she gets off spewing this stuff.

Capitulating

NOW's president has decided that we should just give up and give in. Re: a proposed excise tax on cosmetic surgery:

Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, said middle-age women, who make up a bulk of her group’s financers, would be particularly susceptible to the tax, especially now. Many who have lost jobs might be considering surgery, she said, because they are looking to impress potential employers.
“They have to find work,” Ms. O’Neill said. “And they are going for Botox or going for eye work, because the fact is we live in a society that punishes women for getting older.”
[NY Times]

What, did Naomi Wolf write The Beauty Myth for nothing?

This is a weak argument, especially coming from NOW.  The societal demand that all women look perpetually taut and youthful is an unreasonable, oppressive one. Every 45 year old woman who Botoxes herself back into her 30s reinforces the rule, making it that much more accepted that we must all be smooth and perfect if we are to be judged competent and worthy.

Cosmetic surgery, when it's elective and "just to get ahead," puts women in a double bind. Go for the surgery, look younger, get ahead. But play by rules that are unfair. Participate in a system that undermines all women, everywhere, and that is exactly the problem with NOW's president trying to defend it like it is a liberating, feminist act.

She could argue, though, that it is unfair to levy a tax that will predominantly affect a single group that is already economically disadvantaged and already gets charged more by insurance companies (though I guess people getting elective cosmetic surgery can't be TOO disadvantaged).

And finally--she could simply focus her energy on the jillions of other more important issues right now, like language about reproductive rights in the healthcare bill, or making sure that insurance will have to cover costs for women's health procedures and preventive visits.

Mountain Goats

There are a lot of people--authors, musicians, actors, directors--you might suspect are awesome. You hold a fondness for them. You have a feeling they may share some of your ideological leanings.

And then they go and make a public statement that settles it one way (like supporting Roman Polanski. ugh) or the other. Like John Darnielle being an out feminist.

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Playboy Photographs Attractive Blond Woman.

 

-Today's Daily Tarheel gives a front page headline to the UNC School of Law 3L Stephanie Christine (aka Stephanie Haney)who will appear, partially nude, in some "girls of the acc" issue of Playboy. The whole thing has a salacious/slut shaming undertone. Is it really worthy of front page coverage? Imagine this headline, instead. "Student Pursues Extracurricular Interests." O RLY!!!?

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Strawberries

 i have become a real asshole. i find myself going for a jog most evenings and thinking asshole things like, "oh! what a splendid evening it is for a run!" and "MY! isn't this so CLEANSING! and MEDITATIVE!?" but it really is cleansing and meditative, to be out in the world, in the twilight, under the trees, enjoying the capacities of my young, able body, rather than passively inhabiting it (you know, just slugging around, like a slug. sluggishly. like i do at work.), so i guess i'll keep it up.

i'm still just starting out, i am doing a couch to 5k running plan (not that i plan to run a 5k, ever) and it is so manageable. i made playlists to go along with it.

 the strawberries i brought home a few weeks ago weren't quite ready. still too tart. i bought some again this week. they are ready now, to be devoured while you're still hot from your evening run, to be plucked from the fridge late at night and sucked down greedily in the frigidaire's wan yellow glow while the cold air leaks out around you. YUMMMMMMM.

The 14th amendment covers citizenship rights and due process.

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

BORN in the united states. if you're unborn, gtfo.

ok, j/k, kind of. but really- why do people like john mccain keep insisting that not-yet-people are more important and deserve more support and protection than real-ass flesh-and-blood right-now people?

why does sarah palin value "life" and "rights" for fetuses but not for american women? why does she support policies that would curtail the life, liberty, and happiness of women?

i thought obama was absolutely right to mention the common ground that pro-choice and 'those who oppose abortion' can find in COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION and social services to support mothers.

i was perusing glamour magazine the other night. i had just finished some wine (a little more than i'd intended to have) so eventually i gave up on reading. but before i gave up, i learned about
purity balls.


dads take their daughters to the dress-up affair. after a fancy dinner, the little girls pledge to their daddies that they will remain sexually pure.
I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.

and then dad says, I, (daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.


creepiest idea ever. my dad should stay far, far away from my sex life--even when i'm seven and even before i know what sex is. even at seven, i am my own little entity and do not need to be shackled by such insulting paternalism from dad and pastor and god.
and i hate the idea that this will happen to little girls. they will belong to their fathers (belong in the sense of property) until they are "handed over" to their husbands AS A WEDDING GIFT--like some plasma screen from best buy or something....
what this says is that it is not really the girls' choice when or with whom to DO ITTTT.
and the worst thing is that the purity ball is probably one of the few (or only) times when girls in such families will ever talk about anything remotely related to sex. they'll never get to have a positive conversation about it.

i don't even need to ask why we don't see mother-son purity soirees--a boy's mother is not his "authority in the area of purity." oh right. men don't have those. lol.

this is wrong in all the same ways that abstinence-only sex ed is wrong, and this even goes a step or two (or three or four) further. anyone else getting creepy weirdo-ritualistic virginal sacrificey vibes? priests? prayers? virgins? white dresses?

wehrjsa4ehsbd. in a word, GROSS.

thumbs up:
mom and dad for respecting my intelligence and autonomy (sexual or otherwise) and realizing that i am my own person. weeeeeeeee!