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10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman
You use that word deserve. Why? Nobody is saying that. Shit happens to everybody, deserving or not. Our point is that this isn't a big fucking deal. It's just part of the shit people put up with living in a society. While qualifying it as "not as bad" you still compare it to rape. That's dumb.
The fact is she probably has it easier than every cat caller in the video. Thin, cis, rich, white woman problems don't rate. Sorry.
My concern about this video comes from a broader context. I'm a shade left of Mao, so I'm poorly represented in politics. Still, I would rather see the dems take the next two cycles. This video is embedded in a context of watching the left overplay their perceived (and previously realized) advantage with women voters. It's a transparent attempt to build momentum for Clinton 2016. People are sick of it. Polls suggest the strategy will cost them dearly in November.
I give up.
You're all correct.
All these comments were completely innocent and she deserved it by daring to walk down the street without wearing earbuds or screaming fuck off at everyone. This video is just a cynical example of subjecting yourself to 10 hours of abuse just so you can portray poor, black or latino men in a racist light.
Did I miss anything?
Oh yeah, and it's somehow the governments fault!
10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman
I did watch the video. I didn't hear any threats. Hyperbole gets you nowhere.
There were the two persistent guys. Although I think that had more to do with her acting. They were doing the equivalent of fucking with buckingham palace guards. It was obvious she was doing the silent shtick far beyond what's reasonable. In a real situation that would be diffused with two words, "fuck off."
We describe good etiquette as "classy." Why do you suppose that is?
IMO we should all be forced to acknowledge the riffraff here and there.
Just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean the target of whatever unpleasant activity isn't a "victim". You can be the "victim" of a prank.
And this is more than an inconvenience. Did you actually watch the video? While you could make an argument that some of the comments are relatively innocuous, there are plenty that are downright creepy, and a few even vaguely threatening.
And drop the "poor people" schtick. Being poor is not an excuse to be an asshole. Neither is being rich.
Again, it's about context. I say crass things to my female friends all the time, because I know them. That's fine. Hell, I don't even have a problem with someone getting abused (verbally) at a comedy gig. It's appropriate.
10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman
Okay, so a suitable answer to your question, "why should she have to?" Is "because assholes exist, and she'd rather not listen to them."
Victim blaming? Really? No crime was committed. These men are well within their rights. You aren't a victim whenever someone does something you'd rather they didn't do. Laws exist to delineate when you are being victimized, and when you are being inconvenienced. Everything in this video falls decidedly into the latter category. Assholes inconvenience me all the time. I don't make a video imploring that we stop assholery. That would be dumb. Assholes won't listen. If they listened, they wouldn't be assholes. I just take reasonable measures to avoid dealing with it. In this case, if she really hates talking to poor people, she could just wear earbuds.
Personally I'd prefer a society without fences or earbuds. The fact is, most of those guys could be pretty cool, if crass as all get out. Personally I don't have a problem with crass. Crass can be funny. It might be offensive, but being offended is merely an inconvenience. Crassness by itself isn't dangerous.
There's a difference between "I want to legally enforce the banning of catcalls" and "Guys who do that are assholes".
Again, she should be able to walk down the street and she shouldn't have to wear earbuds. Asking why she doesn't is victim blaming. It's exactly the same as saying "well maybe if you didn't want to get raped, you shouldn't have worn that short skirt" (obviously catcalls are nowhere near as bad as rape).
And I don't think women selectively complain about catcalls, they selectively complain about unwanted attention. A guy offering to buy you a drink in a bar or talking to you a party is a different scenario to someone yelling "nice ass" on the street.
10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman
Trance said he doesn't understand why she doesn't. You said why should she have to? Nobody is saying she has to. She might want to if she'd like to avoid hearing other people speak their mind. It's her choice. Similarly, catcalling is their choice. They don't need to be classy if they don't want to.
The Jessica Williams video is better in that it isn't about privileged white cisgendered problems exclusively. However, it also doesn't make the case very well. There isn't any evidence of "Wall Street douches" making catcalls unless you want to talk about a picture of a blurred out face in a suit verbalizing nothing.
The assertion that many men are making is that girls selectively complain about catcalls. Specifically, they only want attention from the men they want attention from, and expect us to read their minds... I'm sorry... Body language... and figure out the difference.
For example, a (female) friend of mine was a teaching assistant at UT. She tells this story about going over a study on gender differences regarding random propositions for sex. As you might expect the results were that men were more likely to say yes, and women no. Big surprise there. Well, once the professor finished, Vince Young raised his hand and said "that's not how it works." Every girl in the room (according to my friend) blushed, giggled, twirled their hair, and "made eyes at him." It seems every girl in the room was ready for proposition from an nfl quarterback... Just not homeless people drinking on the stoop.
Did you miss the part where I quoted trance saying she should wear earbuds?
Also please quote the part where I said "there should be stricter limits on their speech". For what seems like the 7 millionth time, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. These guys are free to make comments on her ass or whatever, and I am free to call them misogynist assholes for doing so.
And this whole thing about class and race is a bullshit smokescreen, by men desperate to paint this as anything other than what it clearly is.
Here's Jessica Williams talking about being harassed by "wall street douches". So that's a black woman being harrassed by rich white guys.
Still think it's about how "dark skinned men might rape your white woman"?
Meanwhile, tranceidiot is desperately trying to somehow make this about his retarded libertarian agenda.
10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman
@ChaosEngine
Nobody is saying she needs to wear earbuds. She's welcome to tolerate assholes. You seem to be saying there should be stricter limits on their speech.
To me this video suggests a reverse power dynamic. It's about telling lower class folk to be comfortable being ignored by the privileged class. It's about telling them to only speak when spoken to. They should know their place.
It feels like Willie Horton ads all over again. It seeks to instill fear that dark skinned men might rape your white woman at a moments notice. That southern strategy, it gets you eyeballs.
10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman
This. The classist element here is palpable. The video even says, "people from all backgrounds." Coulda fooled me. I didn't see any well-to-do folk in there. I'd like to see the counter video where the tall chiseled guy in the suit says hi to random women on the street and we see their reactions. I bet you get quite a few blushing, smiling, tilting their head and tossing/twirling their hair. The reality is that this video is about undesirables with the gall to come up from the sewers.
Where there is a legitimate point comes from inherent physicality differences. Just the other day I turned around in line to find myself about 6 inches from a guy who's got to be 6'8" 325 pounds. I clock in about 6' 230. I'm not used to that feeling. I suddenly realized what it must be like for women all the damn time. Now if some little dude were to comment on my ass, sure, I will engage and laugh it off... But that dude? Even a "hey there" would make me sweat. That said, it's still a reaction rooted in stereotypes.
This brings me to a final point, which is what I'd call a form of sizism. Not the usual fattism, but rather the assumptions that go along with bigger people more generally. Brawny guys, particularly dark skinned brawny guys, are automatically assumed to be dangerous. BNBG, so to speak. While there is some obvious rational basis to this assumption, I think it has gone way to far and negatively impacts the social inclusion of bigger folk. We big folk have to go way overboard with passivity to not be seen as a rapist in waiting. Else, embrace your inner meat head and go cruise the gym scene.
She seems like an actress engaged in some sort of self-promotion who would be well-served to check her white/cis/thin/heterosexual privilege and realize that People of Color can't harass her because harassment = talking + privilege, and they don't have privilege. Where are all the white guys in $1,000 suits?
And to call most of these pleasantries "harassment" seems to diminish real harassment.
And furthermore, I don't get it: How does someone donate money to end "street harassment?" What exactly does this charity do? Run around and put muzzles on street gawkers? Write citations to anyone who whistles? How do they plan to legislate against people saying "good morning" or "you're hot" to someone on the street?
The Daily Show - Bill O'Reilly Interview on White Privilege
I think he said it in the interview. He's paid to be obnoxious.
I still don't even buy it that Bill is really a conservative. I think he's just a guy who is paid enough by his masters to spew what he's told to spew.
If the price tag was right, a lot of us would go on the air to say things we don't really believe.
I knew ocean Sunfish were big, but this...
You ever try sunfish?
I think it's crazy how huge fish basically serve as ocean habitat. It's like a floating reef.
That's insane. How are those not extinct? They're massive, slow, and I can't see how they can defend themselves. Unless they just live far outside predatory areas I'd expect them to just be floating buffets for sharks and such.
Three Lions Fight a Crocodile over Elephant Carcass in Kenya
Who would win in one foot of water?
#ALSicebucket Haters... watch this...
My frustration is that they don't turn this into a push to write your representative. The few million raised by this campaign are absolutely trounced by seemingly insignificant percentage cuts to the NIH budget. We're talking billions of dollars. Relying on the goodness of people's hearts and distributed contributions will not get it done. Awareness is amazing, but people should be aware of the actual numbers, and how much further just a little action from congress could go. While not all the money will go to ALS necessarily, I promise you it will all go to worthy research. Make your ice bucket challenges a challenge to write congress pleading more funding to be directed towards medical research.
Incredibly Fantastic Motorcycle Accident
My understanding is that motorcyclists are taught to drive aggressively because it is thought to be safer. That is, on your bike you are safer passing than being passed. I'm not sure I buy the logic though, and these idiots have got to go.
I'm thinking maybe that tickets for moving violations on motorcycles should be stricter. If you're determined to consistently drive well above the speed of traffic, weaving around cars, you probably shouldn't have a motorcycle license.
Though they're certainly a minority amongst motorcycle riders generally, I still regularly see quite a few people (typically younger dudebros) driving in a way that makes a gruesome accident a statistical inevitability regardless of their skill level (that they likely overestimate, to make things worse).
Key & Peele: Office Homophobe
You dismissed as offensive humor targeting the vast majority of relatively inconspicuous gay men. You also suggested that we were "supposed to" interpret the character as straight... As though a normal gay man ought be surprising.
For the record being transgendered in the workplace is a completely different thing. Expressing your gender identity is normal. Expressing your sexuality is inappropriate for the most part.
And how exactly does it dismiss it? I no where said that gay men must be flamboyant. I said that suggesting that gay men must look and act straight or face the consequences is deeply problematic. I have no problem with gay men who feel they only differ from straight men with respect to who they like to date. I do have a problem with someone suggesting that ALL gay men need to look and act that way. To me that seems like trying to manage difference so it's palatable to mainstream norms.
Full disclosure: I'm a transsexual, and unless you were extremely lucky or started transitioning before the onset of puberty, that means spending part of your transition, or in the worst case the rest of your life, looking visibly "not normal" to everyone else. I was not flamboyant, I was polite, unassuming, and did my best to fit in, but for a few years my mere existence was, to many people, as obnoxious and offensive as the flamboyant man in this video. Does that mean I deserved the hate and discrimination I got? I sure hope not. The fact that this video seems to say don't look different or you'll get what's coming to you, hits a nerve for me because for several years I COULDN'T look "normal" however much I wanted to. I'm just thankful I'm past that phase and people now see me as I see myself, treat me how I want to be treated, and I can live a "normal" life, because if this video is anything to go by then that's the hurdle you have to clear before you've earned the right not to be hated or discriminated against.
Key & Peele: Office Homophobe
@scottishmartialarts The trouble I have with your interpretation is that it dismisses the perspective of the gay guy that does just want to be seen as normal. Many gay people feel pressure to conform to an overtly sexual culture born out of a necessity for expression in the face of persecution. The fact is that they'd rather call out overt sexuality as tacky just like any other classy individual. It's your right. You just look dumb... like the tart in the tube top, or the bro waving his dick around. Get it together.
Vermont Becomes The First State To Pass Wolf PAC Resolution
This doesn't really make any sense. You are proposing a ban on coverage of elections?
The only way to have a level playing field is to eliminate all private money from elections.
disband all parties, People have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and throw their weight behind a candidate, but that doesn't mean government has to acknowledge it or give them legitimacy.
A candidate should stand or fall on their ideas, not whether or not they have an R or D behind their name and not how many billionaires they've cozied up to.
Give every candidate a publicly funded wikipedia-like website that only the candidate's staff can edit where they can put their stances on ideas and their platform Hell, give them a basic camera so they can upload videos to the website if they want, but no professional production studios
Vermont Becomes The First State To Pass Wolf PAC Resolution
One question in Citizens United v. FEC was "what constitutes a campaign contribution?" Michael Moore had just made an anti Bush film, and decided to personally pay to run ads for his film just before an election. The ruling was basically that Michael Moore had just made a campaign contribution. That is, if David Koch's PAC had made a documentary about Obama's birth certificate and ran a bunch of ads for just before the election, that's effectively giving a campaign contribution as well.
Whether the campaign spent the money, or someone spent the money on behalf of the campaign, it didn't matter. An ad is an ad, and ads cost money. However, if you extend this logic, nobody can produce any positive or negative media about a candidate during the election run-up. That is, the NYT couldn't run a photo of Barry O smiling on the front page. That sort of exposure has value, and would thus constitute a contribution. Otherwise, what would stop me from producing a huge pile of fliers with smiling candidates on them and dropping them from my helicopters?
This is how we end up running up against free speech. Personally, I don't think we should put those kinds of restrictions on media. People will always play games, and find ways of couching themselves as other forms of protected media in order to keep funneling huge sums of money into biased political messages. That's just how it works. But I'm not comfortable limiting political speech, least of all around an election run up. The risk for unintended consequences is too high.
I very much understand what your saying, but the difference is when the NY Times endorses a candidate they do just that, PUBLICLY endorse a candidate.
That is the key difference. They'll have to stand on their record.
With citizens united the money is direct, massive, and almost completely untraceable.