People don't get to decide whether they are racist

The news has been full of the shootings at massage parlors around Atlanta, resulting in eight dead. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos gives a good overview of what was known as of yesterday morning. Since so many of the dead are Asian women there is discussion of whether this is a hate crime. As is usual, the big news sources, including NPR, tend to leave out or misinterpret important details. That’s one thing Twitter is good at – if one is careful of whether the writer is trying to support supremacy. An example is this tweet from Leah McElrath. After the alleged shooter was arrested (and not shot by police), McEelrath was appalled when one officer lamented the murderer had a really bad day. And the victims? The captain in the sheriff’s office also had a bad day. Michelle Kim tweeted (I think she is quoting police):

“may not have been a hate crime, but instead may have something to do with the suspect's claim of a potential sex addiction” "a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate” HE WANTED TO ELIMINATE *ASIAN WOMEN SEX WORKERS* WHOM HIS SICK WHITE MALE SUPREMACIST BRAIN FETISHIZED

Christine Liwag Dixon tweeted:

The hypersexualization of Asian women plays a HUGE part in the violence we face. I've been cornered on the street as men say "me love you long time." I've been offered money for a "happy ending massage." I've been hit on because I'm Asian and told it's a "compliment." Asian women are so often seen and treated as objects, as trophies and this very real problem is often seen as a punchline i.e. jokes about mail order brides, the portrayal of Asian women in Hollywood. And Asian women are murdered because of it. ... And what's even scarier is how many of us just accept this as a fact of life. We aren't even surprised by it. We just know that being an Asian woman means that we are going to be targeted.

Emily Joy tweeted:

Caitlin just reminded me of that scene in the evangelical Christian movie Fireproof where Kirk Cameron takes a baseball bat and smashes his computer so that he stops look at porn and y’all…this s--- is baked so far in. Also, media outlets without religious literacy don’t understand that evangelical and rightwing Christians use the term “sex addiction” to mean something different than most other people who use that term and I’m worried the lack of understanding is going to cloud this convo. To illustrate this, in my book #ChurchToo I quote a book called Pure Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Integrity, which teaches that having sex outside of marriage is a sex addiction. This way of thinking of “sex addiction” among evangelicals is incredibly common.

Mia Tsai tweeted a thread about how misogyny and white supremacy put Asian women in danger. It’s a bit too long for me to quote. In it she refers to “incels” and “PUA groups.” I’ve learned that “incel” means “involuntary celibate” – a man so dislikable women won’t date him (certainly not have sex with him) yet because of misogyny he believes women are supposed to be falling at his feet. He gets annoyed – sometimes to the point of violence – when he doesn’t get his way. I’m sure his misogyny is what repels women. I had to look up “PUA groups.” It took a bit to get past the websites for pandemic unemployment assistance to find it stands for “Pick Up Artist groups.” This is about studying group dynamics to see if the guy can get a girl off alone. I’m not sure if I got that right and don’t want to delve into it anymore and don’t want to link to it either. Yesterday afternoon Clawson posted again, this time taking on the police who describe the shooter as having a bad day.

Okay, then. We have a white guy who apparently murdered eight people at three locations, injured one other person, and was arrested unharmed despite police having to force his car off the road to apprehend him. And the first thing police have to tell us is what a bad day he had and about his sexual addiction problems that led him to want to eliminate temptation … by murdering people. First off, let’s be clear that “murdered women because he saw them as a source of sexual temptation” is also very, very bad. Second, a spike in anti-Asian racist incidents over the past pandemic year have disproportionately targeted women, with the founder of Stop AAPI Hate noting, before the Atlanta shootings, “There is an intersectional dynamic going on that others may perceive both Asians and women and Asian women as easier targets.” Third, and this is closely related, gross racist fetishization of Asian women has a long history. Fourth, sex addiction is not a real condition. It’s mostly an excuse for men who do lousy things: “high libido coupled with low impulse control.” Attributing mass murder to sex addiction suggests an illness is responsible where there is no illness. The message from the police seems to be this: Gosh, it’s not good what he did, but … he had his reasons—a really bad day, people!—and despite the racial makeup of his victims, we're going to put a whole laundry list of reasons above racism.

Celest Ng (she says “pronounced ing”) has a good tweet to finish this off:

General rule: people don't get to decide whether they are racist; other people decide this based on their actions.

I would add that a white sheriff doesn’t get to decide either. Senator Rafael Warnock, elected to the Senate in January, gave his first speech on the floor. He talked about his background, introducing himself to his colleagues. He then talked about the importance of voting rights. Towards the end he talked about the filibuster. Walter Einenkel of Kos provided the transcript.

I stand before you saying that this issue—access to voting and preempting politicians’ efforts to restrict voting—is so fundamental to our democracy that it is too important to be held hostage by a Senate rule, especially one historically used to restrict the expansion of voting rights. It is a contradiction to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society. Colleagues, no Senate rule should overrule the integrity of the democracy and we must find a way to pass voting rights whether we get rid of the filibuster or not.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported that in an interview on ABC Biden is now talking about filibuster reform. That’s new. At least it should go back to what it was when he joined the Senate. A senator had to take the floor, to work for the filibuster. Alas, two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, still believe that to end a filibuster there must be 60 votes. Sinema even believes that the filibuster should be restored for judicial appointments, which Moscow Mitch eliminated to be able to ram through the nasty guy’s choices. That 60 vote threshold to pass everything seems to be the norm and the way it has always been. In the 53 years from 1917-1970 the filibuster was used 49 times (a guess that most of them were to prevent dismantling of Jim Crow). After Mitch took control of the Senate GOP it has been used and average of 80 times a year. The battle over the filibuster will play out soon. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has said he’ll bring the first of two voting rights bills to the floor, perhaps next week. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed that there is no political price for removing the filibuster. Voters don’t care. They are looking for results. That first voting rights bill is HR1. Ari Berman tweeted:

HR1 would thwart virtually every single GOP voter suppression tactic. This is why Mitch McConnell so terrified of it.

Berman included a chart of the various types of voter suppression bills that are being introduced, which states have introduced each one, and whether HR1 would outlaw it. There is only one no. Some of the types of bills are: Limit who can vote by mail, restrict where and how voters can return absentee ballots, eliminate or limit early voting, expand voter purges, and require proof of citizenship to register. Back in 2018 Michigan voters passed a big voters rights amendment to the state constitution. And still the GOP controlled legislature found something to help them with voter suppression, the proof of citizenship to register. The Guardian asked the question “Have you adopted a healthier lifestyle during the pandemic?” That prompted McElrath to respond:

We are NOT moving the pandemic success bar to “adopted a healthier lifestyle.” Nope. We aren’t going to do that. I survived and did my best to ensure that my actions did not cause the suffering or death of anyone else.

Some of the replies to McElrath:

I'm in the "eat an ice cream bar everyday" stage. On Saturday, it becomes breakfast. I have recently come to accept that sometimes dinner = corn chips is going to have to be ok for now. So, no. I'm alive. My kids are alive. My parents are alive. I don't give a f*ck if my pants don't fit. I've gained 10lbs in the last 8 months, and even my Dr is like 'meh, you're mental health is doing ok? I'm not too worried about it'. Granted that's after 2+ years of steady consistent loss.