The Friday Sex Blog [White Feminists, Shackling, and the Carceral State]

Hola mi gente,
I am sick of white feminists¹ whose sense of privilege extends to thinking they can browbeat me, a Latino, and lecture me on oppression.

Real life example: One day, after being screamed at by a young white woman for walking too closely to her (I live in NYC, it’s fuckin crowded!) while ignoring the white man who was walking in closer proximity to her, and then being followed by security at a rare books store that I have shopped at countless times, a co-worker -- a white woman raised in the south -- thought it was appropriate to attempt to correct my language in front of two (white) female interns I was charged with supervising. The word she found offensive? “Guys.”

What her privileged white ass didn’t know was that the interns and I had been in conversation about language. In fact, I have been at the forefront of advocating against stigmatizing language for almost two decades. So, my using “guys” to refer to all of us, was part of an inside joke. If you know me, you know I didn’t stay shut on that and I gave her a piece of my mind. The irony was that, for the two interns, her behavior was a lesson in how not be a feminist.

So, yeah, if your feminist analysis doesn’t include intersectionality², you can kiss my Puerto Rican ass.

Shackling and the Carceral State

When I was the director of a Brooklyn-based reentry project, I made a concerted effort to use its resources to reach out to women. How it happened was that one day I was thinking out loud with some my women participant-leaders about why more women didn’t utilize our services. One of the women laughed and said, as if it was as plain as the nose on my face, “Because you’re thinking like a man, Eddie!” and they all started laughing.

When I thought about it, however, I realized, painful as it seemed, that she had a point. Just for the record, I identify as a feminist. I’m also aware that I do as a man in a patriarchal society, so I have blind spots. I see my role as an ally, as in, how can I help. I’m also a man of Puerto Rican descent, so it’s not like I’m clueless about the impact of white patriarchy.

In any case, I met with the few women of the project and we came up with a few ideas. That’s when it was decided that I would bring my leadership development workshop to women about to be released from jails/ prisons. That’s how I ended up at the Rikers Island detention center for women, Rose M. Singer, or Rosie’s, as people who worked there called it.

I am an experienced group facilitator, having run men’s and mixed groups for years, but I have to tell you, running women’s groups was one of the most challenging experiences in my career. Well, I shouldn’t say challenging. It was challenging in the sense that I learned so much, especially in the area of leadership development. It was also one of the most rewarding, and the women had as much of an impact on me as I hope I had on them. After more than ten years, I still see some of “my” women, some of whom have become activists and advocates in their own right.

At one point, I thought the women would be better served if I hired a woman to help run the groups, but they revolted! LOL They didn’t want me to leave. Sure, there was some transference going on, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. As one of the participants put it, “Most of the men we’ve known weren’t good to us, Mr. Eddie. Maybe doing this work with you, will help as a model so that in our future relationships we won’t make the same kind of choices.”

They taught me so much… 

One day, when I got to the workshop, the group was huddled together, whispering. In the middle there was this lovely young black woman, she was maybe nineteen years-old, if I remember correctly. Unsure of herself, the women encouraged her, saying, “You can tell him, he’s one of us. You can trust him. Go ahead, tell him.”

Then this young woman, barely out of her teens, proceeded to tell me a story that was so horrific, it traumatized me, and I hadn’t experienced it. She told of her experience of being shackled while in labor. In her retelling, she began to experience again the brutality of giving birth as a slave. Before she was finished, her tears were flowing and, breaking protocol, I took her in my arms and hugged her. Here was a young girl who could’ve been my daughter… man, I’m upset just thinking about it. 

Can you imagine that? Here are in the 21^st century and black and Latina women, and poor women are being forced to give birth while shackled. Giving birth while in captivity. Going into labor while shackled like an animal. This is as a form of state-sanctioned rape (which also happens a lot in women’s prisons). 

For that group’s graduation, I invited a state senator, Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, who was an ally, and I told her about this practice. The senator did not believe me. I didn’t blame her, because it was hard for me to believe. We spoke to several medical personnel and, though at first they wouldn’t say it on the record, they confirmed that it was true.

My god… 

The Senator Montgomery went on to make that issue her signature policy and working with a coalition of women’s groups, they were able to pass legislation to make the practice illegal. I went on work for an organization that played a pivotal role in helping to pass this piece of legislation. In fact, during a day of lobbying, I ran into one of the women who was part of that workshop cycle. However, that’s the bare minimum. There are loopholes in at least nine of the states with laws -- either no specific language about shackling women during their first, second, and third trimesters; when they’re being transported to the hospital; or postpartum. That means pregnant women are still being shackled in states where there are laws against shackling pregnant women. Luckily in New York, an additional law was passed that closed off the loopholes.

But this still happens across this nation. I believe there are 28 states that still practice this particular form of barbarism. We are savages.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Notes:

1. Briefly put, intersectionality is a theory of how different types of discrimination interact.
2. White feminism is a brand of feminism centered around the ideals and struggles of primarily white women. While not outright exclusive, its failure to consider other women and its preoccupation with Western standards and the problems faced by the "average woman" is often alienating to women of color, non-straight women, trans women, and women and men belonging to religious or cultural minorities.

Why I Cannot Vote for Hillary Clinton

Hola mi gente,
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I’m Not With her

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Letter from a Birmingham Jail

I am not voting for Hillary Clinton. My decision isn’t because of some imagined misogyny on my part or because I dislike her personally. It isn’t based on the scandal around her emails or because of some concern over her character, though those are concerning. No, my reasons for not voting for Hillary are pretty much straightforward: I vehemently disagree with her ideology.

My core values centered on economic and racial justice shape my own politics. History shows those values do not shape hers. Even with her current concessions to the Sanders campaign (which will most likely change) nothing Clinton says or intends to do if elected will fundamentally transform the circumstances of the most vulnerable in this country. Like the rest of U.S. politicians, he is a corporate neoliberal cheerleader intent on maintaining the status quo. I have had my fill of them since before Clinton, pt. 1.

What in Clinton’s history demonstrates she is a substantive alternative to the status quo? How would her position on free trade, for example, or her view of foreign policy, and on immigration change our course as a nation? Hillary supporters constantly bring up the specter of what our world would like with Trump as president but have been mostly quiet with the fact that Hillary, in her advocacy of one of the worst, most racist crime bills ever signed by a president, basically called black children super predators who needed to be “brought to heel.” Taking that as context, her call for “common sense policing” in the face of the state-sanctioned murders of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people is scary. How will her presidency transform the conditions of my black, brown, and First Nation people?

Given the state of the country and of black and brown communities, these questions must be asked. But many Clinton supporters are downright contemptuous or label them as part of a left out of touch or irresponsible. For supporters of the Clinton campaign, those who dare to ask these questions, people like me, demonstrate that we don’t understand the incremental nature of US politics or that we have crossed over into some forbidden realm of politics.

Ironically, when Republicans reject Trump on ideological grounds, it is widely applauded. When establishment conservatives argue that Trump isn’t a true conservative, and that they will not vote for him, it is seen as reasonable. But to argue something similar about Clinton is immediately dismissed. We are labeled as “privileged,” a racist implication that is the height of hypocrisy considering we’re talking about a privileged white woman who has a cruel history when it comes to black and Latina women and children.

This is revealing in that in strips away the thin veneer of a robust democratic national dialog. In a historical period in which the center has moved to the right, there isn’t even room for talk (let alone action) for genuinely progressive politics left of center. The political spectrum in the US spans this warped center to the far right and this is the legacy ensured by the Democratic Leadership Council that was championed by the Clintons. Clinton our only viable option is we are told. Get behind her or risk the future of the nation, they say, resembling political Chicken Littles.

This narrowing of the political discourse joins forces with an easy form of identity politics. Many extol the fact that Hillary Clinton would be our first woman president. But, beyond the symbolism, what would that mean for women at home and abroad? As with the election of Obama, Many felt good about the idea of a black president. Now, as Obama prepares to leave office after eight years, African American communities lay in ruins, and we continue to find ourselves engaged in this haunting ritual of grieving in public for another black life snuffed by the police.

It is not enough that Hillary Clinton might be our first president with a vagina. Symbolically that would be significant, but the more important question rests with how her economic policies would affect the lives of working, poor women and children here in the United States and around the globe. How would she shift the frame of US aid policy and its impact on developing countries? How might her hawkishness affect the lives of vulnerable women and children? If none of that matters, then, as the sister, Daughter of Oya, states:

If your feminism holds more space for a racist genocidal imperialist than it does for an entire planet full of women suffering under the barbarity of the system she [Hillary] has dedicated her life to upholding, then your feminism is trash, it’s not going to get you free, and you need to get it together.

In fact, anti-racism and anti-sexism have become easy positions for neoliberal political elites. Today, perhaps understanding that calling black and Latinx children sociopaths would be political suicide, Hillary speaks with ease of “implicit bias” with regard to police brutality. One would gather that she expressing solidarity with people of color, and some assume that her policies reflect her rhetoric. On closer examination, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, her top advisors are lobbyists for the private prison industry. It’s just the latest instance of pandering that changes little and allows a few people to feel good about themselves.

I am not saying that anti-racism or anti-sexism (or identity politics in general) don’t matter. But they can’t provide cover for business as usual -- a version of neoliberalism dressed in a multicultural Chanel pants suit.

Finally, the best a Clinton supporter can offer as a reason to vote for her is not anything that Clinton brings to the table. Rather, it’s him. The most persuasive reason to vote for Hillary Clinton is Donald Trump. Trump is worse. I know that. The prospects of a Trump presidency -- what would be a deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance -- ought to frighten anyone. It frightens me. But as the candidate who I will be casting my vote for, Jill Stein, has correctly pointed out, what we fear from Donald Trump, we have already seen from Hillary Clinton.

But what I have a very hard time understanding, especially form people who call themselves progressives living in New York, is why they would cast a vote for a candidate who is to the right of Ronald Reagan on many issues. It’s the Electoral College, stupid. Hillary is certain to win New York, that’s a done deal, why are you voting for a pro-fracking, pro-free trade, pro-mass incarceration candidate unless that is where your values actually reside?

Here is a piece of adult-like wisdom, my friends: we can’t continue to live with the current level of income inequality. Hard working people are working longer hours for less pay. And politicians like Hillary Clinton and their benefactors continue to argue for trade policies that have decimated the working class in this country. We can’t continue to lock up black and brown people or watch them killed in cold blood by people sworn to protect us or fail to publicly educate all of our children. We can’t continue, as Hillary’s record shows she will, to bomb people around the world into oblivion.

We can’t even begin to entertain a robust idea of the public good when filthy rich people believe that the only role of government is to facilitate the transfer of public dollars into private hands, and the function of politicians is to make us believe that it is in our best interest that we allow such a thing to happen.

In the final analysis, Donald Trump is simply an indication of the rotted heart at the heart of this country. But so is Hillary Clinton. That fact alone cannot be the only rationale to support Hillary Clinton. Something more substantive is required of us -- of her.

I am not with her. I will not vote for her. I will vote down ballot, focusing my attention on congressional, state, and local elections. And I will post my vote for Jill Stein. I refuse to support a political machinery that repeatedly turns its back on my people and the most vulnerable in this country, because people have been led to believe they have nowhere else to go. That false belief betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of this period of democratic awakening.

Fear is not enough. I have fought all my life so that I could live a life not based on fear and what is ugly and cruel. I have fought to live a life based on love and what is good in all of us. We find ourselves in a moment in history, in which the very life of the planet hangs in the balance. Running around in fight or flight mode, our collective amygdala on fire, is not the way to go.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…