Hyphen Lynks: Transpacific Edition

Written for Hyphen on August 21, 2009.

Momentarily setting aside our overwhelming obsession with all things healthcare, let’s take a quick second to discuss the hot reform topic of yesteryear: immigration. President Obama may have put this issue on the backburner for now, but the Asian American Pacific Legal Center, along with dozens of other API organizations, are pressing the president to prioritize immigration reform with a week of action (August 17-22) designed to publicize the ways in which the “broken” immigration system is affecting API immigrants and their families. While immigration reform is widely (and understandably) regarded as Latina/o issue, this week of action reminds us how much our communities have at stake, as well. Not only do Asian-born immigrants make up more than a quarter of all immigrants in the US, Filipinos are the largest immigrant group in the US after Mexican immigrants (even in spite of the average 22-year wait for a visa).

In a perfect world, though, a 22-year wait for the sake of family reunification and the pursuit of the American dream wouldn’t land you in a place where…

• Asian American men are the fastest growing segment of plastic surgery users, their numbers having risen 290 percent in the last decade. [Evidently, they do it to "stay competitive," to which I must respond: You're the highest paid demographic in the United States -- wtf are you competing against?]

• Hate crimes committed against Asian American men are packaged and sold as comic relief by Paramount Pictures [Seriously Ken Jeong...making fun of your tiny Asian genitalia in The Hangover wasn't bad enough? One more stereotype-y film like these and you'll be a full-fledged, Bai Ling-level disgrace to the race.]

• Miley Cyrus goes to court for doing the slant-eye and then, to add insult to injury, the judge hearing the case has to recuse himself for accidentally(?) using an Asian slur during the hearing [i.e. he referred to the people in the photo as "orientals" and "non-orientals"]

But there is some good news for those who — even in spite of the above-mentioned bullshit — decide to migrate to our star-spangled shores in the hopes of joining our high-earning ranks: Thanks to Vonage, we now have free international calling!

Oh, and contrary to Ken Jeong’s sell-out example and an emerging generation of plastic people, there are still some (very hot) Asian men out there who have managed to make it big time without going under the knife or transforming themselves into a tired old steretype — check out this Tribute to the Top 10 Asian Sportsmen Around Today. Whether you stay or go, these cosmopolitan, Asian-born athletes are just a little reminder of what’s a-waitin’ back home!

Being Bi-racial in a “Post-Race” World – Part I

Last week I received a scathing e-mail from my older half-sister, who alleged that my recent contributions to Hyphen have been nothing but “anti-white rhetoric” and that I, myself, am a racist. Against whites.

I knew instinctively that her comments didn’t have much to do with my actual writing, and probably more to do with something that she’s got going on in her own life, but I was shocked and hurt enough by her vitriolic remarks to re-read everything I’ve ever written for Hyphen, searching for any trace of prejudice, or semblance  of anti-white sentiment (in spite of my confidence that the blog editors at Hyphen would never publish things of that nature).

What I found were familiar posts that questioned the “reverse racism” myth (that favorite fall-back of affirmative action opponents), criticized the white male fetishization of Asian women, and reproved another (white) writer’s admitted attempts to “edge out” her bi-racial daughter’s non-white heritage. None of that smacked of racism, to me; in fact, I regard my writing (and myself) as staunchly anti-racist, and my contributions to Hyphen evince that.

The real problem, I know,  isn’t *what* i wrote…but, rather, the fact that I choose to write critically about race issues at all.

My sister is white; I am not. We did not grow up together. While she has spent the majority of her life in Alabama and Georgia, I have spent mine in the Philippines and Arizona. While she grew up in an all-white household, I grew up in a mixed-race household in mixed-race communities. Despite this, and our (at times) close friendship, we have never once spoken about issues of race — not even in the context of our own large, disjointed, multi-racial family.

I guess it just never came up.

And I can appreciate that, after years of never mentioning race between us, her discovery that I actually do have many mixed, complicated, and  public thoughts on the topic must have come as a surprise. Perhaps she feels that my seemingly new criticisms of white hegemony group her unfairly -  and according to race – into one homogeneous group, dismissive of her role as my sister, and her individual views on race relations.

While I can understand where she may be coming from, I’m still troubled by what I see as the crux of this issue: her intense disapproval of my generalization of “whites.” If I had said “some whites” or left “white” out of it altogether (despite the fact that I am discussing white hegemony), this would be a non-issue — she could go on believing that we are color-less, color-blind sisters whose relationship is uncomplicated by legacies of racism and differently-privileged positions in an inequitable society.

Her real problem with me and my writing, I feel, is something that Berneta Haynes articulates insightfully for Womanist Musings:

I’ve been asked on three separate occasions by three separate white people: “Can we just be friends (or lovers) without you being black and me being white?”

…I have always been dumbfounded and amused by the fact that the very people responsible for the creation of racial categories are the very people who can’t seem to handle racial categories anymore. [...] Having to deal with the fact that the brown and black world sees them as white people, rather than just people (as whiteness is supposed to be seen as the norm of humanity), is seemingly too much for white people to handle. The reality of their race creates a whole existential crisis in white folks.

The very recognition of race is a racist act, according to my sister. That’s asinine, but I get that about her. I just wish that she were as willing or capable of understanding my perspective, which is this:

• My thoughts on race, racism, white hegemony, power and privilege, etc. aren’t new, despite my selective silence on the topic. They are the product of a lifetime spent as a PoC, as a mestiza, as a woman, and as a migrant.
• What is relatively new, however, is 1) my level of comfort publicly articulating these views,  2) my understanding that doing so is absolutely necessary for my own contextualization, happiness, and sense of personal identity, and 3) my realization that the articulation of these views is potentially valuable to others like me, as well as relevant to ongoing discourse on race relations.

It took me a long time for me to be comfortable with my racial/cultural identities enough to begin thinking about them in a critical way, and begin really questioning my place in the world, and my mother’s, and my father’s…it took me a long time to stop regarding my mother and her heritage as inferior to my father’s (as my father did), and to stop regarding myself as a somehow “less than” my white peers (as my mother did). I’m 25 and only now beginning to figure out how to balance these seemingly oppositional identities, and learn how to be critical of the racism that infused my family household, while still loving and appreciating and respecting BOTH of my parents, and all of my siblings, regardless of their race and tacitly racist sentiments.

I have never felt so complete and comfortable with my ethnic/cultural identity as I have this past year or so that I’ve begun my reconnecting with my Filipino heritage. I’m finally able to contextualize myself, place myself here in the U.S. as well as elsewhere, as an American, a mestiza, a person of Filipino descent and multiple cultures. Despite some of the more hurtful things my sister states in her email, I don’t deny my white heritage, nor do I resent my white father. He, and his, are half of me. That includes the good and the bad stuff. Thinking critically about the power and racial dynamics within my childhood household, which were primarily defined and reinforced by my father, isn’t a crime against his name, but a reclamation of my own.

Why is this empowering process an affront to my white family? Certainly, it’s threatening; the recognition of and appreciation for my Filipino heritage is indivisible from the recognition of prejudice and racism that originally characterized that heritage as nothing more than “non-white.” …And this recognition inevitably brings to light my (both white and brown) family’s complicity in upholding gross racial hierarchies.

For my entire childhood, I was conditioned to believe that white was right, and brown was shameful and inferior. I’m so disappointed, and deeply hurt, that as an adult who has come a long way in developing critical race consciousness, I’m being told once again (albeit far more indirectly) that in order to be part of the family, I have to choose between being a whole person, and erasing one side of myself. That is, embracing my bi-racial identity with all of the complicated, uncomfortable strappings, or shutting up and pretending like race doesn’t exist.

The Great Melting Pot: “Edging” Us out within Interracial Families

Originally published at Hyphen on April 16, 2009.

Earlier this week, Racialicious guest blogger Thea Lim deconstructed a controversial NYT blog post which details a white woman’s experiences and concerns as she raises her mixed-race child. The author (and white woman in question), Nicole Sprinkle, very honestly describes her desire to incorporate her husband’s Colombian heritage into her daughter’s upbringing while prioritizing and carefully cultivating her white identity:

“Yes, she would learn Spanish and English, but to emphasize her Latina side, I felt, was somehow a disservice. Frankly, I didn’t want her to lose any of the privileges of being white. [...] I just wanted the eyelashes, and cheekbones, and that lyrical Spanish when appropriate. I wanted the good stuff, and from both sides.”

…It gets worse. Read the whole article to get the full effect. Lim responds somewhat emotionally to Sprinkle’s unabashed prejudice. As a mixed-race person myself, who was raised to value my (father’s) whiteness above my (mother’s) Filipina heritage, my initial reaction to the article left me too appalled to be articulate, so I asked another mixed-race friend of mine to break it down. She sent me the following thoughtful analysis:

[Sprinkle] lacks any kind of sincere introspection. Basically, she has fallen in love with a man who is Colombian but her main goal is to avoid having to integrate her self identity in a way that might threaten her white privilege…In trying to shield her daughter from identification with a part of the young girl’s self, she is sending a pretty clear message about what is important, valued/valuable. There is a distinct racial hierarchy being taught. A lack of race analysis also is problematic because, like it or not, as the mother and wife of people of color, she is a part of a multiracial community. She scrambles to use her money and whiteness — assets without intrinsic value — to protect her daughter from her own culture and affirmative race consciousness — assets that do have intrinsic value.

[Thanks, Megan!]

Many who have commented on Sprinkle’s narrative, including Lim and my friend Megan, focus on the potential effects of such prejudice on the child, but as I was reading the article, I kept thinking about how Sprinkle’s husband fit into the equation. She tells us that he is a Colombian immigrant who seems to have some classed ideas about the Spanish language, but apart from that we don’t get to hear from him very much — and we never get to hear his perspective on her determination to raise their daughter as mostly-white with just a touch of the exotic.

I’m kind of fascinated by this, because it’s new to me. Though I grew up in a similar environment, it was my Filipina mother who tried to cultivate my whiteness (not my white father), in part because having an “Americanized” child served as status symbol for her. While I don’t agree with it, I suppose I do understand her compulsion. However, the concept of the white parent insisting on “edging out” the child’s non-white identity is almost too much for me to comprehend…almost too imperialist to be real.

I’ve always appreciated interracial relationships because I thought they were a real and meaningful illustration of our great multiethnic, multicultural society, but Sprinkle’s article has made me rethink that a bit. Specifically, I started wondering (dramatically and hypothetically): What happens if, in mass numbers, our white partners begin to “edge out” our cultural heritage(s) because they, like Sprinkle, recognize the benefit of privilege and find it more expedient to play into the system rather than challenge it (for the sake of the children, of course!)? And thus, what we used to define as “racism” becomes nothing more than “pragmatism.”

It puts me in mind of an article I read in the Washington Post recently which asserted that a recent decline in interracial marriages is due to a desire among the U.S.-born children of immigrants to marry people of the same ethnicity. The article suggests that, despite conventional wisdom, greater immigration generates a greater desire to partner with people who share a similar cultural heritage. It certainly makes sense, but after reading Sprinkle’s article, I can’t help but wonder if a prevalence of prejudicial attitudes like her’s might have something to do with our generation’s newfound preference for partners from our own (or similar) communities.

But I suppose Sprinkle’s ideas about race and privilege probably shouldn’t be that surprising to me (or any of us). After all, her approach to childrearing is perfectly consistent with our Melting Pot ideal, a metaphor which we’ve been squawking ad nauseum since Obama was elected. We just don’t seem to realize the truth of that metaphor: that a “melting pot” isn’t about diversity or inclusion but about homogeneity, about heterogeneous groups melting into the dominant culture rather than enriching it.

The Perils of Internet Research, and More on “Reverse Racism”

Originally published at Hyphen on March 30, 2009

Ben Hwang over at 8Asians recently took issue with my post “Reverse Racism at Princeton…” because, according to himself, the South, and the Urban Dictionary, “reverse racism” is a misnomer, or non-existent, or something along those lines:

“Hyphen’s recent blog post about Princeton University’s “Reverse Racism” was amusing to me, especially since the terminology was used incorrectly — it’s not reverse racism, it’s just racism. (Especially ironic since I learned this after I moved to the South.)”

Far be it from me to contradict the teaching of “the South,” but I get the feeling that Ben doesn’t exactly get it. Then again, his sources included the third (not to be confused with the first or the second) definition of “racism” provided by dictionary.com, as well as some of the less articulate definitions of “reverse racism” posted at the Urban Dictionary, which he describes as his “reference for all things slang this side of Wednesday.”

While I do appreciate the obviously extensive research he conducted in an effort to understand the tricky concept of “reverse racism,” I think his analysis would have benefited a tiny a bit had he scrolled down the Google search results page a little further to discover either of the following links:

• Tim Wise’s essay, “A Look at the Myth of Reverse Racism,” tackles this topic in language accessible enough for even regular readers of the Urban Dictionary to comprehend. (FYI, Tim Wise is a leading anti-racism activist and educator in the U.S.)
• Stanley Fish’s essay for The Atlantic, “Reverse Racism, or How the Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black,” examines the relative nature of “racism” and what “reverse racism” means to opponents of affirmative action.

If he had, he might see that these essays, like both his post and mine, question the validity of the notion of “reverse racism.” Unlike Ben, however, we don’t take issue with the concept because we find it equivalent to “racism” — on the contrary.

“Reverse racism” is a term used to describe discriminatory acts performed by non-dominant groups towards the dominant group in a society. It’s highly charged because 1) it implies that dominant groups
can actually be victims of racism despite the institutional power they wield over all other groups and 2) it is a rallying cry for opponents of affirmative action.

Tim Wise cleverly illustrates Point 1 with an anecdote about a group of Native American students who tried very hard to be “racist” against whites:

Indian students at Northern Colorado University, fed up by the unwillingness of white school district administrators in Greeley to change the name and grotesque Indian caricature of the Eaton High School “Reds,” recently set out to flip the script on the common practice of mascot-oriented racism.

Thinking they would show white folks what it’s like to “be in their shoes” and experience the objectification of being a team icon, indigenous members of an intramural basketball team renamed themselves the “Fightin’ Whiteys,” and donned t-shirts with the team mascot: a 1950’s-style caricature of a suburban, middle class white guy, next to the phrase “every thang’s gonna be all white.”

Funny though the effort was, it has not only failed to make the point intended, but indeed has been met with laughter and even outright support by white folks. Rush Limbaugh actually advertised for the team’s t-shirts on his radio program, and whites from coast to coast have been requesting team gear, thinking it funny to be turned into a mascot, as opposed to demeaning.

Of course the difference is that it’s tough to negatively objectify a group whose power and position allows them to define the meaning of another group’s attempts at humor: in this case the attempt by Indians to teach them a lesson. It’s tough to school the headmaster, in other words.

Objectification works against the disempowered because they are disempowered. The process doesn’t work in reverse, or at least, making it work is a lot tougher than one might think.

Without the power to define another group’s reality, Indian activists are simply incapable of turning the tables by way of well-placed humor.

[emphasis mine]

As for Point 2, “reverse racism” and affirmative action, I can put it no better than Stanley Fish:

“At this point someone will always say, “But two wrongs don’t make a right; if it was wrong to treat blacks unfairly, it is wrong to give blacks preference and thereby treat whites unfairly.” This objection is just another version of the forgetting and rewriting of history. The work is done by the adverb “unfairly,” which suggests two more or less equal parties, one of whom has been
unjustly penalized by an incompetent umpire. [...] The word “unfair” is hardly an adequate description of their experience, and the belated gift of “fairness” in the form of a resolution no longer to discriminate against them legally is hardly an adequate remedy for the deep disadvantages that the prior
discrimination has produced.”

I referred to “reverse racism” as a myth in my last post because I disagree with the term’s underlying assumption that all prejudice is equal. While we ought to examine race relations critically, never rashly justifying any kind of discrimination, we must also always be careful to place ourselves and our criticisms within an appropriate historical, social and political context that takes into account the legacies of racism that inform our current, and varied, personal experiences in the world of race relations. The Internet is great, because it means we can educate ourselves about these issues quickly and easily… but, as in the real world, we have to be careful where we go for that education. Google isn’t always the justest arbiter of knowledge.

Asian Girls and the Guys Who Fetishize Them

[Originally posted at Hyphen on February 11, 2009]

That Asian Fetish Myth thing is making news again…though this time no one’s debunking it.

Jaemin Kim has a piece up examining the dangerous implications of the “Asian Fetish,” in which she shrewdly links media representations of interracial dating with sexual violence against Asian women.  It’s a must-read if you hate seeing Asian women portrayed as the exclusive purview of middle-aged, balding white men and/or hentai-watching computer geeks.

The Onion also recently published a piece on this topic, albeit with a much simpler objective: a lampoon of the fetishizers themselves. In an article titled “Asian Teen Has Sweaty Middle-Aged Man Fetish,” the Onion attempts to put a satirical spin on the Asian Fetish Myth. But, while the premise has potential (even if the target is an easy one), the execution is less than consummate.

Here’s an excerpt:

At first glance, 17-year-old Misaki Nakajima seems like any other shy and submissive Japanese schoolgirl. She loves shopping, text messaging, and the color pink. But beneath her wholesome exterior lies a wicked secret: Misaki Nakajima is consumed by sexual fantasies involving sweaty, middle-aged American men.

“I can’t explain it,” said Nakajima, dressed in a pleated miniskirt and pure white knee socks. “There’s just something about American men who are at least twice my age and nearly three times my body weight that totally drives me wild.”

Sure, we get the punchline — how clever to point out the absurdity of “balding Midwesterners who carry most of their weight in their stomach” entertaining some strange sense of entitlement over women so obviously out of their league.

But for a parody of pervy old white men, we sure don’t get much of the pervy old white men… Instead, we get a pretty intense collection of hyper-sexual descriptions of 17-year-old Misaki’s miniskirt and “alabaster” skin. In fact, after a few paragraphs expounding on the bizarre sexual fantasies of this “virgin nymph,” the article starts to read less like a parody and more like the beginning of Asian-fetish erotica written specifically for “balding Midwesterners who carry most of their weight in their stomach.”

Maybe the Onion writers just can’t keep track of their own punchlines anymore…or maybe this fetishized image of the submissive Asian woman is so pervasive that even satire intended to criticize it becomes, itself, a source of the objectification.

I can just imagine what Jaemin would say about this, given the way her article takes other journalists to task for their borderline racist (and undeniably reductive) representations of Asian women and the men who date them.

Thoughts?

Good Friday

The Democrats are making my week (and I can’t help but feel a little smug about it, given how many people I know who refused to vote for him because “what difference does it make who’s in the white house?”).

Not only has Obama signed executive orders banning torture, and closing Guantanomo and CIA detention centers abroad  [read Amnesty Intl's Perspective on this], he’s also moved to increase government transparency and ethics.

He is also expected to repeal the Global Gag Rule (a policy that has long crippled health providers across the world, by denying U.S. governemnt funding to NGOs that provide abortion services or counseling) TODAY!! [Take a look at the UN's perspective on my the Global Gag Rule must be repealed].

The Senate hasn’t failed us either, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act by a landslide yesterday, 61-36. The bill restores women’s ability to challenge unequal pay. It’s worth noting that every single Republican woman on the Senate voted FOR the bill; just more proof that, regardless of political party, women usually do what’s best for men – and men, regardless of political party, shouldn’t be making decisions about women’s issues.

But my joy over the nation’s new leadership is, unfortunately, tempered by my disgust at Arizona’s [Oh AZ, when will you cease to disappoint?!]:

• Kyl and McCain, of course, voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
• Now that our beloved Janet Napolitano has left us for the Department of Homeland Security, Republican lawmakers are trying to roll back university funding provided by her while she was governor – meaning that, after the huge budget hit that ASU took a couple of months ago, we are looking at even larger one [read President Crow's statement] that will likely lay off thousands more employees (undoubtedly including myself), raise tuition and fees dramatically, and maybe even close one of our campuses. [More handiwork of Russell Pearce, mastermind behind last year's attempt to cripple public education in Arizona, Senate Bill 1108].

Two steps forward, one step back, huh?

Vegetarianism in the Blogosphere

For some reason, everyone in the blogosphere has been writing about vegetarianism and animal cruelty lately and, not one to miss the band wagon, I’m going to, as well.

Worth mentioning are Ezra Klein’s two pieces on the environmental benefits of vegetarianism and one on animal cruelty, Megan McArdle’s post on morality and animal welfare, and Nicholas Kristoff’s column against animal cruelty.

Most interesting about these pieces are the reader comments…Klein received nary an ill word for his two lengthy posts advocating an ecologically-justified reduction in meat consumption, while McArdle’s deliberately non-judgmental entry on why she’s a vegan generated a mile-long roll of comments calling her judgmental, self-righteous and self-aggrandizing [this is actually an improvement, I think; being the only female blogger at the Atlantic, her entries usually generate stacks of comments calling her "retarded"]. Kristoff’s column, which condemned animal cruelty and factory farming from the standpoint of a meat-eater, generated so many and such a diverse array of comments that his blog ran a follow-up re-cap of the best ones. While some readers identified with his stance, many called him a hypocrite, a specist and “gratuitously glib” for lines like,

“So I’ll enjoy the barbecues this summer, but I’ll also know that every hamburger patty has a back story, and that every tin of goose liver pâté could tell its own rich tale of love and loyalty.”

While I think that Kristoff, himself, would probably admit to being a hypocrite, a specist and maybe even “gratuitously glib,” I have a problem with judgments that create or foster a hierarchy of ideological commitment. Kristoff eats meat….does that mean he can’t speak out against or care deeply about the inhumane conditions of factory farms?

I encounter those kinds of judgments a lot, day to day, but – ironically, more often from meat-eaters than other vegetarians. I’ve known so many meat-eaters who get a perverse joy from pointing out that my skittle addiction means I’m a bad vegetarian (or not one at all), or that vegetarians who eat fish are the worst kind of hypocrites on the face of the planet. Never mind the absurdity of passing judgment on someone else for doing something that your own ideology upholds as morally permissible.

Such blatantly irrational judgments seem to imply that if you’re not perfect then you don’t deserve to have ideals. It’s kinda like atheists telling Christians they’re gonna go to hell for having premarital sex; fyi – it’s the not job of atheists to hold Christians to Christian standards, and its not the job of meat-eaters to hold vegetarians to vegetarian standards.

It seems to me that the apparent hypocrisy of being a less-than-perfect vegetarian or an animal-conscious meat-eater is far outweighed by the environmental and health benefits of reducing global meat consumption.

It’s funny – I meet a lot more meat-eaters who lecture me on the benefits of meat than I do vegetarians who lecture meat-eaters on the rights of animals. But why do they care? It’s like a pre-emptive strike: judge before being judged…which makes me wonder why some folks assume that a person whose lifestyle embodies a particular moral ideology is somehow predisposed to passing judgment on others.

McArdle, for example, explicitly states several times in her blog entry that she doesn’t judge others for eating meat. And yet her comments roll is filled with readers calling her judgmental and self-righteous – admittedly, in many cases, simply because she is vocal about her dietary habits:

“What individuals choose to eat is of no concern to me. Why they choose to eat what they eat is of no concern to me. However, when they cross the line into proselytizing (as vegans in particular seem wont to do) then my Scooby-Doo ears prick up.” -Stewie

“So you just like to preen but won’t judge because of time constraints. I feel better already.” – The Phantom Menace

“The problem I have with your veg-blogging, and that I imagine others may as well, is your insistence that you’re not being preachy and strident, deployed to cover up the fact that you’re being preachy and strident.” -NAL

Generally, I don’t care if others eat meat, though I am incredibly appreciative when my meat-eating friends  share a vegetarian meals with me. But after reading scores of comments like this, I’ve decided to momentarily abandon my own usually non-judgmental stance on vegetarianism to do some of my own strident preaching, preening and proselytizing. So, a few highlights from Klein, McArdle and Kristoff about why veg is better:

Klein (quoting the PB&J Campaign):

Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J you’ll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.

Those 2.5 pounds of emissions at lunch are about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions you’d save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan.

McArdle:

I’d like people to know that if you are thinking about animal welfare, being a vegetarian or a vegan is nowhere near as hard as you think it is–believe me, I never thought when I tried veganism for Lent that I’d be able to stick with it, but it’s surprisingly easy to keep up with.

Kristoff:

The law punishes teenage boys who tie up and abuse a stray cat. So why allow industrialists to run factory farms that keep pigs almost all their lives in tiny pens that are barely bigger than they are?

Defining what is cruel is, of course, extraordinarily difficult. But penning pigs or veal calves so tightly that they cannot turn around seems to cross that line.

More broadly, the tide of history is moving toward the protection of animal rights, and the brutal conditions in which they are sometimes now raised will eventually be banned. Someday, vegetarianism may even be the norm.

…And some oldies but goodies:

“I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” – Albert Einstein

“But for the sake of some little mouthful of meat, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been
born into the world to enjoy.” – Seneca

“My refusing to eat meat occasioned an inconveniency, and I have been frequently chided for my singularity. But my light repast allows for greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.” – Benjamin Franklin

Misunderstanding Sexual Exploitation

Published in the State Press on September 26, 2005.

ASU women have received a lot of press lately — so much so, in fact, the University should seriously consider recognizing their extraordinary efforts at bringing attention to the school.

After all, what other academic powerhouse can say it holds the record for having the most students featured in Playboy’s Pac-10 college issue? Yale? Nope. Harvard? Don’t think so.

This is our baby.

Between nonconsensual appearances on Web sites such as PalmWalk.com and ambitious appearances in bikini calendars and sordid magazines, ASU’s women have set a new precedent for women’s achievement this fall.

Not only did they earn ASU the title of “the hottest place on earth” but they’ve also made a powerful statement about women’s liberty and freedom of sexual expression — and that is, they don’t know the meaning of either.

There is a big difference between “sexual expression” and sexual exploitation, though the women of ASU (and the people who like to look at them) dutifully fail to recognize this.

It is possible they haven’t had the opportunity to notice the difference. In the media frenzy that always accompanies the debate over women’s bodies, it seems that only the wrong questions are ever asked.

In the whole Palm Walk debacle, for example, at issue was the legality of posting pictures of women on the Internet without their permission — not necessarily that women’s bodies were being used for the selfish and unethical entertainment of college students with too much time on their hands.

The creator of the site, marketing senior Thomas McCarthy, even told The State Press last week that “from a utilitarian [sic] perspective … PalmWalk.com is morally just.”

For those who haven’t taken Philosophy 101, utilitarianism is the idea that “all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.”

So, in McCarthy’s head, it seems like taking photographs of women (with or without their permission), then posting them online next to the words “fork me,” and finally rating them according to their attractiveness is morally just because it is brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.

Here’s a relevant question no one’s asked: Does it bring greater happiness to the women photographed or men who have never had to worry about the risks of wearing a skirt?

Either way, it brings spectacular attention to ASU. And many students seem to feel that’s a good thing. After all, anything that brings attention to the school will help it make money, whether that’s women posing next to hamburger coupons in the Tempe12 bikini calendar or with paint for clothes in Playboy.

And if that’s the case, does that make President Crow their pimp?

More unsettling than the idea of a university profiting from the misuse of its students’ images, however, is the fact that the women posing for these publications seem oblivious to the absurdity of their situation.

Rachelle Pfeifer, who posed for the Tempe12 calendar, told The State Press last week that the calendar’s models were not selected “based on looks, but how you present yourself.”

What she didn’t mention was that the women “presented” themselves at pool parties that served as “open casting calls,” as the creators of Tempe12 promotions told The State Press.

Nevertheless, such publications are mostly accepted and generally enjoyed — justified by the idea that participating models are willing and free.

So why do they do it? Money?

No, that’s for the men who snap the photos and print the pages.

Fame?

Nope. For every Pam Anderson, there’s a university full of rejects.

Of course, there’s the age-old idea that only insecure women need that kind of validation. But these days, insecurity has gotten so pretty, it’s no longer recognizable anyway.

Frankly, nobody cares what’s in it for women, why women do it or even who these women are. Men who question the system aren’t men, and women who do are jealous.

Maybe that’s why only the wrong questions are asked.

But whatever the reason, one thing should be made clear. However you wish to exploit yourself or others, please leave ASU out of it.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of students don’t pose for bikini calendars or take creepy pictures of preoccupied women. And when these students get their engineering, business or liberal arts degrees, they don’t want their diplomas inscribed with the words “check out Miss July.”