Where is my outrage? Here. It's here.

[msagara]

The title refers to this post, by author Nora Jemisin. It is worth reading. It is not going to make your night any happierBut then again, I'm not going to make your night any happier. I don't know if people will find this post triggery--but it will descend, in all probability, into rant and a genuine, visceral anger. So this might be the time to

Comments

[anonymous]

As always, so very well said and so important to BE said.

[mtlawson]

Thanks, Michelle, for saying what needed to be said.

I was going to ping you to ask how you were doing --you hadn't posted in a while-- but I see I didn't need to.

I certainly hope that times will change, but given how things have been since Election Night, 2008, I wonder whether we haven't gone backward. Perhaps things are more visible because certain aspects of society have become emboldened to crawl out from under that rock, but I fear that we have become less tolerant and respectful of others over the intervening time.

I was not amused by what passed for jokes at the Oscars the other night. You can poke fun at people without being offensive, but it's as if McFarlane didn't get the memo on that. And really, what the hell did the little girl do that pissed off all those people? Act well in a movie? Act like a kid? She behaved herself much better than Jack Nicholson did, but then again we all knew that one. Oh, I knew the swipe that McFarlane took about her wasn't about her at all, but rather a snide comment about George

[marlowe1]

Probably not nearly as offended as they are reacting now. Of course, a lot of that has to do with male privilege and a lack of sexualization for men (except for Channing Tatum).

[barbarienne]

I'm not sure what "except for Channing Tatum" means here. He doesn't get talked about any more than other male movie stars.

[iamshadow]

Channing Tatum used to be a stripper; he wrote Magic Mike based on that period in his life.

[rhyssafireheart]

Well said.

I didn't watch most of the Oscars and so I managed to miss all the stupid comments and bad jokes, but when someone linked that twitter comment from the Onion about Quvenzhané Wallis, I didn't have the context to put it in.

And you know what? I didn't need any context, because even in supposed satire, calling a little girl - any little girl - a cunt is not funny. It's not satire, and it's not a commentary on how other people act badly. It was something no child should have to see or know about, especially not at freaking 9 years old.

And I don't even like kids all the much, but I sure let the other person, who posted the twitter and said it was funny, know that I thought it was pretty disgusting all around.

[filkerdave]

For pretty much any value of "girl" that includes all human females, I think.

[joycemocha]

Well said. I gave up on the Oscars years ago and haven't missed it; in any case hearing that Seth McFarlane was the host made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Crude, lewd and fratboy world. Haven't we gotten past that--well, no.

But still--yeesh. It's time for this crap to end. She's a little girl, for God's sake, and....well, makes me wonder what the same folks were saying (without tweeting) about Malia and Sasha Obama. Gawd.

And the scary thing is that I am working with middle school kids, and there's a passel of boys who fit right into this whole mentality. Sexist, racist--the number of times I've shut down unacceptable comments has gone beyond the fingers of both hands. It's appalling, and this isn't even a school for the privileged--it's a poor rural school.

[marlowe1]

Since it's the Onion, I give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was making a point about how toxic most of these comments are but when people say the same things about Kristen Stewart, Sarah Palin, Charlize Theron, etc. there is no reaction. I hate Sarah Palin as much as the next liberal (well not as much now that she has absolutely no power) but calling her a cunt is bullshit gendered language.

Directing that at a kid that's adorable is supposed to be shocking, but sadly there was really no point to that but to shock.

Now with 4chan, ED or your average youtube comment, there's no irony. Just nastiness.

[lwe]

It's not remotely surprising it's a poor rural school; the privileged and their kids are usually better at hiding such attitudes.

[elialshadowpine]

The Obama girls have gotten similar treatment. :-\ I've seen articles about people making racist, sexist, sexual comments about them on Twitter... never mind in the election run-up, newspaper editors making similar comments about them. It's fucking disgusting.

[filkerdave]

Very, very well said. As someone who kind of ignores the Oscars because A) I don't really care who wins; the odds of me having seen any of the films nominated are slight (that changed this year with "Lincoln," which was a terrific film) and B) dislikes award shows other than, say, the Hugos, I hadn't heard about this until it was long past. And even then, my first reaction was a large helping of "Wha...? Did they REALLY say that?"

Thank you for this.

[filkerdave]

Oh, and do you mind if I link to this in my own LJ?

[msagara]

Oh, and do you mind if I link to this in my own LJ?

Please do. In future, anything I've posted publicly anywhere can be linked - I link to interesting articles & posts all the time.

[filkerdave]

done.