The Hidden Bias Against Male Teachers

No one wants to be the disciplinarian.

Not at the expense of being a teacher.

Often you need to do the one so you can do the other. After all, it’s difficult to teach a class that can’t listen or sit or refrain from arguing.

But that’s the role men are often given in the field of public education.

We’re the disciplinarians – especially of male students.

We’re consistently given more students with perceived behavioral issues, with more histories of suspensions, and we’re given less administrative support than female teachers.

It’s not fair at all.

Many of these kids are suffering from poverty, malnutrition and/or trauma. Putting them in a room with a male authority figure cannot solve all of their problems. Yet that’s what happens more often than not.

Male teachers are not seen as teachers first and foremost. We’re the enforcers of school rules. And it’s driving so many of us from the field or discouraging even more from entering it in the first place.

Consider this: teaching is a female dominated field.

According to the National Center for Education statistics, 77% of public school teachers were female and 23 percent were male in 2020–21 – the most recent year for which there is data.

It’s worse at the elementary school level where only about one in ten teachers (11 percent) are male. However, things are not much better at the secondary level where less than 4 out of 10 teachers (36 percent) are male.

And these statistics have remained roughly the same for at least a decade.

It’s not true just in the United States. Around the world men are underrepresented especially in the elementary school education workforce. So much so that a 2017 article in the Economics of Education Review wondered, “Are male teachers headed for extinction? The 50-year decline of male teachers in Australia.”

This has both an academic and social impact on male students who look to male teachers as role models. Without a positive male influence in the classroom, boys tend to see education as distinctly feminine and either out of reach for them or something that they should not even be trying to accomplish. Moreover, male teachers demonstrate ways that men can interact in a nonviolent way especially toward women. Their very presence can promote a new conception of masculinity that is gender equitable and solves problems through reason, agreement and team building.

Not to mention that the idea of male teachers as being primarily disciplinarians has no basis in fact. It is a gender stereotype as much as women being more nurturing and suited to childcare. In the field of education it only sets up expectations that men should be sent more students with behavioral issues and that their natural maleness will somehow bring about a solution.

Such attitudes are harmful to male teachers careers.

After all, too firm a focus on student discipline reduces teachers job satisfaction and the likelihood that educators will stay in the field until retirement.

Student misbehavior is a main source of teacher stress and burnout. When administrators give them fewer honors courses and/or fill their classes with more difficult students, it create a more hostile work environment for them and thus increases turnover.

Even expectations for male teachers’ own behaviors are different. While female teachers can be expected to have a variety of personas, men are expected to be strict, rule followers who will not let students get away with anything – and any deviation from this expectation can result in negative evaluations and lower administrative reviews.

The result is lower job satisfaction. Male teachers can feel frustrated due to so much of their time having to focus on discipline issues and so little of it being able to focus on actual instruction. This is especially true in districts where principals, deans and others do not properly support classroom disciplinary decisions.

When a classroom teacher sends a student to the office after numerous redirections and finds that the student is sent back almost immediately with only a warning, it can be incredibly demoralizing. As if the classroom teacher is incapable of a warning, himself!? Numerous steps have already been taken to correct the behavior before it was sent to the next step for higher order discipline of which the classroom teacher does not have the authority to conduct. When such support is lacking, the classroom teacher feels helpless and alone.

Then there’s the issue of being effective as a teacher. When there’s little time for anything but discipline, much instruction is lost. So many male teachers feel ineffective and are judged as being ineffective because of circumstances beyond their control. They were not set up for success but blamed for the situation they were given. And this results in higher turnover.

Corinne Moss-Racusin, an associate professor of psychology at Skidmore College and lead researcher, said: 

“There’s no evidence that men are biologically incapable of doing this work or that men and women are naturally oriented toward different careers. It’s a detriment to society if we keep slotting people into gendered roles and stay the course on gender-segregated career paths, regardless of whether those jobs are traditionally associated with women or men. That’s a powerful way of reinforcing the traditional gender status quo.”

In closing, I must admit this was a hard article for me to write.

Just broaching the subject feels like whining. Black teachers – especially black male teachers – experience the same problem to an even greater degree. And women teachers experience their own types of bias and sexism. However, none of that erases the unfairness male teachers endure often in silence until they’ve had enough and slink away from a career they once cherished like the sun, itself.

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Top Five Republican Nightmare Fantasies About Public Schools

Republicans are fighting against a version of public education that does not exist.

Critical race theory, pornographic school books, and other bogeymen haunt their platforms without any evidence that this stuff is a reality.

Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for Governor of Pennsylvania, actually promises to ban pole dancing in public schools.

Pole dancing!

“On day one, the sexualization of our kids, pole dancing, and all this other crap that’s going on will be forbidden in our schools,” he says.

Mr. Mastriano, I hate to tell you this, but the only school in the commonwealth where there was anything like what you describe was one of those charter schools you love so much. The Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School in Philadelphia used to run an illegal nightclub in the cafeteria after dark.

But at authentic public schools with things like regulations and school boards – no. That just doesn’t happen here.

Maybe if your plan to waste taxpayer dollars on universal school vouchers goes through you’ll get your wish.

But reality has never stopped the state Senator from complaining about a list of fictional public education woes.

On Twitter he routinely makes statements like this from August:

“Democrats are pushing woke ideology, racism, and sexuality on children in the classroom. As your governor, I will ban this on day one…”

Yikes. This is like promising to ban sorcery in school – another thing we don’t teach.

This isn’t the Republican Party I remember when I was growing up.

Instead of personal autonomy and free trade, today’s GOP solemnly swears to eliminate a series of racially and sexually motivated phantasms that are like shadows under a child’s bed. I suppose it’s easier to get rid of something that’s never existed than to fix the real problems we actually have.

But let’s be honest – for some folks this kind of unhinged messaging works.

Perhaps if we examine the most common claims against public schools, maybe we can see through the mist and electioneering to the very real fears the GOP is using in a desperate attempt to manipulate voters to their side.

So here are the top 5 Republican nightmare fantasies about public schools:

1) Teaching boys to hate themselves

“I believe that white men are the most persecuted identity in America.”

Georgia Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene actually said this – out loud – in an interview.

And the GOP attention-seeker is not alone.

Many Republicans claim anti-male discrimination is wide spread. Men are blamed for so many things in our society they’re forced to turn to porn and video games because they have no other options, Green claimed.

And women have become “… too weak and pathetic to take care of themselves. They want a great big giant government to take care of them. It’s such a hypocrisy. They claim they want the future to be female, but they aren’t capable of taking care of themself.”

How did we get here? Public schools that teach sexual politics.

But, Marjorie, the following ARE facts:

-The US is one of only eight countries in the world that does not provide any form of paid maternity leave by federal law.  

-Women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man makes.

-Despite being almost 60% of the population, women hold only 26% of the seats in Congress.

Should we teach such facts in school?

Contrary to Republican opinion, teaching about the many ways women are unfairly treated in the US does not turn men into victims or make women helpless.

Male students are not responsible for a world created by past generations but they ARE responsible for picking a side and doing something about it as they become adult members of society.

In a country where a GOP-controlled Supreme Court has usurped women’s bodily autonomy by overturning Roe v. Wade and men still have untold economic advantages, redefining men as victims and education as infantalizing is, itself, a fantasy.

2) Teaching kids to be gay

Republicans literally think public school teachers are turning kids gay.

That’s the impetus behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill and several copycat bits of legislation the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is pumping out across the country.

They insist that even mentioning LGBTQ people exist is grooming children into a sexuality they wouldn’t otherwise have.

First, believing this shows massive ignorance.

No one can really be coerced into a sexuality they didn’t already possess. As you grow and mature, you have sexual preferences. It’s not really a matter of nurture – it’s nature. People are born this way.

Second, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that there are other ways to express your sexuality is not going to make people ignore their innate inclinations. The idea seems to be that if kids never find out there are other options, they’ll simply be satisfied with heterosexuality – how they’re told to think and feel.

And finally, it is extremely unfair to LGBTQ people. We already live in a culture that celebrates cis hetero-normativity. Trying to erase everyone else causes real harm and trauma to both people who are different and to those who are not but never get to fully understand the entire spectrum of humanity.

Teachers are not making kids gay, but they are telling kids that gay people are real. We are trying to stop bullying and homophobia. And let’s be honest – that’s really what Republicans are objecting to here.

They want it to be okay to hate gay people.

Sorry. Not in public school.

3) Teaching kids to be trans

This is where the backlash against using appropriate pronouns and recognizing trans people is coming from.

As much as Republicans hate gay people, they absolutely despise and fear the trans community.

Once again they conflate acknowledging the existence of the other with coercing students to become the other. Just knowing that trans is an authentic way human beings can live is seen as a threat. But if this kind of knowledge makes you trans, you almost certainly were trans already.

It hurts no one to call another person by the pronouns they would prefer you use. That’s just respect – treating others like you would want to be treated.

It hurts no one to see the world as bigger than just one way of living. This is reality, after all. And that’s what Republicans are rebelling against.

Far from teachers coercing students to become trans, the GOP wants us to bully children not to be. They want to constrain difference, punish and hide it.

This cannot be the mission of public schools. At its best, it is for everyone and must respect each child on their own terms.

It’s not easy. Recognizing such differences can be messy and challenging, but that’s life. Deal with it.

4) Teaching kids to hate white people

This is one of the most common complaints of Republicans everywhere.

Thy say public schools are woke. Public school teachers talk about racism and prejudice. They teach what was, what is and encourage kids to act to dismantle systems of injustice against people of color that persist.

Yeah. We do that.

I make no apologies.

It’s not Critical Race Theory (which is a legal framework) nor do we teach anyone to hate white people. But we do teach what whiteness has done and continues to do.

It’s called history and current events.

White kids today are not responsible for slavery, Jim Crow or a host of evils perpetrated throughout our collective past. But that doesn’t remove their responsibility to do something about it today.

Republicans, though, try to flip the script and call this teaching, itself, racism. That’s absurd! It is not racist to show kids injustice.

For example:

-Median household income for Black people, at $43,862, is 37 precent less than that of white people, at $69,823.

-Census data shows Black couples are more than twice as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage or a home improvement loan, which leads to just 59 percent of the median home equity white households have, and just 13 percent of Black wealth.

-A Black child born today can expect to live four years less than a white one.

-Black people have been more than twice as likely as white people to experience threats or uses of force during police encounters, and three times more likely to be jailed if arrested.

These facts matter.

They shouldn’t make children hate white people, but they may encourage them to hate white supremacy.

And that’s what Republicans are really against.

5) Teaching kids to be sexually active

This may be the strangest fantasy the GOP is trying to spread about public school.

They say we’re making kids engage in sexual activity. Which is strange because according to the Centers for Disease Control, fewer US children are choosing to engage in sexual activity.

An estimated 55% of male and female teens have had sexual intercourse by age 18, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

However, these percentages have declined since 1988 when 51% of female and 60% of male teens had engaged in sexual activity.

If public schools are teaching kids to bump uglies, we’re doing a bad job.

Are kids more sexualized today than in the past? Probably. But that’s a result of the culture. When you sell teenagers shorts with the word “juicy” on the butt, don’t complain about public schools.

Some schools offer sex education classes, but they are focused on health and wellness. There is no encouragement to have sex. In fact, many such classes are still teaching abstinence only instead of safe contraception.

The idea that public schools are teaching sex is just dog whistle politics. It is Republicans trying to scare parents that public schools are instilling values they don’t share. It is blaming public schools for social ills that the schools didn’t cause and don’t control.

Looked at calmly and rationally, all of these fantasies are just scare tactics to get the gullible to react emotionally on election day.

They want to terrify responsive voters into giving GOP candidates the power to stop a host of things that never really existed. They want an excuse for doing nothing to solve the actual problems of the day.

There’s a reason they spend so much time railing against woke education – they want to ensure America remains asleep.

A fitful sleep – tossing and turning in various Republican nightmares.

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Back to the Past with the US Supreme Court

“Daddy, are gay people not allowed to get married?” 

My daughter was looking at me in confusion as we sat together on the couch watching an old episode of “Top Chef.” 

In Season 6, episode two, the chefs were asked to cook for a bachelor party. One of the contestants, Ashley, was indignant that she had to participate in a challenge centered on  marriage when she, herself, couldn’t marry another woman.  

I was surprised.  

It hadn’t occurred to me that the show was so old. It first aired in 2009. Was that really so long ago? 

We’ve only had marriage equality in all 50 states since 2015. That’s just seven years ago.  

So I explained to my daughter that gay people can marry today, but that it wasn’t always the case.  

My 13-year-old thought the idea that people couldn’t marry whoever they wanted to was just too crazy to be believed. And I agreed. 

It was later that night that I read the article in Politico about Roe v. Wade.  

Apparently, the landmark 1973 decision that expanded access to abortion nationwide is about to be overturned by the Republican majority on the Supreme Court. 

Some folks are even speculating that this could mean the roll back of similar rulings such as ones allowing same sex marriage and even interracial marriage.  

What the heck!?  

Did I just sleep through a monologue by Rod Serling?  

I’m still seeing things in color but they’re starting to feel very black and white.  

These are issues of settled law.  

Roe v. Wade is older than I am. Women have been able to terminate unwanted pregnancies for my entire life and the world hasn’t come to an end. In fact, if you read about what life was like before this decision, things have improved.  

Women have freedom over their own bodies. They aren’t trapped by the Catch 22 of whether to submit to a forced birth or risk their lives with a back alley procedure.  

I remember having a similar moment of cognitive dissonance as my daughter did when I was in high school.  

I read the book “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser and was shocked at what life was like in the 1920s before women had such freedoms. In the book, a couple get pregnant and have to choose between an unwanted marriage while raising an unwanted child or a black market abortion and the freedom to move on. When they can’t agree, the protagonist, Clyde, murders the poor woman.  

At the time, the whole situation seemed entirely quaint. It was a series of arguments, examples, and counter examples on an issue that had been decided long ago.  

That anyone could think differently struck me as absurd.  

In my high school public speaking class, we debated the issue. I argued in favor of reproductive rights, and a girl I had a crush on argued against them. 

She was certainly passionate about the rights of the unborn. But she seemed startlingly unconcerned with the rights of the already born.  

She wasn’t concerned about the child’s welfare or even the rights of a woman to make decisions about her own body – assuming those decisions were different than those my crush might make for herself.  

As I got older, I met others who felt the same way. For them the guiding principle was a religious fairy tale that didn’t even connect with the Bible but instead some fundamentalists view of gender politics.  

That’s fine if you want it to be the deciding factor in your own life, I guess. But leave the rest of us out of your faith-based world view. 

That such folderol is actually being considered by the highest court in the land is hard to believe. 

This is not the future I imagined back in high school when it occurred to me that I’d probably live into the sci-fi era of the 2000s.  

It’s more like getting stuck in Doc Brown’s Delorean and sent back to the past.  

And that’s exactly what it is.  

So-called conservatives want to return us to a mythical time when all was good with America.  

It says so on their precious red hats.  

But things were never that good in America for most people – unless you were white, Protestant and male. 

Let’s cut to the chase. None of this really is about stopping abortions. (If that was the concern, we’d be talking about free birth control, neonatal care and making a better world to raise children in.) Nor is it about safeguarding marriage between a man and a woman – or a white man and a white woman.  

It’s about strengthening white supremacy. It’s about bolstering the patriarchy.  

This is politics – pure politics.  

And there is a political solution.  

As Sen. Bernie Sanders has already suggested, Congress can codify reproductive rights into the law. There’s nothing the courts could do about it then.  

Democrats have a majority in both the House and the Senate and we have the Presidency.  

If we can’t get 60 votes in the Senate (and we probably can’t) we can end the filibuster and pass it with 50 votes. 

I hope with all my heart that we do this.  

I will push and organize and protest and electioneer. But I fear it will not be enough. 

Just making it to this regressive moment in time seems to indicate that our system is too broken to be fixed that way. 

This is not the world I wanted for my daughter. I fear it is the world she will have to fight to overcome.  

The battles of our grandparents have become our inheritance to our posterity.  

They deserve a much better world.  

But all we seem to have for them are reruns. 

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Kavanaugh Confirmation Begs the Question – Does Truth Matter?

 

“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”

-George Orwell

 

 

Does the truth matter?

 

It seems to be one of the central questions of our age.

 

We just held a Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh’s lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

 

And despite multiple women making credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him…

 

Despite an FBI investigation so grossly limited in scope that investigators couldn’t even interview either the accusers or the accused…

 

Despite the withdrawal of support from some of the most conservative organizations including the National Council of Churches representing more than 100,000 congregations, the magazine of the Jesuit religious order, and even former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens…

 

Despite all that, the Republican majority gave their wholehearted approval.

 

 

Only Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski bucked her party and voted against him – while Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to vote for him.

 

 

The result was a forgone conclusion – a Republican majority who blatantly ignored any evidence and made a decision based purely on party politics.

 

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified in front of these people only a week earlier about a drunk Kavanaugh’s attempted rape when they were both in school.

 

She put her life, her security and her family’s happiness on the line to come forward. She still can’t return to her home after multiple death threats.

 

Yet those in power chose to ignore her.

 

They looked at the facts presented to them and chose to interpret them in a way that allowed them to do what they wanted to do in the first place.

 

Many said that they believed Ford was accosted but not by Kavanaugh.

 

Yet they refused to allow the kind of investigation that might have gotten at the truth.

 

These are not the actions of lawmakers interested in what happened all those years ago between Kavanaugh and Ford – or between Kavanaugh and multiple other women who they didn’t even give a hearing.

 

These are not the actions of lawmakers concerned about picking the best person for the job.

 

Instead, they are the actions of partisans who put power over objective reality.

 

They’d rather craft a story that fits their desires than the other way around.

 

It is craven, cowardly and disrespectful to their office and their charge.

 

This article began with a quote from George Orwell, author of 1984. Let me offer another:

 

“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become tolerant or intellectually stable.”

 

That is what happened here. A ruling class resorting to force and fraud to broaden its power.

 

 

Republicans already have control of two branches of government. Now they have stolen a third – a power grab that will echo down the halls of history for decades to come.

 

 

This is a senate majority representing fewer people than the so-called minority, lead by a President who lost the popular vote.

 

It is not democracy or a just republic. It is a coup.

 

 

As Orwell warns, when we ignore an inconvenient reality, we are on the road to totalitarianism.

 

 

It didn’t matter to those senators whether Kavanaugh was a blackout drunk, whether he still drinks to excess, whether he engaged in sexual harassment or attempted rape.

 

Heck. He could have attacked Ford on the floor of the Senate, itself, on live TV.

 

None of it would have mattered.

 

He was simply a means to an end – the increased power of the Republican Party and the donor class it represents.

 

GOP senators (and even Kavanaugh, himself) complained about dark money influencing the nomination process, yet the overwhelming majority of that money came from conservative backers!

 

They raved and foamed at Democrats for stalling the nomination yet refused to take responsibility for sabotaging Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland.

 

Instead they offered bad faith distinctions between what you can do during an election year vs. a presidential election year – as if it made any difference.

 

It is not just the spirit of the Constitution that lay in tatters on the Senate floor – but the fabric of reality, itself.

 

Thankfully, voters have an opportunity to have their voices heard in a few weeks.

 

We can take to the polls and let these people know how we feel about it.

 

Honestly, this may be our last chance.

 

I am absolutely devastated by these events.

 

I find myself at the ripe old age of 44 chiding myself for being naïve.

 

I watched the hearing as if it were a TV show or a Frank Capra movie. At the last minute, goodness will prevail.

 

That didn’t happen.

 

I, too, was blind to reality.

 

Well, the blinders are off.

 

Like so many of you, I am in mourning for a country that never really existed.

 

But the wake is in November.

 

Let’s hope it will be the start of a rebirth.

 

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Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

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Brett Kavanaugh is the Link Between Rape and Abortion

 

I think I will always associate Brett Kavanaugh with the taste of vomit in the back of my throat.

 

I couldn’t watch his sham of a confirmation hearing without my gag reflex going into overdrive.

 

Here was one of the most privileged of people on the planet alternatively weeping and raging that he was being denied his due.

 

Here was a man bemoaning that no matter what happened, his reputation forever would be ruined, but who likewise refused to call for an investigation to exonerate himself.

 

At least three separate women have accused him of sexual assault, yet Congressional Republicans are still planning to ram through his nomination to the Supreme Court – a lifetime appointment where he will almost certainly be the tie breaking vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

 

How fitting.

 

What perfect symmetry.

 

You couldn’t have planned it any more poetically.

 

A man accused of multiple attempted rapes who is doing everything in his power to make abortion illegal.

 

An overgrown frat boy crying into his beer that we can’t take away his God given right to take away women’s rights.

 

A confederacy of almost exclusively male lawmakers ready to discount women’s reports of violence so that they can limit women’s freedom to make decisions about their own bodies.

 

If there is one good thing to come from this farce, it is the spotlight it has shown on the relationship between rape and the movement to recriminalize abortion.

 

These two things are essentially intertwined.

 

On the one hand, we have sexual intercourse carried out under threat of violence, sex without consent or in direct violation of consent – a crime invariably perpetrated by men on women.

 

On the other hand, we have the removal of female consent from the birthing process.

 

They are almost the same thing, or at least two sides of the same coin.

 

In both cases, we’re removing or ignoring female permission, agreement, approval, agency. We’re saying it doesn’t matter what the woman wants. It only matters what men or a patriarchal society wants.

 

And the justification is an ancient text – the New Testament – that doesn’t mention abortion once. And the Old Testament actually gives instructions on how to conduct an abortion (Numbers 5:11-31).

 

Not that it really should matter. The United States is not a theocracy.

 

But it IS a patriarchy.

 

That’s what this is – an attempt by the most insecure, power hungry men to control women.

 

It is about keeping and strengthening a caste system where men are allowed to be fully realized people and women are allowed only secondary status.

 

It is about dehumanization clothed in piety and false morality.

 

All those people crying for the lost lives of a cluster of cells in female uteruses care not a wit about the thousands of women who will die from unsafe abortions once safe procedures become unlawful.

 

We’ve been here before. Abortion was illegal in the US from the early 1800s until 1973, and we know what will happen. There is actual history on this – back alley procedures conducted by quacks using sharp implements to pierce the womb – and there is no reason to think it won’t repeat itself.

 

Changing the law won’t stop abortions. It will just make them unsafe for everyone except rich women who can afford doctors willing to take a chance on going to jail for a big payday.

 

If these people really wanted to stop abortions, they’d support handing out free contraception. They’d turn every orphanage into a palace. They’d each adopt as many children as they could. They’d make neonatal care free, expand services to help women raise children, increase maternity leave, pay for free childcare, expand education funding.

 

But they don’t do any of that because despite their crocodile tears, their objection has nothing to do with unborn children.

 

It has to do with mature women making decisions for themselves. It has to do with conceptualizing them as people equal to men and with minds capable of consent.

 

It’s about allowing women the right to choose – choose whom to have sex with and what exactly the consequences of that sex will or will not be.

 

I am so thankful that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward with her testimony. What bravery! What grace under pressure!

 

To be able to share with an entire nation her personal trauma at the hands of Kavanaugh. Such courage boggles the mind almost as much as those who refuse to accept her story as genuine.

 

They say that this is political. That it’s a hit job. Yet they pound their fists onto their ears to drown out Kavanaugh’s words in self-defense where he makes it entirely clear how partisan he is and will be once he takes the bench:

 

“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”

 

These are not the words of a fair arbitrator. They are the ravings of someone with an axe to grind.

 

But they do well to point out the elephant in the room – Donald Trump.

 

The man who nominated Kavanaugh has had at least 19 women accuse him of sexual assault. He even admitted to it on video in the infamous Access Hollywood tape.

 

Yet a minority of Americans elected him President through a legislative loophole kept open by centuries of neglect, apathy and moneyed interest.

 

I don’t know how this all will end. The FBI will conduct a limited investigation this week – probably stymied as much as possible by the Trump administration.

 

But the road that lead us here is achingly clear.

 

This is a tantrum of the patriarchy.

 

It is the weakest, most twisted men and their Stockholm syndrome suffering accomplices.

 

It is not about defining when life begins.

 

It’s about defining who gets to count as fully human – who gets the freedom to choose.

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Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

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Men, Too, Need No Longer Suffer in Silence the Pain of Sexual Harassment

 

This is one of the hardest articles I’ve ever written.

 

I’ve started it several times. And each time I deleted it.

 

After all, what right do I have to talk about sexual harassment?

 

I wasn’t raped.

 

I wasn’t drugged, beaten or blackmailed.

 

No one physically abused me in any way that did lasting physical harm.

 

But I was misused.

 

I was harassed.

 

And I shouldn’t have been.

 

I was made a victim, and my victimizer was a woman.

 

That, alone, shames me to my core.

 

I’m a grown man.

 

We’re not supposed to care about things like this.

 

We’re supposed to be unfeeling, undisturbed, stoic cowboys with our eyes ever fixed on the horizon.

 

If anything, I should be the one accused, not the accuser.

 

Some would deny that you even CAN sexually harass a man.

 

They’d look at the cultural ideal of manhood as an emotionally stunted beast of burden, and say men are too callous and shallow to be susceptible to this sort of pain. After all, men are always ready for the next sexual encounter. Or we should be, because that’s what it means to be a man.

 

But they’re wrong.

 

Men have feelings, too. We hurt. We cry. And we can be scarred by unwelcome advances.

 

So what happened?

 

It was almost thirty years ago.

 

I was just a kid in middle or high school – 8^th or 9^th grade.

 

It was in pottery class.

 

I’ve always loved the arts. I used to draw every spare second. My notebooks were covered with doodles and sketches. Cartoon dinosaurs and skulls. Sometimes an alien or dragon.

 

And I loved working with clay, too.

 

For years my mother had a vase I made in that pottery class. It was fat on the bottom with a slender neck. Purple glaze on the outside with a blue interior. Mom displayed it proudly in her dinning room, sometimes with a few flowers inside, until one day it accidentally fell from a shelf and shattered.

 

I might have been working on that same vase when it happened. I really can’t remember.

 

I think it was a pinch pot.

 

I was standing at a table I shared with three or four other students, wrapping tubes of hand rolled clay around and around into the shape of a container, when someone came up behind me, grabbed my butt and squeezed.

 

I jumped in surprise, and said “Ohh!” or something.

 

Then I heard, “Hey, sweet cheeks!”

 

And laughter. All coming from the other side of the room.

 

I turned my head to see who it had been.

 

It was a girl I hardly knew though she had been in my classes since first grade.

 

Let’s call her Nancy.

 

She was a chunky but not unattractive girl from the other side of the room.

 

She walked back to her friends, both boys and girls, at her table, and they were all losing it over what had happened.

 

I blushed and turned back to my work, feeling like the clay my fingers molded.

 

I couldn’t even process what had happened.

 

Why had Nancy just walked over to me and pinched my butt?

 

It wasn’t even a playful pinch. It wasn’t grabbing someone with the palm of your hand and giving a squeeze. She had clawed into my flesh, secured a good hunk and pulled.

 

It was angry and mean.

 

I didn’t understand. What had I ever done to her?

 

I barely knew her. I hadn’t said more than ten words to her in eight years.

 

“You like that?” she asked from across the room.

 

I just kept working on my pot, looking at it as if it were the only thing left in the universe.

 

The others at my table were giggling, too.

 

I remember it like a scene in slow motion. Me rolling out and unwinding the clay. Everyone else laughing. Nancy smirking.

 

And then she came back and did it again!

 

I jumped and squealed.

 

But I did nothing. I said nothing.

 

She pinched me at least three or four more times. Maybe more.

 

And she said something each time.

 

And like it was on a script, always the laughter and guffaws.

 

Eventually I think I started to quietly cry.

 

That’s when it stopped mostly.

 

 

The others at my table were as silent as I was. When they saw my reaction, I think they got embarrassed.

 

We were all working with incredible concentration trying not to acknowledge what was happening.

 

I made sure not to turn and look behind me. But I could hear the snickers.

 

Where was the teacher?

 

The room had a strange L-shape. At the foot of the L was a kiln where she was diligently firing last week’s pottery. From where she was, she probably couldn’t see the rest of us working at our tables.

 

I don’t think she saw anything. She never said anything if she did.

 

When she returned to our side of the art room, she may have asked if I was okay. I’m not sure. I probably just shrugged it off. Maybe asked to go to the bathroom.

 

Why did this bother me so much?

 

Because I wasn’t asking for anyone to come over and touch me like that.

 

I just wanted to make my stupid pot. I just wanted to be left alone.

 

I didn’t want to be treated like anyone’s joke. I didn’t want my physicality to be the cause of anyone’s laughter.

 

It’s not that Nancy was a pariah or a terrible person or anything. If things had been different, I might have responded differently.

 

But when you’re a guy in high school, you aren’t allowed to be upset when a girl comes and pinches you.

 

You’re supposed to respond a certain way.

 

I couldn’t ask her to stop. I’m supposed to love it.

 

Even if it’s a joke.

 

Even if it’s a way to denigrate me in front of the whole class. Even if it’s a way to proclaim me the most undesirable boy in the whole room.

 

It felt like someone pointing at a banana peel in the trash and mockingly saying, “Yum! Yum!”

 

But I was the garbage.

 

It certainly made me feel that way.

 

I’m not sure why this has bothered me for so long.

 

Maybe it’s the feeling of powerlessness – that there was nothing I could do. Maybe it was a feeling that I should be reacting differently. I should be more assertive either telling her to leave me alone or maybe actually liking the physical contact.

 

I’m not sure how to explain it.

 

I was made to feel inferior and degraded.

 

Perhaps that’s why I’ve remained silent about it all these years. The only solution had seemed to be to forget about it and move on.

 

Yet doing so leaves a cold lump in your chest. Oh, it won’t kill you. But it’s always there. You just learn to live with it.

 

I suppose in writing about it, I’m trying to rid myself of that lump.

 

I don’t know if it will work. But I’m tired of carrying it around with me anymore.

 

We’re living in a remarkable moment. Women everywhere feel empowered to share their stories of abuse at the hands of men. Shouldn’t I feel empowered to share my story of abuse at the hands of a woman?

 

But there does seem to be a disconnect here. A disanalogy.

 

No matter who you are, everyone has been the victim at one point or another.

 

Whether you’re male or female, rich or poor, black or white – everyone has been on the losing side.

 

However, some people use that truth as an excuse to pretend that all groups have been equally targeted. They use it as a way to justify the marginalization and minimalization of women and people of color, for instance, groups that have been most often earmarked for abuse.

 

 

Let me be clear – I firmly reject that. I am not All Lives Mattering sexual harassment and abuse. Clearly, women have born the brunt of this burden and men have more often been the cause.

 

But that doesn’t mean that men are immune to being victimized or that women are incapable of being aggressors.

 

Perhaps that’s my point in writing this – to caution against easy expectations and easy labels.

 

Toxic masculinity exists because we have toxic expectations for men and boys. Our society molds them into the shape of our collective expectations.

 

It’s about time we expect more from men.

 

And it’s time we allow them the space to be hurt so that they, too, need no longer suffer in silence.

Men Are Responsible For Stopping Sexual Assault. Not Women. MEN.

Enough bullshit.

Nearly 99% of sex offenders are men.

So stop blaming women for sexual assault.

It’s not the clothes they wear, the way they style their hair, the words they say, or how much skin they’re showing that cause men to sexually assault them.

It’s a choice made by men.

Males. Husbands. Sons. Boyfriends. Brothers. Nephews. Uncles. Co-workers. Coaches. Bosses. Total strangers with raging boners.

That’s the key factor – a penis.

So stop blaming the victim for being victimized. And stop letting men off the hook with every stupid ass excuse under the sun.

It’s time for men like me to take responsibility.

The mere possession of male genitalia does not make it impossible to resist sexual urges. Nor does enculturation as a male in a patriarchal society determine our decisions – even if it does influence them.

Sure. We live in a world of toxic masculinity. The “Boys will be boys” sentiment dominates the social landscape. But that’s not what actually does the raping and harassment.

It’s us. Individual men.

We’re responsible for our own actions.

And if seeing that in print makes you want to offer a kneejerk reaction against it, stop and take a breath.

Do you really want to argue that men aren’t responsible for themselves? Are we, as men, really such a weak, passive gender that we don’t qualify as agents in our own lives?

I’d like to propose that we’re better than that lame justification. Men are not one slim step above animals. We are thinking, feeling human beings who – when presented with an opportunity to engage in harassment or violence – have a choice in the matter.

Free will does not end with an erection.

There are lots of things we can do with it. Rape is just one of them.

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

You want to know the REAL reason so many men choose sexual violence?

Because we can.

Most sex offenders are white men – almost 6 in 10.

Most were not sexually or physically abused, themselves, as children.

They’re just guys taking advantage of a power trip that’s often consequence free.

In short, society lets us get away with it.

When men know that no one’s going to hold them accountable, some act accordingly.

The presence of alcohol and violent pornography increase the likelihood of sexual violence, but lack of repercussions is the number one consideration.

We figure victims won’t speak out, and if they do, they won’t be believed. The deck is stacked against the survivors of sexual violence and in favor of the perpetrators.

You don’t need a study by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center to prove that – but it’s there.

It just goes to show how much of a rational, reasoned action sexual violence is.

It’s not something done by an uncontrollable animal impulse. It’s the result of a cost-benefit analysis.

That’s why all these #MeToo stories are so powerful.

Women all over social media are coming forward and admitting that sexual violence has touched their lives. And we see most every woman in our lives is affected. For the first time, the scope of the problem is becoming visible.

The ground is shaking under the patriarchy. And as a man I am so fucking relieved.

It is absolutely disgusting to me that so many of my gender don’t give a shit about consent.

They act as if women’s bodies are theirs to do with as they want. Pinch them, grab them, grope them, discuss them as mere objects of our personal pleasure. It’s just a man’s right.

Fuck you, Dude.

Seriously.

I’m not a perfect person. I’ve certainly engaged in inappropriate behavior – especially as an adolescent – but I’ve always respected consent.

And if there’s any time when I’ve crossed a line, call me out on it. Hold me responsible. Treat me like a real person – not some overgrown child, an ape that can’t help but fling his own feces.

Yet we too often stop there. We dare women to name us in a venue where we have all the advantages. That needs to stop.

Stopping sexual assault can’t just be the responsibility of women anymore. In fact, it’s not their responsibility at all.

It’s ours. It’s men’s.

Moving forward, guys like me have to step out of the shadows and take our place at the forefront of this fight.

We caused this mess. It’s up to us to clean it up.

This means calling out sexism. No more yucking it up with the guys uncomfortably in public and then condemning it in private.

This means demanding equal treatment for women. Equal pay, childcare, reproductive healthcare. Easy access to contraception, mammograms, gynecologists, neo-natal care.

This means teaching our sons and daughters – but especially our sons – what consent is, why it’s important, and how to tell if you’ve got it.

And it means acknowledging that women are just as much sexual beings as men. No more double standards, no more defining women as a reflection of men and male desire.

It won’t happen overnight.

It will require commitment and strength.

But we can do it.

Why?

Because we’re men.

And if we try, we can be just as strong, just as responsible, just as human, as women.

Donald Trump is a Pathetic Excuse For a Human Being

 

I’m not going to pull any punches here.

Donald Trump is not just a bad President.

He’s a bad person.

No. That doesn’t go far enough.

He’s one of the worst people ever to hold public office in this country.

He’s a pathetic excuse for a person. A narcissistic and incurious fool.

Donald Trump is what happens when you spoil a child and he never has to prove his own worth.

He is the fruit of our worship of wealth and the ruling class. He is the lie of trickledown economics. He is what happens when you give someone all the rewards our society has to offer – just for showing up.

But he’s not a racist.

Not really. Not in the strictest sense. That would require some kind of commitment.

Nor is he a sexist. That would require ideology.

Trump doesn’t hate anyone. He doesn’t divide people up into categories. He just loves himself so much that his regard for anyone else seems lacking.

In Trumpland, there are only two personas – himself and everyone else.

And make no mistake – he sees the world as containing only one important personality – Donald J. Trump. Everyone else is subordinate. Even his own family is important only in so much as they reflect him and meet his expectations. (Tiffany Trump, anyone?)

Trump is the sole practitioner of a solitary religion where one individual can serve as both penitent and deity. He writes his own hymns and sings them to himself every morning during golden thrown Twitter church services.

And anyone who dares to deny the fact of his own exceptionality is not good. They’re Bad. Sad.

They get low ratings. Such low ratings. Fake news. Or whatever other nearly monosyllabic criticism his atrophied brain can defecate out of his sloppy mouth.

Other people’s suffering just doesn’t matter. Puerto Rico, NFL players, people of color unjustly targeted by police, the middle class – none of us matter to him.

 
Not black people.

Not Hispanics.

Not women.

No one. Literally no lives matter to Trump.

This is a fact borne out by his actions over decades in public life.

It’s no accident that Bret Easton Ellis made Trump the role model of Patrick Bateman, his fictional unhinged everyman businessman protagonist in “American Psycho.”

Trump may not be psychopathic, but he is clearly a solipsist, a sociopath. The outside world is not real to him, and we are not ends in ourselves. We are illusions who only merit if we increase his own self-worth.

Even from a conservative heteronormative viewpoint, men do not represent the possibility of friendship or camaraderie to Trump. They are pawns to be used or adversaries to be avoided.

Women do not represent the possibility of intimacy or understanding. They are pure shape, status and physicality – objects to be ordered, groped, controlled and tabulated.

Likewise, his constituents are important only to the degree that they support him. He has no reciprocal responsibilities toward them. He may have promised to “Make America Great Again,” but to this stunted individual, America, itself, is best represented by one thing – Trump.

He is the poster boy for all that is wrong with our society.

He is petty, unintelligent, and mean. Everything he has was handed to him. In fact, he’d have more if he just held onto it, but he had to try to prove he deserved this stuff so he lost more than what he was given.

And he doesn’t even know how to enjoy what he has.

His wife is a product he bought and modified to his liking. His children are indentured servants made to reflect his brand. He doesn’t even understand how to extract the best flavors from the expensive foods he eats.

He spends most of his time obsessively playing a game that requires wealth as a prerequisite, that isn’t particularly athletic but bestows a certain image on its practitioners. And somehow he must think hitting a little ball with a hooked stick proves – what? Something about him? Maybe it proves his physical prowess, his identity as a man of wealth and privilege?

He is the illusion Gatsby tried to portray to win Daisy – but the only love Trump covets is his own.

He both demonstrates the lie at the heart of the American Dream – that it is possible anymore for any of us to achieve – and that the dream has any inherent value.

Wealth does not make one happy. Look at Trump. He is a miserable son of a bitch. And he would be the first to tell you so if he had even a smidgen of self-reflection.

You can see it on his face in those candid moments when he isn’t talking and talking and talking.

This is a man begging to be told he is doing a good job, but the only opinion he trusts is his own, and that one not even so much.

He is a lost soul telling himself lies he only half believes. He’s an apparition, a ghost, a zombie that never was really alive in the first place.

And we, the people of the United States of America, are gathered here around him in an ever closing circle watching this tin pot dictator getting ever smaller by the hour.

One fine day he will simply disappear. And we’ll all be left staring at the space he left behind.

Perhaps this vanishing act will be accompanied by a “pop,” a “hiss” or just a silence deeper than background static.

And the only question that will remain will be if we’ll all be sucked into the maelstrom of his leaving.

Or if we’ll all shake our heads and wonder…

What the Hell had we just been looking at?

Five Ways Hillary Clinton is Running a Dirty, Underhanded, & Disingenuous Campaign

Dirty politics is nothing new.

Negative campaign adds, spreading false rumors, jamming the other party’s telephones, sabotaging opponents, stealing an opponent’s debate playbook, staging fake riots even sabotaging peace talks to help an incumbent.

Historically, we’ve seen all this and more during presidential campaigns from politicians on both sides of the aisle.

But even with that said, the Hillary Clinton campaign is finding new and more unsavory ways to wage political warfare against her challenger Bernie Sanders.

The race for the 2016 Democratic nomination has been marked by some of the most underhanded and repulsive moves we’ve seen in years.

When the dust clears, Democrats will be asked to support the winner, but given the scorched Earth policy of Clinton, it may be very difficult to put the base back together if she eventually comes out on top.

Here are five ways the Clinton campaign has sunk to new lows in its race against Sanders:

1) Voter Suppression in New York

In numerous general elections across the nation, Republicans have gleefully passed voter ID laws they admit were designed to keep down Democratic votes.

However, in this year’s primary election, we may be seeing Democrats working to stop other Democrats from voting.

Consider this: Sanders has won seven of the last nine Democratic primaries. The two won by Clinton were marked by massive “voter irregularities.” And in the overwhelming majority of cases, these problems affected Bernie supporters and not Hillary devotees.

In New York this week, 126,000 people were mysteriously dropped from the voter roles in Brooklyn, where Bernie was born and raised. They were registered in October, but on election day they were gone.

Another 60,000 Brooklyn Democrats had their registrations mysteriously changed to Republican so they couldn’t cast a ballot for their native son. What’s more, these changes were made after the April 1 deadline for voters to make these modifications, themselves. Someone else had to alter registrations in secret without voters’ knowledge.

This fraud wasn’t limited to one Sanders stronghold. According to various reports, approximately 30% or more of the Democrats throughout the Empire State who went to vote found their registrations had been changed, making those Democrats (invariably Sanders supporters) ineligible to vote. Had these people been counted, the state would probably have gone Bernie.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer – both Hillary supporters – have each called for an investigation. But the results won’t come until after the election. By then, there will be nothing we can do about it.

Is this just a coincidence? Given the stakes at hand, could someone have specifically targeted these people?

Yes. Someone could. Read on.

2) The DNC is Taking Sides

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is supposed to be working to help both Clinton and Sanders coordinate their campaigns. The party is supposed to be impartial. It is not supposed to favor either candidate, but it clearly does.

It is staffed by Clinton supporters like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the party’s national chair and a former Clinton campaign manager. Moreover, the company hired by the DNC to collect campaign information for both parties, NPG Van, has its own ties to Clinton.

This is significant because NPG Van was shown in at least one instance to having exposed privileged campaign information to both sides.

Facts about who supports each candidate and where they live is kept in a database run by NGP Van. The data helps each side figure out phone banking schedules, where to effectively campaign, etc. So when the company experienced a brief “glitch,” it exposed all this information to both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns.

A Sanders staffer was fired for looking at Clinton’s data to determine the scope of the leak. However, the DNC and the Clinton campaign spun this so it looked like the Sanders campaign was stealing the information when the staffer knew perfectly well everything he was doing would be traceable back to him. The DNC even cut off the Sanders campaign from accessing its own files until Bernie took the party to court.

Let’s say the situation had been reversed. Let’s say Clinton staffers had accessed Sanders information about who supports him and where they live. What would they have done with the data? Who knows? But it would have given them the exact information necessary to pull off the voter suppression we saw in New York – which communities need to have “voter irregularities,” and which voters to disenfranchise in order to ensure a Clinton victory.

But if Clinton activists had accessed Sanders information, the DNC would have gone public about it just as the party did about the Sanders staffer, right?

Would they? Would a party that has shown such favor to one candidate, staffed in large part by supporters of that candidate, would it be entirely transparent and forthcoming about improprieties from that campaign? Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact that SOMEONE clearly had access to Sanders information and used it against his campaign in New York leaves us with many unanswered questions.

3) Voter Suppression in Arizona

Voters in Democratic districts of Arizona went to the polls to exercise their civic duty only to find lines literally miles long and wait times of several hours.

The most populous county in the state, Maricopa County, reduced polling locations from 200 during the last election to just 60 this year. That amounts to over 20,000 voters for every location.

The reason given was financial. The Republican administration was trying to save money.

But in retrospect two other explanations seem worthy of consideration. First, this may have been a dry run for the general election. The GOP may have been trying to gauge how well it was suppressing the vote in the highest democratic districts.

Or this may have been an attempt to hurt one specific candidate – Sanders – and help another – Clinton. Once again these “voter irregularities” disproportionately affected Sanders supporters more than Clinton advocates.

Hispanics and Latinos in the state leaned Sanders. They make up more than 40% of the population of Phoenix (30% state wide). Yet in these densely populated neighborhoods, there were few to no polling places open. Faced with such difficulties, many working class people didn’t have the time to wait up to 5 hours to cast a ballot – they had to get to work.

Why would Republicans help Clinton? In polls she is weaker against every GOP presidential candidate than Sanders. Moreover, even if she wins, she is much farther right than Bernie.

Add to that suspicious actions by the media. At roughly 8:30 pm, a little over an hour after polls closed, with less than one percent of precincts reporting, the Associated Press declared Hillary Clinton the winner.

In Democratic primaries delegates are awarded proportionally. It’s not winner take all. Delegates are awarded by the percent of the vote each candidate receives. If the race is really close delegates are split.

Prematurely declaring Hillary the winner while hundreds are still waiting to vote discourages Sanders supporters from staying in line and, thus, can reduce the number of delegates he receives.

The media is clearly biased in favor of Clinton, and she enjoys a cozy relationship with pundits and talking heads everywhere.

4) Hiring Social Media Trolls

On the Internet, Clinton supporters have been silencing dissent and lowering the conversation. A Super PAC headed by a longtime Clinton operative is actually spending $1 million to hire online trolls to go after Sanders’ supporters on social media.

Correct The Record (CTR) is operated by Clinton friend and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock. CTR just launched an initiative called “Barrier Breakers 2016” for the purpose of debating Sanders supporters on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms.

The “Barrier Breakers” also are tasked with publicly thanking Clinton’s superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. These paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds.

I may have come afoul of the group, myself. Until recently, I had been a member in good standing of the closed Facebook group Democrats Only. It was a place for fellow progressives to basically talk trash on conservatives and champion Democratic initiatives. However, in recent weeks it has become something else entirely. Posts started to appear that were nothing more than Clinton campaign press releases. For every pro-Bernie post, there were 99 pro-Clinton ones. Posts would appear calling Bernie and his supporters “assholes.” That’s how a site for Democrats talks about fellow Dems!?

And when I politely brought up these disparities, I was kicked out of the group!

This is not about convincing fellow progressives why Hillary is the best choice. It’s about silencing dissent and creating a false sense of Clinton’s inevitability.

5) Misappropriating Sexism

Clinton is clearly the most successful woman candidate in American history to date. She came close to getting the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 against Barack Obama. She has been a Senator and Secretary of State. If she is actually elected president, she will forever shatter the glass ceiling of the highest office in the land for women.

But that doesn’t mean that every criticism she receives is by definition sexist. Calling for her to release her paid speeches to Wall Street is not anti-woman. Demanding an accounting of her hawkish pro-war policies is not being a male chauvinist. Questioning her commitment to the black community given her support for the privatized prison industry is not a faux pas.

However, this is how the campaign, supporters and even the candidate, herself, talks. They call any male who oppose them a Bernie Bro – a loaded, nudge, nudge, wink, wink term implying that any male opposition to Clinton cannot be based on reason and logic but only on sexism.

On the one hand, this is politics as usual. The Clinton campaign is using the same coded language Hillary has always been so adept at – she knew the term “super predator” was a racist dog whistle.

On the other, this misappropriation hurts women everywhere. It devalues the concept of sexism. It cheapens it.

If simple opposition to a female candidate is sexism, then when real sexism rears its ugly head, we’ll be less apt to take it as seriously as we should. The fact that women make only 79 cents an hour for every dollar earned by men is sexism. The fact that women’s healthcare is under attack and so much harder to access than men’s is sexism. The fact that toy companies limit or refuse to market female characters that aren’t overtly “girly” is sexism.

Asking Clinton to explain her record is not.

---

When this election cycle began, I considered myself a strong Democrat.

No matter who won the primaries – Clinton or Sanders – I was pretty certain I’d support that candidate in the 2016 general election for President.

Now I’m not so sure.

Scaremongers say it may come down to deciding between Clinton or Trump. That’s not much of a choice: one candidate is a member of the 1% and the other is bought and paid for by the 1%.

What’s the difference?

If the Clinton campaign continues to disenfranchise voters, receive an unfair advantage from party leaders, silence dissent and misappropriate sexism, I may end up casting a write-in for Sanders or voting for the Green candidate Dr. Jill Stein.

Either way, I won’t be bullied into giving my vote to a candidate that’s done nothing to deserve it and has worked to make sure people like me often don’t get the chance to vote at all.

Beyoncé Upstaged by White Fragility at the Super Bowl

SANTA CLARA, CA – FEBRUARY 07: Beyonce performs during the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium on February 7, 2016 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Black women’s bodies are scary.

 

That’s the lesson we learned this Super Bowl Sunday.

 

When Beyoncé and 30 backup dancers performed a brief rendition of her new song, “Formation” during the halftime show, talking heads all over the country exploded.

 

Oh my God! Are those pro-black lyrics!? Are they making an allusion to the Black Panthers!? Was the music video to this song critical of overzealous police murdering black folks!?

 

Turn off the TV! This is too political for family entertainment!

 

When did we become so squeamish in this country? Can’t we all just sit back and enjoy seductive women gyrating in unison anymore?

 

I guess not. Not if they’re black.

 

Sleek female bodies in tight leather outfits displaying every curve of their anatomy – if their skin is black and their hair is Afro-ed and their fists are briefly in the air, it’s way too scary for white male libidos.

 

And that’s really the problem here.

 

Who was this performance supposed to be for? Fifty years of Super Bowl logic would suggest the target demographic was light skinned, heterosexual and possessing a penis. But these women had something to say – maybe. They had a message beyond “Look at me! I’m hot!”

 

How am I – as a red-blooded American male – supposed to commodify and objectify these women’s bodies if their brains are trying to convey a message that goes beyond mere consumerism?

 

That’s what the Super Bowl is, really. Some people say they watch it only for the commercials, but that’s all there is. It’s all a big advertisement for the American way of life.

 

Sit back, drink beer, eat pizza, watch an essentially meaningless contest and – whatever you do – don’t think about the way things really are. Don’t think about the problems we have and how we might fix them. Stay asleep. Watch the game and stay fast asleep.

 

And please don’t tell me this has nothing to do with race. If they were white girls with a message about world hunger, the outrage would be demonstrably more muted. If there’d be any outrage at all.

 

No. This was a direct assault on our tacit consent to be colorblind in all things. As a society we’ve silently agreed to refrain from mentioning anything about race in public.

 

Why are you even bringing up the fact that those dancers were black, someone is bound to ask.

 

My answer: because I have eyes.

 

Denying the pigment of their skin does no one any favors. And talking about it doesn’t denigrate them in any way. In fact, it acknowledges a key component of their being.

 

But Beyoncé’s performance didn’t let us forget her skin color. She made it important, and our white male society doesn’t want to admit it.

Or at least that’s what the 24-hour news cycle has made of it. Did Queen B really intend her routine to be taken as such a revolutionary display of black power? It’s hard to say.

 

In the actual performance, there is nothing much that is overtly political. Vaguely martial outfits? Dancing in an X-formation? A raised fist? Maybe.

 

The only somewhat rebellious moment occurred after they had already left the field. A few dancers held a sign offstage asking for justice for Mario Woods – a black San Francisco man gunned down by police. If you blinked, you missed it.

 

But the same cannot be said of the recently released music video for the song. It contains many images of black oppression from police brutality to the slow response to Hurricane Katrina. However, if you never saw the video, would you make that connection?

 

I didn’t. It went right over my head.

 

To be fair, I’d had a few.

 

It wasn’t until the next day that I read about the media’s hyperventilating all over it. Viewers had to actively search out the video to find any revolutionary content. Maybe that was Bey’s intent. Maybe not.

 

 

Either way, I find it hard to believe that most people’s immediate reaction was the same as that of the pundits.

 

At first, it was only a vocal minority that made a big deal about it. Then it snowballed into the center of our public discourse. I’m not sure why it’s gained such purchase. Maybe it’s because the halftime show always elicits strong emotions. Maybe it’s because it’s an election year. But without a doubt, a lot of folks’ white fragility is showing.

 

People of color are often stereotyped as having a thin skin about these issues. If black or brown folks bring it up, they’re criticized as “playing the race card.” But this situation shows how reactionary we, white people, really are.

 

No one decried Coldplay for starting the show with “Viva la Vida” – a song featuring the lyric, “When I Ruled the World.” People of color aren’t theorizing that the song by the whiter-than-white Chris Martin is really a Caucasian lament about the loss of white power.

 

“I used to rule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

Now in the morning I sleep alone

Sweep the streets I used to own”

 

Why? Because it would be just as ridiculous! Black folks have more important things to worry about – like the very things that white people are mad at Beyoncé for bringing up!