I’ve just found out that 27 July – 2 August is “International Blog Against Racism Week”. Man, I had to laugh. Yes, let’s save all our deep discussions on the complex issue of race for one week. That’ll get profound. I’m reminded of the United Nations’ designated international years. Do you remember the International Year of the Ocean? Or of the Family? A lot of good work certainly got done in the areas of environment and social welfare in those years, didn’t it? And, even though I know that teh intertubes run on a much faster metabolism, I expect — nay, demand! — the same level of success from a week of anti-racism.
I’m assuming that some PinkSkin* sat down and thought it was a good idea and you can’t fault that person for intent, but all it does is really point out the shallowness of the whole exercise. Or am I the only one who’s thinking that?
In a case that may seem completely unrelated but which will eventually tie together, I was also reading about, well let’s call him “Mr R” in The Age recently. Mr R organises two strippers for a mate’s buck’s night. Interestingly, the show he chooses from the strippers is called “Anal”. On the night, he ends up on hands and knees, getting penetrated by a dildo that one of the strippers brought along as a prop for the act. (It was called “Anal”, remember? And it was a buck’s night, so no women, except for the entertainers. Usually.) You can read the article here, but let me just call out passages (ahem) of interest. First the scene:
The court heard that the man was on all fours, with his pants around his ankles, when Naggs poured cream on his back and on the dildo and made thrusting motions.
The encouragement:
[A]fter Naggs [the stripper] poured cream on to the best man’s back, she asked the crowd: ‘‘Well guys, shall I give it to him?’’
[Mr R] said the crowd had encouraged her.
And the aftermath:
[Witnesses] told of seeing the best man looking like he was in pain and ‘‘squinting’’ during the stripper’s act.
The next day, the best man said he ‘‘didn’t feel very well, I didn’t feel right’’. He was ‘‘very, very uncomfortable’’ and told friends about the incident.
And, cold, cynical, harsh, bitter person that I am, my first thought was, “Now you know what it feels like to be a woman, Mr R.”
As women (or, indeed, as any kind of minority), we’ve all been there, haven’t we? Having to succumb to something that was either debasing or — at the very least — insulting, bent over by completely unsympathetic peer pressure, and forced to comply because something more important to us was on the line, and our humiliation was the price we paid (and continue to pay) for that something.
It’s the same with racism. A week of blog posts. Yeah, great. I’m a bit late this year but I’ll be sure to put that in the diary for 2010, m’kay?
(*) PinkSkin is the term Shran the Andorian (a blue-skinned alien) uses to describe (white human) Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. Shran was, to my mind, the only redeeming character in an entire series of epic boredom and morality fail. The show couldn’t get cancelled fast enough, in my opinion.
