Naw Psychology Today, We Haven't Forgotten About The Black Woman Bashing Article

You think you can publish an article by a psychologist with a history of race baiting, yank it off your site when the wrath of the African American community and our allies comes raining down on you and try to justify the initial Kanazawa article with another one by a different psychologist trying to spin it as 'jump starting a dialogue'?

Oh hell, no.

Naw Psychology Today, you stepped in it on this one.   You jump started a dialogue alright, one that you  folks probably weren't expecting.  It's a conversation about your judgment and relevancy as a trusted magazine covering psychology issues in light of the fact you let a serial race baiter publish such incendiary bull feces..  

And no, the African Diaspora.is not letting the issues of disrespect of sisters using racist tropes masquerading as pseudo-science die either.  Loved Khadijah Britton's Scientific American post on the subject and the article at The Guardian by Nanjala Nyabola. 

Nyabola's post will dispels any attempted spin that it's only African Americans who are pissed about it. 
 
Change.org has a petition with over 30,000 names on it demanding the folowing:

1) a public statement from Psychology Today editors demonstrating accountability for the article itself and the editorial conditions that allowed this article to be published on your website.

2) the removal of Satoshi Kanazawa as a contributor to your website, magazine, and any other Psychology Today publications based on his history of discredited research and repeatedly submitting racially biased articles to Psychology Today, including this most recent disturbing article that your editors chose to abruptly scrub from your website.

3) and the development of more thoughtful and sophisticated strategies for identifying how racism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, and other oppressions and biases shape any so-called "objective" scientific inquiries, methodologies, and findings that your contributors examine in your publications.  These strategies should be communicated to the public in an effort to be more transparent about how you are disrupting bias in your reporting.

So nope, we ain't letting it go until we get the apology for publishing the article that disrespected us in the first place.   

What We Has Here Is A Fauxgressive Failure To Communicate 2

On Friday I posted the following comment on my Facebook page that grew into a TransGriot blog post about identity politics.

Yeah, I know y'all hate 'identity politics' but news flash people-all politics in the USA is identity politics. The sooner the GL community realizes that and adjusts their game plans to deal with that reality, the better.

The comment then grew into a thread on the issue in which Margaux Ayn Schaffer posted this response to the initial comment:

 What about our identity as Americans?  Being a hyphenated individual does nothing to unite us, it only further divides us. THAT IS SEPARATISM!

I responded with:

Margaux, white Americans have made it quite clear over the last 200 plus years that my identity as an American and any other POC is subject to their interpretation.

I went from being 3/5 of a human to full citizenship thanks to the 14th Amendment and 150 plus years of blood, sweat, tears and activism, and even still I'm only an 'American' when I'm needed to fight a war or pay taxes.

Why is it nobody has a problem with people claiming they are German American, Italian American or other hyphenated European ethnic groups, but let a POC proclaim they are African-American, Asian American or a Latino/a American and European descended Americans start trippin?

Being proud of where you come from is NOT separatism.

Margaux Ayn Schaffer America is supposed to be a melting pot, not a caldron.
Individual identity is not at issue, groupthink is.

Margaux Ayn Schaffer Fragmenting our national cohesion does little to unite us but serves only to further divide us. I find your rhetoric disingenuous and divisive.

btw: I am German/French/Cherokee.
Its easier to call myself an American.

Then I responded to those comments with: 
 @Margaux..your reaction is typical of someone who is wallowing in white privilege and just dismissed what my and my people's lived experience in America is

@margaux Me or anybody else calling ourselves African-American shouldn't bother you

After two other commenters expressed their thoughts Margaux lobbed this incendiary comment into the mix.   

Margaux Ayn Schaffer ‎@De, I just think Monica is being too confrontational and divisive.

Margaux Ayn Schaffer

I'm not bothered by how people identify. Far too much is being read into what I have stated. It's obvious that my opinions carry some participatory bias as does everyone else's. I just think that the hostility is palpable on both sides of t...he argument and people need to find the pause switch and press it then ask the right questions in a less accusitotory manner. Being bitter and combative (I'm not, just frustrated that people are isolationist in their outlook). I just think that whether or not your points are valid, it's not how you build bridges towards understanding others when you are just as full of hostility as you alledge me of being. I apologize if I have offended anyone.

Obviously  Margaux did care because she wouldn't have made the original 'hyphenated American' comment in the first place.   I also decided to point out she ignored what I had to say about Black citizenship being ignored and the silencing tactics she was engaging in. 

@Margaux, you prove my point with every post you make. I'm speaking my truth and my lived experience and you in your infinite vanilla flavored wisdom have dismissed it and deemed it 'divisive' and 'confrontational'

if you don't like me speaking the truth about the historical fact that POC status as Americans is subject to the whims of white people, e, you can always unfriend me..

Once again Margaux, check the history books. heard of a case called Dred Scott v Sanford?

If it's not the case that POC US citizenship is subject to the whim of white people, explain the efforts by Tea Klux Klan members and the conservafool movement to repeal the 14th Amendment, deny the children of undocumented immigrants born on American soil and who are Americans their citizenship, and the proposals to take away citzenship from people deemed 'terrorists'

Funny the people overwhelmingly backing those proposed laws share your ethnic heritage.

Margaux Ayn Schaffer

‎@Monica, I am not a revisionist. I know my history.

On the other hand, the question is how do we build a bridge to the future. How do we move forward. Mutual respect is a good place to start. But you need to consider whether you seek to preach to the choir or reach out to a broader community. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

I just think that painting white people (and myself in particular) is not the way to win hearts and minds.

People are factionalizing. Tribalism is coming back.

After two other comments, tried to get the discussion back on track after finally having enough of Margaux and blocking her.

Monica Roberts on that note now can we get back to what this community needs to do to realize that identity politics are alive and well, aren't going away any time soon, and what this community needs to do to pass our political and social agenda in light of that fact

Nope...Two more people besides Margaux picked up the 'Monica is a 'divisive racist' meme and you know I wasn't having that BS continue on my own FB page.
 

It's at 31 comments as I write this, and y'all can read how it developed for yourselves.  

Once again this is a classic example of a person of color making a statement in online discourse that doesn't fit the vanilla flavored worldview of some white people.   They don't like it and either try to ignore it, or flip the script and attack the POC by deeming them as 'racist', 'confrontational' or 'angry' in order to silence them and therefore get the last word in.

The insidiousness and insanity of 'whiteness' and 'white privilege'.  All this drama I wasn't looking for that day when I simply posted a comment on my own FB page that wasn't in the spirit of being confrontational. 

For you peeps that accused me in that thread of being confrontational, when I want to be confrontational, trust me, there will be no doubt in yours and anyone else's minds when I do go there.

Disrespecting Victoria C. White

Just in case anyone has forgotten that we are weeks away from another somber TDOR ceremony is November, here's another reminder for my cis African descended community which ethnic group along with Latinas will be disproportionately represented when we read the names on November 20.

28 year old Victoria Carmen White of Newark was shot to death early Sunday morning on September 12 and pronounced dead at the scene at a Maplewood, NJ apartment building located at 159 Jacoby Street.

But as tragic as the violent end of Victoria's life was, she got a layer of disrespect shoveled on top of it as well.

The Maplewood Police and Essex County Prosecutor's Office initially identified her using her old name and incorrect gender pronouns.

They had to retract that initial press release and add the following statement:

"Following an examination by the Medical Examiner and further investigation, it has been confirmed that the victim was a post-operative transgender female having undergone sex reassignment surgery."

Take a look at the photos of Victoria interspersed throughout this post. Does she look like a 'man'?

When are you peeps going to get it through your heads, especially in the law enforcement and criminal justice communities that genitalia does not necessarily equal gender?

But that's a rant for another day.

Rest in peace, Victoria. We can only hope and pray that by the time your trans brothers and sisters around the world recite your name and light candles for you at the 2010 TDOR ceremony, that the person who callously ended your life will be brought to justice and spend the rest of their lives rotting in jail.

African-American Transwoman Suing DC Police For Civil Rights Violations

People are learning the not so nice details about what happened to Autumn Sandeen after she was arrested during an April 30 anti-DADT protest in DC.

Thanks to Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia we have new information about another case of Po-Po's Gone Wild and harassing a transwoman while under arrest.

Patti Shaw's case was originally talked about in an Amnesty International report 'Stonewalled', detailing the police abuse that LGBT people face.

Now the 44 year old African-American post operative transwoman is suing the District of Columbia, the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Marshal's Service, for $10 million, alleging civil rights violations, assault, battery, negligence and infliction of emotional distress in that 2003 case.

Patti's story starts after her purse came up missing and she phoned in a report to the DC Police. She found the purse after filing the report, but ironically was robbed of that purse while taking her dogs out for a walk that evening.

When the DC police finally responded and Shaw told her story, a detective asked her rude questions. Shaw says that several days later, the detective told her "that he did not believe her story and he said that he was going to issue a warrant for her arrest for making a false report to a police officer."

According to Shaw, she was told by the officer to turn herself in to the 6th Precinct "within a couple days or she would be arrested."

Shaw stated she complied with the request and reported to the precinct at 4 AM. When the officers on duty learned her old male name during the intake process, they ignored her legally changed ID identifying her as female and sent her into the men's prison.

During the intake process, Shaw says she was searched by a male marshal in the view of other marshals who made transphobic jokes and used incorrect pronouns about her breasts.

One marshal commenting about Shaw's breasts stated, "those must be implants, because hormones don't make breasts stand up so perky like that."

Another marshal according to Shaw stated about her breasts, "He's the best I've ever seen."

Her nightmare was only beginning. It got worse after she was sent to the holding facility and had to interact with cis male prisoners.

Shaw said that "Several of the men in the holding facility touched her inappropriately, verbally harassed and propositioned her, threatened to punch her if she did not show her breasts and shook their penises at her.

When she asked to be taken to another location to urinate, Shaw was forced "to urinate in a cup in full view of the men in the holding facility."

She says she suffered physical and emotional damages, including stress, anxiety and depression. She's seeking with the help of her attorney Karl-Henri Gauvin $5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

I'm extremely interested in finding out how this police abuse case transpires. Because like Queen Emily, I'm wondering why was she even arrested in the first place unless somebody wanted to inappropriately flex some police power and jack with Shaw for whatever transphobic reason.

H/T Questioning Transphobia