The Smithian

May 10th, 2013

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Since the news from Cleveland broke earlier this week, I have been thinking about Emma Donoghue’s novel “Room.” Published in the autumn of 2010, “Room” is narrated by a five-year-old boy named Jack who, along with his twenty-six-year-old mother—“Ma”—is imprisoned in a one-room structure by a man referred to only as Old Nick. Jack is the product of rape, but his mother strives to keep the truth of their situation from him, maintaining the illusion that their eleven-foot-by-eleven-foot prison is the extent of the real world…

more.

Since the news from Cleveland broke earlier this week, I have been thinking about Emma Donoghue’s novel “Room.” Published in the autumn of 2010, “Room” is narrated by a five-year-old boy named Jack who, along with his twenty-six-year-old mother—“Ma”—is imprisoned in a one-room structure by a man referred to only as Old Nick. Jack is the product of rape, but his mother strives to keep the truth of their situation from him, maintaining the illusion that their eleven-foot-by-eleven-foot prison is the extent of the real world…

more.

May 7th, 2013

thesmithian

‘…think what America would look like without its mostly Southern states…’

…Universal health care. No guns. Strong unions. A humane minimum wage. A humane immigration policy. High revenues from a fair tax structure. A massive public-works program. Legal gay marriage. A ban on carbon emissions. Electric cars. Stronger workplace protections. Extended family leave from work in case of pregnancy or illness. Longer unemployment benefits. In short, a society on a par with most of the rest of the industrialized world—a place whose politics have finally caught up with its social and economic realities.

…a sundering of the union would make the other half of America equally fulfilled. The red-state republic could…establish a theocracy in which the fundamentalist Christian church would legislate all the important aspects of civic life…It could, taking the lead from the pioneering Kansas legislature, abolish the income tax, raising revenue from, for example, a “pay to work” program. It could ban abortion in all instances, including rape and incest, and use the growing population of orphans to establish an impressive standing army.

more.

May 7th, 2013

thesmithian

People from other countries—when traveling through this one—sometimes toss my friends and me looks. They are usually dressed according to the guide book—long skirts, high neck t-shirts, anything to look like they’re not inviting trouble. Whereas, we’re in shorts, tank tops, even the more conservative among us pick skinny jeans and floaty tops. How to explain to these women that it’s not a local-versus-tourist double standard; they could just as easily get raped as us, but we simply refuse to hide?

Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

April 25th, 2013

thesmithian

…while black women may have been particularly vulnerable to wartime rape, the Lieber Code brought them for the first time under the umbrella of legal protection. In fact, some black women were able to mobilize military law to their advantage. In the summer of 1864, Jenny Green, a young “colored” girl who had escaped slavery and sought refuge with the Union Army in Richmond, Va., was brutally raped by Lt. Andrew J. Smith, 11th Pennsylvania Calvary. Thanks to the Lieber Code, though, she was able to bring charges against him, and even testify in a military court…The idea that a former slave, and an adolescent girl at that, could demand and receive legal redress was revolutionary. Despite his attorney’s argument that Green had consented, Smith was discharged from the Army and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.

more.

…while black women may have been particularly vulnerable to wartime rape, the Lieber Code brought them for the first time under the umbrella of legal protection. In fact, some black women were able to mobilize military law to their advantage. In the summer of 1864, Jenny Green, a young “colored” girl who had escaped slavery and sought refuge with the Union Army in Richmond, Va., was brutally raped by Lt. Andrew J. Smith, 11th Pennsylvania Calvary. Thanks to the Lieber Code, though, she was able to bring charges against him, and even testify in a military court…The idea that a former slave, and an adolescent girl at that, could demand and receive legal redress was revolutionary. Despite his attorney’s argument that Green had consented, Smith was discharged from the Army and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.

more.

April 19th, 2013

thesmithian

The People

April 10th, 2013

thesmithian

‘…kids were relentless.’

“People texted her all the time, saying ‘Will you have sex with me?’” she remembered. “Girls texting, saying ‘You’re such a slut.’”

more.

April 1st, 2013

thesmithian

This endorsement of what a man in spate can do with a body he regards as chattel is the building block of all oppression: that body, usually female, is the template on which every other kind of disempowered being is modeled. The language of abjection that describes what a woman is to a man in patriarchy extends to the child, the aged, the queer, the captive, the slave, the subaltern, and the injured; that is why patriarchy is the foundation on which the citadels of race, caste and class are built. The young women and men protesting on the streets of Delhi know this when they say “Nari Mukti, Sabki Mukti” (the liberation of women is the emancipation of all). They know, instinctively, that the protocols of patriarchy are hard-coded into the rules of the alienation of the labouring body, as they are in the distancing devices of race and the indices of purity and pollution that anchor the sacred horror and hierarchy of caste. The woman in labour is the first worker. The menstruating woman is the first outcaste, the first untouchable.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta

March 28th, 2013

thesmithian

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…a short film written and directed by Chris Ihidero and produced by Amaka Igwe. The film is about rape and sexual abuse in Nigeria…

more, plus the film, here.

…a short film written and directed by Chris Ihidero and produced by Amaka Igwe. The film is about rape and sexual abuse in Nigeria…

more, plus the film, here.

March 12th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

[look of the hour]

March 8th, 2013

thesmithian

I don’t think we need to be telling a rape survivor that statistics are not on your side. That’s insensitive…I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there…You’re talking about this as if it’s some faceless, nameless criminal, when a lot of times it’s someone you know and trust…If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.

rape survivor Zerlina Maxwell

February 15th, 2013

thesmithian

…the Alabama Legislature is moving to grant posthumous pardons to the Scottsboro Boys—the nine black teenagers arrested…in 1931 and convicted by all-white juries of raping two white women. The trials were feverish displays of American racism and injustice that stirred a lynch mob…The travesty…eventually resulted in landmark Supreme Court rulings on the right to adequate counsel and prohibiting the exclusion of black people from juries. The case consumed the lives of the nine men, even after the rape accusation was recanted by one of the women and the testimony of other witnesses fell apart in a series of retrials and appeals. All but one defendant were sentenced to death, and though none was executed, all served time.

more.

…the Alabama Legislature is moving to grant posthumous pardons to the Scottsboro Boys—the nine black teenagers arrested…in 1931 and convicted by all-white juries of raping two white women. The trials were feverish displays of American racism and injustice that stirred a lynch mob…The travesty…eventually resulted in landmark Supreme Court rulings on the right to adequate counsel and prohibiting the exclusion of black people from juries. The case consumed the lives of the nine men, even after the rape accusation was recanted by one of the women and the testimony of other witnesses fell apart in a series of retrials and appeals. All but one defendant were sentenced to death, and though none was executed, all served time.

more.

February 9th, 2013

thesmithian

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…a series of environmental portraits made in Rwanda of women that were brutally raped during the Rwandan genocide and the children they bore from those brutal encounters.

more.

…a series of environmental portraits made in Rwanda of women that were brutally raped during the Rwandan genocide and the children they bore from those brutal encounters.

more.

January 24th, 2013

thesmithian

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Should a convicted rapist guest star on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”?

Should a convicted rapist guest star on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”?

January 23rd, 2013

thesmithian

We now know the scientific link between routine football plays and permanent brain damage. In the past 18 months, the owners of three different leagues locked out members of four different unions (National Football League players, National Basketball Association players, NFL referees, National Hockey League players). Penn State coaches and administrators protected an alleged child rapist. Sports fans are more likely than ever to understand that their ultimate escapist fantasy isn’t really all that escapist.

more.

We now know the scientific link between routine football plays and permanent brain damage. In the past 18 months, the owners of three different leagues locked out members of four different unions (National Football League players, National Basketball Association players, NFL referees, National Hockey League players). Penn State coaches and administrators protected an alleged child rapist. Sports fans are more likely than ever to understand that their ultimate escapist fantasy isn’t really all that escapist.

more.