Taking A Joke

How many times have you heard hateful, mean-spirited remarks punctuated with, "It's just a joke!"?

How many times have you been told you "can't take a joke"?


Well, most of us can "take" a joke.  But we can't--or shouldn't have to--take name-calling, misogynist or transphobic remarks or threats against us.  Those are not jokes.

From tumblr

So Funny I Forgot To Laugh

Barbera-ic

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm performing some sort of service by calling out someone by Peter LaBarbera.  Or, by mentioning him, am I merely lending him dignity he doesn't deserve?

Perhaps I should feel sorry for him.  After all, he must feel some terrible emptiness if he really can't find anything better to do with himself than to spread hate and bile about anyone who isn't cisgender and heterosexual.

I must give him credit, though:  He can pump out more bilge in one talk-show appearance than most people can in a year.  I guess that takes some sort of talent, not to mention dedication.

Listen to him slam doctors who perform gender-reassignment surgery and President Obama's "obsession" with homosexuality--and use legal reasoning skills that would leave Learned Hand,  Benjamin Cardozo, Sandra Day O'Connor, Thurgood Marshall and even John Jay speechless in talking about the Hobby Lobby case.

Transphobes Tossed Off The Airwaves--For Now, Anyway

Rochester, NY was one of the very first jurisdictions in the US to protect gender identity and expression in its human rights laws.  In fact, Rochester accorded equal rights in housing, employment, education and other areas to transgenders a quarter-century before New York City did so. 


Of course, that law didn't stamp out ignorance and hate, any more than such a law could have such an effect anyplace else.  Even so, it's more than a little surprising that a pair of popular local radio hosts--Kimberly and Beck--should go on this transphobic rant:





Being ignorant of what it means to be trans is one thing, and is even somewhat understandable. But calling us "nutjobs" is something else. So is the comment about the trans male softball player having two bats.   And there's simply no excuse for anyone over the age of seven to play "Dude Looks Like A Lady" while making fun of trans people.


(After I ended my relationship with him, Dominick left that song on my voice mail a number. I ignored it and he escalated his harassment.)


At least it's good to know that retribution against Kimberly and Beck was swift. Of course, that did nothing to stop them, but it's still good to know that caller called them out.  Others complained, and someone with the power to stop K and B took action: Their employers, station 98.9, suspended them "indefinitely".


I've been to Rochester once, before I knew about their history of transgender equality. My brief stay left me with the impression that there are some really good people there.  The reaction to Kimberly and Beck confirms that notion.

Faux Humor About Trans People

Almost everyone I know whose politics are anywhere to the left of David Duke's complains about, or scoffs at, Faux News.

If you've been reading this blog, you know that Faux News is known to most of the world as Fox News.  Most of my work colleagues, friends and acquaintances abhor its sensationalism as well as its to-the-right-of-Genghis-Khan political views.  

But us trans-folk have all the more reason to dislike Faux:  It doesn't like us.  Or, more precisely, it foments hate against us. 

In the last thirty years or so, no other news outlet anywhere in the US could have gotten away with making such mean-spirited and bullying comments as Faux commentators make about trans people.  Perhaps the worst part is that their crass, mean-spirited jokes about us are spontaneous and unscripted, which reveals the level of hate folks like Brian Kilmeade, Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson actually harbor:


   

There's plenty more hate where that came from.  You can find a few samples here.

Prophecies Of Hate On The Campus Walls?

Last night, a friend told me that there has been a rash of "hate" graffiti on the campus where she teaches.  Most of it has been anti-Semitic, but there have been scrawlings against gays and other groups of people.

Based on my own none-too-scientific observations, I'd say that there's more such graffiti, and it's in a greater number of places, than there was a few years ago.  I wouldn't say there's more graffiti overall, although I have seen it return to the subways after an absence of nearly two decades.  However, the kinds of graffiti I'm seeing give me pause.

In Sounds of Silence, Paul Simon wrote, "The voices of the prophets are written on the subway walls."  In other words, graffiti is often an echo of what people will say when they're not in "polite" company.  While I won't venture an opinion as to whether more people are prejudiced, or whether people are becoming more prejudiced, I think that current conditions are causing some people to murmur, if not say out loud, what they've been thinking.

For all that we hear about "tolerance," it's the people who feel more or less secure that express acceptance of people different from themselves.  In other words, it's the people who haven't slipped into the underclass, whose jobs haven't been outsourced or made redundant.  And they're the same people who can rely on their social and professional networks if things get a little rough.

However, there are whole communities that are being displaced, even in this so-called economic recovery.  In previous economic upheavals, it was mostly the unskilled and semi-skilled workers who lost their jobs and never got them back.  Now we're seeing professionals and managers exhausting their unemployment benefits without getting new jobs.  And the industries in which they worked are disappearing--or moving to other countries, or online--in much the same way the steel industry all but vanished during the past three decades.

According to Bob Marley, "a hungry man is an angry man." People--particularly men who were conditioned to expect a well-paying job--fester with resentment when they lose what they believe to be their rightful place in society and the economy.  Too often, that resentment turns into hatred and violence against members of "minority" groups, who are seen as privileged.  All it takes for that hatred and anger to turn into a full-blown pogrom is a fiery, charismatic leader.  What I am describing, of course, happened in Nazi Germany:  Hitler channeled the misery and desperation of people whose lives were ravaged by hyperinflation and a worldwide depression by scapegoating Jews, Gypsies, gays and other marginalized groups of people.

It's really disturbing, though, that such hate is being expressed so openly on a college campus.  I often hear students express little or no faith in the future:  They realize that they could end up unemployed, and unemployable, even with a degree.  If they start to feel real despair, and that is channeled into hatred against some group or another, who else will fall prey to the sort of rhetoric that equates prejudice with social justice?