Response to Ej Dickson: A Plea for Reason from a Jewish Man to a Jewish Woman

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Bill Maher, racist epithets, contextual meaning, free speech, 'free speech,' and the confederate flag

by David Balashinsky

First, a trigger warning: this essay uses the n word frequently.  I believe that the brouhaha surrounding Bill Maher's use of the phrase house nigger provides an appropriate context for a frank discussion of these two terms (the phrase in its entirety and the racist noun itself which is modified by house when used in that phrase).  Sometimes, painful topics need to be discussed and discussed frankly.  This is one of those times.

While it's always risky to use any word that can be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a racist epithet, there is a fundamental difference between nigger and house nigger.   Use of the word nigger situates the user himself in the present context as a racist (unless the word is being used by a Black person, which I discuss below).  In contrast, use of the phrase house nigger situates the word nigger in the historical context of the South's enslavement and exploitation of Black people.  One is a 'real time,' actual use of an epithet that is demeaning to Blacks as human beings.  The other has almost the opposite meaning: it refers to a quasi-caste system in which some enslaved Black Americans were permitted the relative 'comfort' of  serving their White oppressors by performing domestic, indoor work as opposed to the far more brutal and difficult labor of field work.  That is how Maher used the term. 

Temporally removed, as we are, from the legalized enslavement of human beings based on their genotype (though not so removed that the wounds are not still open and not so removed that positive, concrete steps do not still need to be taken to at least ameliorate the lasting effects of the African diaspora and enslavement of millions of Blacks, including some sort of reparations), invoking the term house nigger constitutes a critique of that system of organized enslavement.  The term, to my ears and, I think, to the ears of the majority of people who are familiar with it, refers to the system under which Blacks were enslaved, exploited, raped, tortured and murdered.  There is a fundamental difference between using a term that refers to one element of a system that was based upon racism and using a term that is itself racist.  House nigger is an example of the former and nigger is an example of the latter.

Obviously, racism still exists and the existence of the n-word both reflects and sustains that awful reality.  Thus, to use the word by itself is to participate in the perpetuation of racism.  But to situate the term within the historical context of the racist and economic system of enslavement of African-, Afro-Caribbean and African-American black people by the slave-holding states of the United States prior to the Emancipation Proclamation and the victory of the Union over the Confederacy, serves to remind us that the ultimate purpose of enslavement was simply to enable one group of human beings to enrich themselves at the expense of the rights and the very lives of another group of human beings.  It reminds us that slavery thrived here and that the system was based on racism.

Now, having said all this, and even if one accepts my reasoning, can it be assumed that everyone is familiar with the full meaning and significance of the phrase that Maher used?  I would say no.  That is one reason why Maher probably should not have used it and why his apology for having used it is appropriate.

But, far more significant, it seems to me, is what Maher's easy dropping of the n word says about the state of our society, even allowing that Maher used it in a phrase in which its use conveys a different meaning than the word does by itself.  If we are to have a frank discussion about the n word, such a discussion cannot be profitable without acknowledging the fact that, thanks primarily to Donald Trump, we are living in a social and historical context in which the lid that had been kept on covert bigotry has been torn away.  We are living in an age when the use of insulting, demeaning and marginalizing language is more and more defended, thanks largely to Trump's repeated rejection throughout the campaign of 'political correctness' in tandem with his scapegoating and vilifying of primarily non-White people, on the specious grounds of 'free speech.'  It is no coincidence that this very day a 'free speech' rally is to be held in Portland, Oregon by alt-righters (white nationalists and neo-Nazis), including such notable hate groups as the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the Alt-Knights, ostensibly to defend the principle of free speech.  This is in the wake of several notorious instances this year in which racist, misogynistic and bigoted charlatans such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter and Charles Murray were shouted down or otherwise prevented from speaking on several college campuses.  Obviously, someone has to create a 'safe space' where bigots can promote their racist and xenophobic worldviews and far-right hate groups are only too happy to answer the call.  Hence today's demonstration in Portland.

Trump has egregiously damaged the social fabric of the United States and it will certainly take generations to repair it, if it even can be repaired.  I wonder whether Maher's gaffe does not in fact reflect this new reality.  As the old-fashioned notion of concerning oneself with the feelings of others and moderating one's speech lest it cause needless pain and offense (quaint by today's standards) is increasingly discarded and dismissed as 'political correctness,'  a general coarsening of public speech and a breakdown in propriety - a shift in the border between what is permissible to say publicly and what is not (a shift in the Overton window, in other words) - seems to be the inevitable result.  Trump didn't create bigotry but he certainly made it far more socially acceptable to give voice to it - whether through a careless and arrogant disregard for the feelings of others or whether because of an overtly militant bigotry which seeks to proclaim itself publicly, defiantly, and proudly. Again, in this context, claims of 'political correctness' and 'free speech' are disingenuous: it is no coincidence that the neo-right, white nationalist movement has taken to dismissing as 'snowflakes' those who, inexplicably, object to being subjected to hate speech and thereby demeaned and marginalized.

Maher, of course, has always been about rejecting 'political correctness.'  His previous show, after all, was called "Politically Incorrect."   But, as always, context provides the key to determining when a term is meant or used disparagingly and when it isn't.  What was Maher talking about when he used the phrase for which he has drawn so much outrage (much of it faux outrage, as all of the outrage coming from the right is in this case)?  He certainly wasn't talking about the institution of slavery and the relegation of some enslaved people to field work and others to domestic work.  He just used the phrase metaphorically to explain his own unsuitability to the hard physical labor of field work.  But, other than the fact that his interviewee, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, had made this comment to Maher - "We'd love to have you work in the fields with us" - there was absolutely no reason for Maher to invoke the phenomenon of the 'house nigger' as opposed to an enslaved person consigned to field labor.  Field work has always existed, with or without enslaved people to do it.  Moreover, it is honorable and valuable work and, without it, most of us would have to do without much of what is grown and harvested on farms.  There was absolutely no reason for Maher to tie working in a field to slave labor.  This is why it was jarring and disconcerting to hear Maher use it, even leaving aside the question of whether the phrase house nigger is racist in and of itself.  It had absolutely nothing to do with the conversation.  So why did this particular phrase come so readily to him?  Given that there was virtually no contextual justification for him to use that phrase, does his having done so reflect his own latent or covert racism?  Does it reflect the coarsened, anything-goes tenor of today's public discourse?  Perhaps some of both - only Maher can answer the first question.  My sense is that it was thoughtlessness and insensitivity on Maher's part.

So when, if ever, is it okay to use the n word or a phrase that includes it? This leads me to the phenomenon of Black people using 'the n word.'  I understand that, in certain contexts, use of that word is meant to be descriptive of the inferior status of Blacks in a White-dominant culture.  It does not appear to be an act of 'appropriation' or 'reclaiming,' as queer was reclaimed and 're-branded' as a self-designation by gay men back in the '80s as an act of defiance against a heteronormative and homophobic culture.  I think that that is why it is socially permissible for both gays and non-gays alike to use queer but not permissible for both Blacks and non-Blacks to use nigger.  When Blacks use the n word, as I understand it, they are speaking among themselves and within the context of their shared experience in a society in which racism remains entrenched and prevalent.  They are using the term not in order to neuter it or to confer legitimacy upon its use by non-Blacks but the very opposite.  Nigger, when used by Black people themselves, should be understood to be a kind of shibboleth.  That is why the argument by some Whites - "if it's okay for Black people to use the n word then it should be okay for White people to use it" - is false.  It is a deliberately false argument when invoked by those who are actively racist and an ignorantly false argument when invoked by those who are passively racist.  Nigger simply has a different meaning and significance depending upon who is using it and why.

The concept that I have been trying to illustrate through both of these examples - Maher's use of the n word in the phrase house nigger and the use of the n word by Black people - is that the meaning or significance of a word is not strictly immanent but depends on the context in which it is used.  That is equally true of symbols (and words, themselves, after all, are symbols, too).  Just as there is a vast difference between using the n word to reference the history of racism and using it as a pejorative in an act of contemporary racism, there is a vast difference between acknowledging history and celebrating history.  Again, this is why context matters.  This is particularly relevant now, as the movement to do away with the living symbols of Black oppression, such as the confederate flag and monuments to the heroes of the confederacy, gains traction.  The failure - or refusal - to distinguish between the act of remembering and the act of celebrating is a disingenuous way of perpetuating the original harm.  I mention this here because I see an analogy between the controversy regarding the civil-war- and post-civil-war-era symbols of the South and the movement to banish them from the public square on the one hand, and the controversy regarding Maher's use of house nigger and the impulse to banish the n word from the public square, on the other.  If one seeks merely to document and remember history, then the appropriate location for the symbols of the South's rebellion over the issue of slavery is a museum.  If, alternatively, one seeks to perpetuate the legacy, the effects and the worldview of those who enslaved Black people, then the appropriate locations for the confederate flag and monuments to the heroes of the confederacy are flying over state capitols and in public spaces, respectively.   That is the difference between a museum and a public space. A museum creates a context in which its contents are viewed critically.  If it is a historiographical museum, its contents are contextualized as artifacts.  The curator is, in effect, saying, "This is what was"; not "This is what ought to be."  In contrast, a public space presents its contents as a living statement of what is and of what that society aspires to be.  Its curator - the state - is, in effect, saying, "This is who and what we are."

Similarly, if one seeks merely to refer to the phenomenon of the house nigger in service of a larger historiographical and didactic purpose, language, in that context, functions as sort of museum: a repository of a sordid past.  But if, alternatively, one seeks to perpetuate that past, then language functions as a vital and immediate means of conveying racist sentiments.  That, I maintain, is the difference between the phrase that Maher used and the n word.  The problem, here, aside from the fact that Maher had no compelling reason to use the phrase that he did in the first place, is that the contents of his show are much more the stuff of the present-day public square than than they are of a museum.  Indeed, that is why Maher's show is called "Real Time."

 

Revised 29 August 2023

FGM and MGM

by David Balashinsky

FGM has been in the news lately.  This is on account of the arrest and indictment last month of two Michigan physicians (as well as the wife of one of them) for allegedly performing genital-alteration surgery on two 7-year-old girls.  One of the physicians, Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, practices internal medicine and the other, Jumana Nagarwala, is an emergency-department physician.  They, along with Attar's wife, Farida Attar (who is Attar's office manager) have all been charged with the commission of female genital mutilation, conspiracy to commit female genital mutilation, and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.  In addition, the two physicians have also been charged (somewhat perplexingly) with conspiracy to transport a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. 

Although this story has exploded throughout the media and been the subject of widespread commentary, it is an interview with the anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu, conducted by Tucker Carlson for Fox "News," that I believe provides a particularly compelling foundation for a brief discussion of the extent to which FGM (female genital mutilation) and MGM (male genital mutilation) are fundamentally the same.  This is, in part, because Dr. Ahmadu touches upon the ethnocentrism, so prevalent here in the United States, that constitutes the conceptual foundation for the double standard that many here maintain with respect to these two practices.  At the same time, Carlson, himself, as he reveals in his comments throughout the interview, perfectly epitomizes that very ethnocentrism, hence, that double standard.

There is actually little or nothing that can be said about FGM that cannot be said with equal validity about MGM.  Both practices are rooted in deeply entrenched cultural beliefs and attitudes about anatomy, sex, sexuality, and gender.  The double standard to which  many Americans  tenaciously cling demonstrates their cultural arrogance.  What they are as much as saying is  "It's okay when we do it but when they do it it's mutilation."

Carlson's refusal to acknowledge the ethical and sociological argument that FGM and MGM are fundamentally the same results largely from the fact that, like many Americans, he views MGM through the distorting lens of his own cultural experience: an experience in which MGM has been normalized while FGM remains alien. But, as Ahmadu notes, in those cultures that practice FGM, it is not viewed as "mutilation." They reject that nomenclature just as vehemently as supporters of MGM here reject the term "mutilation" to refer to what is euphemistically known as "circumcision."

Carlson's inability to bridge the cultural divide also rests in part on a false assumption regarding the facts and in part on faulty reasoning.  First, he states, erroneously, that FGM is only illegal when it removes "an entire portion of the sex organ." That is not true. Even a slight ceremonial nick to any part of the vulva is treated as a felony. Contrast that with the radical prepucectomy to which over 3,000 infant boys are subjected daily in our own genital-cutting culture here in the United States of America.  In fact, The World Health Organization defines and categorizes FGM into four types.  The inclusion of amputation of the prepuce within a subcategory of one of these types means that this particular form of FGM is identical to infant male circumcision.

Carlson's faulty reasoning comes into play when he states that there are no studies that demonstrate any health benefits of FGM in contrast to those that purport to demonstrate the health benefits of MGM.  This is, indeed, one of the most commonly cited alleged distinctions between FGM and MGM.  But absence of proof isn't proof of absence.  As the Oxford bioethicist Brian D. Earp has noted^*, the fact that studies do not support the "benefits" of FGM is due largely to the fact that such studies do not exist. As Earp has pointed out,

any scientist who tried to . . . [conduct such a study] would be arrested under anti-FGM laws (and would never get approval from an ethics review board). . .   As a consequence of this, every time one sees the claim that 'FGM has no health benefits' - a claim that has become something of a mantra for the WHO - one should read this as saying, 'we actually don't know if certain minor, sterilized forms of FGM have health benefits, because it is unethical - and would be illegal - to find out.

Such potential benefits might include a decreased incidence of UTIs, STDs, and vulvar cancer.

In contrast, there remains in the United States a widespread notion that it is perfectly ethical to experiment on baby boys by permanently amputating a major, normal, sensitive, and functional part of their genitals in order to conduct, as Earp writes, "study after well-funded study" in search of the elusive benefits that may result from this amputation. The double standard here occurs because our society approaches both FGM and MGM with a set of a priori assumptions that the former is intrinsically harmful and always performed for malevolent reasons while the latter is intrinsically benign at the very least or positively beneficial. But this set of assumptions is not borne out by the facts and certainly not by controlled, side-by-side scientific studies of the procedures performed under "appropriate" (meaning aseptic) conditions. And in all probability they never will be.  That says much more about our cultural assumptions than it does about scientific hypothesizing.  As Earp writes, "Imagine a report by the CDC referring to the benefits of removing the labia of infant girls, where the only morally relevant drawback to such a procedure was described as the ‘risk of surgical complications.'"

Of course, any amputation of a body part has potential benefits. If you amputate an infant's hand, her chances of getting it crushed in a car door later on in life are reduced to zero. But what about that child's right to grow up with her hand in place? What about her right to decide for herself that the benefits of having her hand - it is hers, after all - outweigh the risks of keeping it, or vice versa?

There is no rational or ethical basis for treating the male prepuce any differently from a hand or - more to the point - from a female prepuce. A prepuce is a prepuce. But there is a difference in how male and female prepuces are treated and this is due entirely, as Earp (and others) have observed, to a culturally determined valuation of the male prepuce as essentially vestigial and worthless, even a noxious and harmful structure. The putative innocuousness and even salubriousness of male "circumcision" in the United States therefore rests entirely on the completely arbitrary social construct of the male prepuce, in contrast to the female prepuce, as serving no purpose, having no function, having no value and, therefore, having no legitimacy.  But that is not how the majority of intact men feel about it.  And it is certainly not how many victims of MGM feel about it.

No one - female, male, or intersex - should ever be deprived of the right to own and control her, his, or their body and to decide, for herself, himself, or theirself, which parts he, she, or they get to keep and which parts get cut off.
___________________________________________________________

* See, in particular, Brian D. Earp: "Boys and girls alike," in Aeon, 13 January 2015, or the longer essay from which it was was adapted, Earp, B. D. (2014). "Female genital mutilation (FGM) and male circumcision: Should there be a separate ethical discourse?"
Practical Ethics. University of Oxford. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/…/Female_genital_mutilation_FGM_an…. DOI: 10.13140/2.1.3530.4967.

Here is a link to one of many YouTube videos of the interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZdsSYQ3Mik

Here are links to some other worthwhile commentaries:

http://www.arclaw.org/resources/articles/is-circumcision-legal-peter-w-adler

https://mosaicscience.com/story/troubled-history-foreskin

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/americas-infuriating-double-standard-on-cutting-childrens_us_5908fef7e4b03b105b44bd0e

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morten-frisch/time-for-us-parents-to-reconsider-the-acceptability-of-infant-male-circumcision_b_7031972.html?utm_hp_ref=science

My Response to the White House "Joint Address Issues Survey"

by David Balashinsky

Out of the blue I received an email from Trump's White House inviting me to take part in a "Joint Address Issues Survey." It states, in part, "Now is your chance to give your input. Let us know what issues you want President Trump to focus on and your ideas for the future of our country. Take the survey and share your thoughts."

The survey includes the usual heavily slanted and loaded questions, such as this: "Which accomplishment(s) do you consider the most significant of the Trump Administration so far?" It then lists a host of "accomplishments" (these, of course, are the "alternative-fact" sort of accomplishments) that one may acknowledge with a mouse click. Given that none of Trump's nefarious accomplishments (it would be more apt to call them misdeeds) was listed or at least credited properly (as a misdeed rather than an accomplishment) and that those that were do not in fact constitute accomplishments by any rational definition of the word, I left all these blank.

Fortunately, there was also a free-text area where one may contribute one's "Ideas to make America great again." Since they asked, this is what I wrote:

1. Trump should immediately stop lying and apologize to the American people for having done so.
2. Trump should issue a strongly worded statement to the effect that a free press is the cornerstone of a free and democratic society and that he fully respects the integrity of the news organizations that he has libeled with the false charge of presenting "fake news."
3. Trump should withdraw Neil Gorsuch as the nominee to fill the seat on the SCOTUS that was stolen by the Republicans and renominate Merrick Garland. 
4. Trump should replace his cabinet with people who are actually qualified and who actually believe in the missions of the departments they will be leading. 
5. Trump should direct his attorney general to immediately appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump campaign's connections to the Russian government including any possible collusion to subvert the United States elections last November. 
6. Trump should stop ripping off the tax payers and pay for his own travel and security, as well as that of his family. 
7. Trump should immediately fire Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and denounce them for the neo-Nazi white nationalists that they are. 
8. Trump should issue an apology to the American people for being one of the most divisive and destructive public figures in our nation's history; he should also apologize to the American people for making the United States a laughing stock before the rest of the world. 
9. Trump should rescind his executive order banning refugees and Muslims from entering the United States. 
10. Trump should rescind his executive order scaling back equal-access protections for transgender persons. 
11. Trump should pursue comprehensive, rational, and humane immigration reform that doesn't destroy families and that doesn't deport productive and assimilated undocumented Americans, and he should publicly renounce his intention to waste billions of tax dollars on a wall across our border with Mexico. 
12. Trump should immediately renounce his calls for repeal of the ACA and instead urge congress to improve it by guaranteeing coverage for all Americans; this should include a not-for-profit, government-administered public option (a Medicare-for-all approach). 
13. Trump should direct the attorney general and the department of Justice to immediately step up monitoring and tracking of domestic white nationalist hate groups, including the KKK and neo-Nazi groups. 
14. Trump should issue a statement apologizing for his office's recent Holocaust commemoration statement that failed to make any mention of the 6 million Jews who died in the attempted genocide of the Jewish people and which, through this very omission, served to advance the narrative of Holocaust deniers that the Jewish people were not singled out for extermination by the Nazis because they were Jews. 
15. Trump should issue a strongly worded statement in support of a constitutional amendment reversing the Citizens United SCOTUS decision that has opened the floodgates of corporate money corrupting our democracy. 
16. Trump should issue a strongly worded statement acknowledging that Roe v. Wade is settled law and acknowledging a woman's right to obtain a safe and legal abortion. 
17. Trump should urge Congress to increase funding for Planned Parenthood because, besides providing cancer screenings and other important preventative health measures, Planned Parenthood actually prevents abortions by providing contraceptives. 
18. Trump should commit the United States to getting off of fossil fuels and instead pursuing the development of renewable and "green" energy technologies; and he should recommit the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. 
19. Trump should urge Congress to enact real tax reform so that corporations, millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. This should include an end to such gimmicks as taxing earned income at a higher rate than capital gains whereby Warren Buffet, for example, pays a lower tax rate, as a percent of his income, than his secretary does. It should also include cracking down on corporations and individuals who hide their wealth offshore in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. 
20. Trump should greatly expand and urge Congress to fund improved benefits and services for our nation's veterans. 
21. Trump should issue a public endorsement of increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour and he should use his executive-order powers to further that goal in all federal hiring and government-awarded contracts. 
22. Trump should issue a proclamation rededicating the United States of America as a beacon of liberty and equal opportunity for all and stating unequivocally our nation's opposition to bigotry and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identification, sex, ability or disability, race, age, ethnicity, religion or lack of religion and nationality. 
23. Trump should immediately make public his tax returns from the past ten years. 
24. Trump and his immediate family should divest themselves of and liquidate any holdings or assets that may create a conflict of interest between their personal gain and their public service. 
25. Trump should urge Congress to enact commonsense gun reform including mandatory background checks and the banning of high-powered military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. 
26. Trump should convene a national conference on demilitarizing our nation's police forces and working toward fostering trust and mutual respect between police and the citizens they take an oath to protect and serve. 
27. Trump should urge Congress - and should use his executive-order powers - to eliminate private, for-profit prisons. 
28. Trump should issue an executive order banning all drilling and mining on federally owned wilderness areas and national parks. 
29. Trump should urge Congress to increase funding for infrastructure, the arts and humanities, education, public transportation, and early childhood nutrition and wellness programs (this should include parenting programs for new parents). 
30. Trump should direct the relevant federal agencies within the executive branch to step up enforcement of basic animal welfare regulations including (but not limited to) the elimination of gestation crates, forced crowding and confinement of livestock and poultry and other inhumane factory-farm practices, the elimination of puppy mills and animal-fighting enterprises and putting other unscrupulous breeders out of business, and the strict enforcement of laws banning the trafficking of wildlife. 
31. Trump should issue a statement in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. 
32. And, last but not least, Trump should urge Congress to expand the 1996 federal anti-FGM bill to include all Americans - girls, boys, and intersex - because every child and every human being has a right to grow up with his genitals intact and to decide for himself which parts of his body he gets to keep.

Perhaps I should have stopped there but, gluttons for punishment that they are, they actually asked me if I had any additional comments. So I concluded by saying this:

Trump lied to the American people when he promised to "drain the swamp." Instead he packed his cabinet with Wall Street insiders. You're not fooling the majority of the American people, Trump. You're a liar and a fraud and we know it.

The Women's March on Washington, January 21, 2017: A Call for a More Inclusive Feminism

by David Balashinsky

I am proud to have marched in Washington, D.C. on January 21st, 2017. It's a good feeling to know that one has been not only a witness to but a participant in history. And how could I do otherwise? The sexual predator and liar-in-chief who has just been sworn in as the nation's 45th president has not only boasted about sexually assaulting numerous women and not only makes a habit of denigrating women and grading them on their looks but, against this background of casual and aggressive sexism and misogyny, has stated his intent to nominate for the SCOTUS only candidates committed to overturning Roe v. Wade, returning women to the days of wire-hanger abortions in seedy motels. I believe that abortion rights are central to human rights because nothing is more important to one's ability to determine her or his own destiny than control and ownership of one's own body. That's why I protested last Saturday.

But I would also like to argue another closely related point here and, in so doing, issue a public challenge to my fellow feminists. While I remain committed to the idea that bodily autonomy is the quintessentially feminist position, I remain equally committed to the idea that bodily autonomy does not belong to women alone. It's time for feminists to stand up on behalf of boys, men, and intersex children for the same right of genital autonomy and bodily self ownership that they rightfully claim for girls and women. It is time for feminists to embrace the cause of ending non-consensual and non-therapeutic genital surgery of infant boys and intersex infants. 

 

Why? 

• Because, as Jeannine Parvati Baker has pointed out, "Circumcision is where sex and violence meet for the first time." 
• Because routine infant circumcision is medically unnecessary, harmful, painful, and poses numerous risks of complications including death. 
• Because non-therapeutic circumcision is performed overwhelmingly for reasons of custom, cosmesis, or religion and none of these reasons is of sufficient merit to warrant depriving the individual himself of the right to bodily self-ownership. 
• Because, from an ethical and moral perspective, non-therapeutic circumcision is no different from female genital mutilation. (Infant circumcision was popularized in the United States and Great Britain during the Victorian era as a way to discourage boys from masturbating. It is every bit as anti-sex and as contrary to contemporary notions of personal self-determination as FGM.)
• Because routine infant circumcision is increasingly being recognized by  professional medical organizations around the world as unethical and as a human rights violation. 
• Because every child, regardless of sex, including intersex, has an innate right to grow up with all of her or his body parts intact and to decide for herself or himself, when mature enough to do so, which parts s/he gets to keep and which parts get amputated.  
• Because non-therapeutic female genital cutting has been illegal in the United States since 1996 and boys and intersex infants have the same right to be protected against medically-unnecessary genital surgery as girls. 
• Because feminism is not only about bodily rights, bodily autonomy and self-determination but about equality, too. Genital-alteration surgery when not medically necessary (and it virtually never is) is inconsistent with everything that feminism stands for.

One of the themes that emerged both during the planning stages of the Women's March on Washington and during the demonstration itself was the principle of "intersectionality," the idea that a person may face discrimination in more than one way on account of different aspects of what she or he is.  For example, though both an African-American woman and a woman of Celtic ancestry may have to contend with sexism, the African-American woman  also has to contend with racism.  An intersectionality-oriented approach to feminism is based on the recognition of these multiple ways in which a person can face discrimination.  This approach is often contrasted with (and emerged as a critique of) a monolithic (if perhaps a pragmatic and compromising) approach to feminism in which the claims of racial or other minorities have been given short shrift or expected to be subsumed within the larger claims of feminists on behalf of women broadly. 

 

It is no secret that these sometimes contentious and differing approaches have led to some tension within the feminist movement and, as has been widely reported, even threatened to undermine the unity and turnout of the Women's March on Washington last weekend.   I am not arguing here for any additional fracturing of feminism nor for any dilution of the feminist message.  I am also sensitive to the vigilance of women feminists against male whataboutism and against the tendency of some men in some quarters to hijack women's issues and make everything always about men.  I acknowledge that arguing for an end to male genital cutting on the basis of the feminist principle of respect for the bodily rights of the individual may subject me to accusations that that is what I am doing, particularly because I am making this argument in the context of the Women's March.  

I am willing to take that risk because I remain more convinced than ever, after marching last Saturday, that the issue of bodily integrity not only has a rightful place under the rubric of feminism but that to abstract it from feminism makes no sense philosophically or strategically.  Every feminist has an interest in creating a society that respects the borders of every human body, no matter what that body looks like or how it is configured. 

These thoughts crystallized for me last Saturday in Washington, D.C. as I stood taking in the many protest signs that were on display.  Three in particular forcefully drove home to me the way in which bodily integrity for all is a feminist issue. 

One sign, held by a 30ish man read, "I want my daughters and sons to be treated equally."  This is as compelling a statement against denying boys equality with respect to genital autonomy and integrity as it is against denying girls equality with respect to education, sports  and every other opportunity that boys enjoy.

Another sign contained a quote by  Audre Lorde: "There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."  This, to me, epitomizes the importance of the intersectionality-oriented approach to feminism.  But it also epitomizes an essential feature of feminism.  Namely, that feminism is not just about equal pay for women, freedom from sexual violence and harassment.  It is about many things, including LGBTQ+ rights, deconstructing gender roles, ending human trafficking, opposing racism, environmental justice, and many other important issues, besides.  But, on the most fundamental level, feminism is about autonomy: autonomy of the body and  autonomy of the self.  Non-therapeutic infant circumcision violates these principles and this, too, is why this issue belongs under the rubric of feminism.

At the same time, precisely because of the principle of intersectionality, there is room for it there.  Patriarchy, after all, does not only harm women; it harms children of all sexes and genders, too.  Male genital cutting and the binary-normative sexual-assignment surgery to which intersex children are routinely subjected are both cases in point.

Still another sign that I saw contained the great line (attributed to various authors, including Sartre, King Jr., and Maya Angleou), "No one is free unless everyone is free."  Here again is an articulation of the universality of the feminist principles of justice and equal opportunity irrespective of sex or gender.  And, just as feminism has never been about benefiting women at the expense of men's rights (fundamental human rights, as we so often point out, are not like a pie, where a fair share for all means less for anyone else), so feminism must recognize that the right to bodily autonomy belongs as much to people with penises and to intersex individuals as it does to people with vulvas.

I am proud to have taken to the streets to defend women's rights to own and control their own bodies. I've done so before this past Saturday and I will do so again. But now I call upon all feminists to stand up in the same way on behalf of the right of boys, men, and intersex infants to own and control their own bodies. It's time for all feminists and all progressives and anyone who cares about human rights to resolutely condemn the unnecessary alteration of any child's genitals.

Growing up with one's body whole and intact is a basic human right. Recognizing and acknowledging that right as belonging to all of us by virtue of our common humanity is demanded by the principles of justice and equality.  What could be more feminist than that?

   

About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York. I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors of Doctors Opposing Circumcision and serves on the leadership team for Bruchim.
 

Video Review: "The Most Common Abuse in the American Church," posted by Little Images

by David Balashinsky

https://www.facebook.com/littleimgs/videos/10154625889587317

Little Images is a website and Facebook page that states that its missions is "Equipping the Church to treat children with dignity as bearers of God's image."  It further explains on its homepage that Little Images is about "Protecting babies from cutting by producing media, messaging Christians, writing letters, publishing articles, and providing research support."  Its cover photo (on its Facebook page) includes a picture of a smiling infant boy accompanied by this rhetorical question in a bold yet appealingly understated font:  "Why not keep God's design for your son intact?"

Little Images produced a video in which it sets forth numerous reasons why male genital mutilation goes against Christian theology and Christian ethics.  And it cites, in support of its thesis, a number of Christian philosophers and church leaders from Augustine of Hippo to Pope Pius the XIIth.

The video, entitled "The Most Common Abuse in the American Church," is well produced, polished, and powerful in its simplicity.   And yet I have several basic objections to it.

First, I believe that it seeks to obtain the right result but for the wrong reason. The right not to have one's body mutilated precedes religion. That right is more basic and more fundamental than any particular religious creed. If you ground the right not to be mutilated on a particular religious doctrine, then that right is not absolute and applies only to the followers of that particular religion. But religious beliefs and doctrines differ. That holds even in the case of exegesis when different denominations within a given religion differ over the interpretation of shared religious texts. And these interpretations also change over time. If, in one century, genital mutilation is considered unorthodox, what is to prevent its becoming orthodox in the next? Basic human rights should not be based upon so ephemeral and shaky a foundation as religious scripture or else they will have no permanence. 

Moreover, if the right not to be subjected to genital mutilation is based only on a particular religious doctrine, then any opposing religious doctrine that supports genital mutilation necessarily has just as much validity. Thus, although the laudable objective of this video is to discourage genital mutilation, because its argument rests ultimately on "the word of God," its underlying thesis can be used for precisely the opposite purpose. In other words, the premise of this video - that MGM is wrong not in and of itself but only because it is displeasing to God - can be turned to the advantage of any other religious group that seeks to defend and justify MGM on the grounds that it "is pleasing to God." I am unwilling that defenders of genital mutilation (of any religion) should have handed to them on a silver platter such a justification as that and that, I am afraid, is precisely what this video - as an unintended consequence, to be sure - may do.

My second objection is precisely the same objection that I have to the argument that a religious exemption should be added to laws banning MGM. As a Jewish male, that makes me feel like my rights don't matter as much as the rights of Christians. If I were an infant again, why should I not be protected against genital mutilation just as much as any other infant? What this video implies to me is that protecting non-Christian infants from genital mutilation is not quite as important - at least not as important to the creator of the Little Images video - and not as central to this cause as protecting Christian infants from genital mutilation. That makes me extremely uncomfortable. To understand this, look at pictures of the Bay Area Intactivists protests in front of the Northern California chapter of the ACLU. No one can look at a picture of Brian Levitt demonstrating against the NCACLU's support for MGM on the grounds of "religious freedom" and not be moved. Mr. Levitt is pictured holding up a sign that reads, "ACLU - Why won't you protect my Jewish body?" That is exactly how I feel personally and that is precisely my objection to the position of the ACLU. Although well–intentioned, the Little Images video, at least to some extent, makes me feel the same way. I object to the implicit exclusion of my right and the right of all non-Christian children to be free from genital mutilation. Moreover, I, as a Jewish man, am working to protect all children from genital mutilation: children of all sexes (including intersex), all nationalities, and all religions. I am not focusing my efforts on protecting only "my" people and I see no reason why Christians should focus their efforts on protecting only "theirs."

When Congress banned FGM in 1996, it specifically stated in text accompanying the statute that the finding of Congress was that the law did not infringe on the legitimate practice of religion. Congress recognized that the right not to be subjected to genital mutilation is absolute, hence more basic and of greater weight than the right of one's parents to exercise their religious beliefs when doing so entails the ritual genital mutilation of their children. What was so perverse and, I believe, unconstitutional about the language of this law is that it exempted 50% of the population - males - from this protection. The creator of this video, in contrast, has taken precisely the opposite tack, namely, that genital mutilation is wrong not in spite of religion but because of it. But, like the 1996 FGM law, this approach limits the protection of infants to only a certain segment of the population; it aims to protect some infants but not others. Here the distinction is based not upon sex but upon religion. It is almost as though the creator of this video is making a strategic calculation that not all children can be saved from genital mutilation and so she or he is concentrating her or his efforts on creating a figurative Christian sanctuary in which only Christian children may be protected from genital mutilation. Meanwhile, the doors of this sanctuary are effectively being slammed shut in the faces of non-Christian children. Although surely not its intent (at least, I hope not), that, at any rate, is how many non-Christians (and, perhaps, Christians, too) are likely to interpret this video.

I understand the urge to appeal to a particular audience - to tailor the message, so to speak - in order to increase the likelihood that one's target audience will be more receptive to one's message, but doing so comes, I believe, at the risk of what may ultimately prove to be a great cost to this movement. And this ties in with my first objection. Namely, that by appealing narrowly and specifically to Christians on the basis of Christian doctrine, the maker of this video is in effect conceding that genital autonomy is not a basic human right. But until the right not to be subjected to genital mutilation is recognized universally and absolutely as a basic human right without any exception whatsoever, the world will be condemned to live with it.

Trump, Conspiracy Theories, and Mob Mentality

by David Balashinsky

Within the past few days there have been two news stories about right-wing conspiracy theories percolating upward, as such things inevitably do, from the morass of fake news platforms, online chatrooms and posts to actual instances of harassment and violence.   Both conspiracy theories appear to have originated with or, at the very least, been launched into the cybersphere by Alex Jones, a man whom Donald Trump has praised effusively.  Of course, people have a right to believe whatever they want to believe and to say whatever they want to say.  But a line is crossed - as epitomized by the example of screaming "fire" in a crowded movie theater - when such speech precipitates actual harm.  One of these conspiracy theories, the so-called "pizzagate" conspiracy, which consists essentially of allegations that Hillary Clinton is involved in running a satanic child-sexual-exploitation ring headquartered in a Washington, D.C. pizzeria where the children are being held captive,  has resulted in death threats against and harassment of the owner and employees of this restaurant and culminated earlier this week in a vigilante firing off a semi-automatic weapon on the premises while "investigating."  The other conspiracy theory peddled by Jones is that the massacre by Adam Lanza of twenty 6- and 7-year-old children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 never occurred but was a hoax by the federal government, presumably so that the feds would have their long-coveted pretext for confiscating Americans' guns.  This has now culminated in the arrest of a woman for making death threats against the father of one of the massacre's victims.  

Although the pizzagate myth is manufactured out of whole cloth and the Sandy Hook myth is the opposite - the negation of an event that actually occurred - both of these conspiracy theories are notable for their historical precedents, from the medieval accusations that were made against Jews to the early modern accusations of witchcraft to the contemporary phenomenon of holocaust denial (another of the alt-right's preoccupations).  

But even more important than the academic interest that these right-wing conspiracy theories may hold for historians is that, however false they may be, they end up creating real victims or, as with the Sandy Hook massacre, they re-victimize those horrendously victimized already.  Thus, while there were no actual victims until Alex Jones insured that there would be in the persons of the owner and employees of Comet Ping Pong, there were hundreds of actual victims of the Sandy Hook massacre: the 20 children and 6 adults who were gunned down in cold blood as well as the families of the deceased who were left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.  Because of Alex Jones, the survivors would be made to suffer the most painful sort of insult-added-to-injury.  That is what is so utterly callous and reprehensible about spreading rumors and conspiracy theories such as these.  Imagine what it must feel like to have been the parent of a 6-year-old who was murdered and to have to listen to someone claim that your child never existed or that she wasn't really murdered.  That is the sort of inhuman, depraved lunacy that right-wing conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones have peddled and continue to peddle without a shred of concern for the consequences.  Imagine what it must feel like to lose your child only to be subjected to harassment, stalking and threats.  This is the sort inhuman, depraved conduct that Jones's lies have inspired in some of his followers.

Why does this matter now, more than it did one year ago?  Because Donald J. Trump has himself traded on these very types of right-wing conspiracy theories.  Trump is a fellow traveler of the alt-right who has actively courted its membership and promoted some of its leading figures to the highest echelons of power in the Trump White House.  Trump and Jones, meanwhile, have something of a mutual admiration society: NPR reports that Trump has gushed over Jones and that, after the election, Trump called to thank Jones for his support.  It is little wonder that Trump should share in Jones's penchant for fabrication, outright lies and conspiracy theories.   Crowds of Muslims in New Jersey cheering as the World Trade Center came crashing down; global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government; millions of illegal votes for Clinton cast last month by dead people or resulting from other forms of voter fraud: all of these are completely baseless claims without an iota of supporting evidence that serve directly or indirectly only to advance the right-wing agenda.  Each of these claims (and, perhaps, most notoriously, the "birther" lie about President Obama) has been iterated by Trump.

But telling lies, spreading rumors, and promoting "fake news" causes real harm to real people. Today it might be death threats against the grieving father of a Sandy Hook victim, and yesterday it might be a man firing a semi-automatic rifle in a restaurant filled with patrons, but make no mistake: the rumor-mongering and baseless allegations of Alex Jones, Michael Flynn (both the elder and the younger), and Trump himself is precisely the sort of reckless behavior that history shows us inevitably leads to mass hysteria and mob violence. It was just this sort of scurrilous finger-pointing that led to the trials and executions of accused witches in Salem, Massachusetts at the end of the 17th century and to the burning at the stake of tens of thousands (some sources put the figure at between 100,000 and 300,000) of mostly (but by no means exclusively) women in Europe during the 15th through the 18th centuries on the basis of nothing more substantial than accusations that they practiced witchcraft.  Yet another notable example of this sort of mob mentality was the periodic rounding up and killing of Jews - usually in mass burnings - in the communities along the Rhine in medieval Europe on the basis of what we would now call conspiracy theories about Jews having caused Bubonic plague by poisoning the wells or their abducting Christian children, killing them, and using their blood to make matzohs (the notorious "blood libel"). 

It is surely no coincidence that there are striking parallels between the wildly false accusations against Clinton in the pizzagate conspiracy theory and the historical accusations of witchcraft in Renaissance Europe and the blood libel against Jews in medieval Europe.  All involve false allegations of organized satanic ritual, sexual exploitation and depravity, and the abuse and murder of children.  Indeed, the Times reports that Alex Jones has actually stated that "Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up children." (Paradoxically, in the case of the Sandy Hook mass shooting, which actually did involve the murder of children, the one way that Jones and other right-wing conspiracy theorists could improve upon this story and thus turn it into something they could exploit was by denying that it ever happened.)  The mentality of all of those who perpetrate and participate in such mass hysteria as is demonstrated in each of these examples is exactly the same: the scapegoating and the demonization on the part of the accusers and the credulousness and complete abandonment of critical thinking on the part of the mobs who listen to them.

And this type of thinking - this mob mentality - is precisely what Donald Trump knowingly and shrewdly exploited in order to get elected. Trump might not have peddled stories about satanic sex rings but, with his demagoguery and scapegoating of Muslims, Mexicans and other minorities, with his campaign's shameless use of codewords and imagery to appeal to naked antisemitism and white nationalism, with his endorsement of the essential canon of right-wing conspiracy theories, with his appointment to his administration of some of the central players in this perverse predilection with gothic horror fantasies and right-wing paranoia and, most obviously, with his unbridled praise for Alex Jones, Trump has bestowed his official imprimatur upon the right-wing conspiracy-theory industry.  And because Trump has used his position to confer legitimacy on these right-wing conspiracy theorists and their fantasies, ultimately, it is now Trump himself who is responsible for them.  

This explains also why Trump has been so reticent on the subject of the support that he has received from the alt-right and why, even now, he has not repudiated it on his own initiative but rather, only when put on the spot, as when he participated in a post-election interview with the editorial- and management staff of the New York Times.  Trump validates right-wing conspiracy theorists and the alt-right and they, in turn, validate Trump.  It is a symbiotic relationship in which one cannot exist without the other.  That is why Trump represents an existential threat to our nation, to its democratic traditions and institutions, and to its social fabric.  

Meanwhile, the larger portion of the pro-Trump electorate and those craven Republicans who supported and continue to support Trump stand by silently and uncritically while the right-wing conspiracy theorists in effect scream "fire" in a crowded movie theater.

 

About me: I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York. I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF) , the board of directors and advisors of Doctors Opposing Circumcision and serves on the leadership team for Bruchim.