Some epic tweets regarding yesterday’s Hallmark Holiday of Father’s Day:
The author is “Feminist, socialist, part of the 99% and proud.” Can we agree that she would have a tough time getting a job at Hallmark, makers of cards for the 100%?
Separately, circulating in some (apparently deplorable) aviation groups: “Your dad’s not a pilot? Well, Happy Mother’s Day to your dad.”
She is nuts.
I’m surprised how many folks in the land of the free give in to few vocal activists who is seeding “if you not with us, you are against society” garbage into the people minds.
You has to go all the way back to 2014 and it’s one person ; so, I don’t think it’s a widespread sentiment.
Jon: This is great literature. We go back to the 1380s for great works by Chaucer, e.g., Troilus and Criseyde. Why is 2014 too far to go back for some well-expressed hatred of a Hallmark holiday?
This woman is wrong: two lesbians should view it as donor day, and two gays should view it as father’s day, so same-sex couples should be happy. Single mothers should view it as baby daddy day. Am I missing something? No. And it’s not about the patriarchy because there is mother’s day as well.
Somewhat: Should an all-male couple view it as “fathers’ day” rather than “father’s day”?
@Philg: Hallmark’s first gay Father’s Day card was 2014. They did the singular “father’s” on a card that said: “The Greatest Dad in the World! I’ve Got Two! Happy Father’s Day, Dad & Pop.” So I guess they stuck with the familiar form – for the sake of tradition!
https://www.colorlines.com/articles/asian-american-artist-makes-hallmarks-first-gay-fathers-day-cards
Last year, the Google Doodle for father’s day featured a single, androgynous ducklike “caregiver” creature, watching over a multicolored gaggle of gender-neutral, ducklike, teletubbyesque “children.”
https://www.google.com/doodles/fathers-day-2019-multiple-countries
That was apparently too partriarchal, so this year they ditched anything remotely humanoid and instead went with an “arts and crafts” motif, encouraging children to engage in the uber-patriarchal, hypermasculine ritual of scrapbooking (they called it “crafting”) for Father’s Day. Macaroni pieces, heart shapes, buttons, leaves, bumblebees, folded paper penguins, and seahorses! Very low on the testosterone scale, which is good for Google.
https://www.google.com/doodles/fathers-day-2020-june-21
We can’t tell from the Doodle which gender the seahorses are. People might remember that they have an interesting reproductive cycle: the male and female roles are reversed from a human perspective. (Despite all the theatrics, Science has calculated that the females still contribute more energy to the birthing of offspring, through the production of the eggs!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahorse#Reproduction
You can do the reading about the reproductive cycle of bumblebees (queen/worker drones, the queen regulates the drone activity via pheromones) and penguins (shared incubation, quite androgynous). So Google managed to leave room in its doodle for the smarter kids in the audience to discuss alternative sexuality and reproductive strategies.
Henry Repeating Arms still offered their Father’s Day commemorative rifles, I wonder for how many more years?
https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/henry-golden-boy-silver-lever-action-rimfire-rifle-with-fathers-day-engraved-receiver
Chicagoland managed to eclipse the previous weekend’s grim total of shooting deaths for Father’s Day weekend, with 104 shootings resulting in 14 fatalities, including a 3 year old boy and a 13 year old girl:
“Among the victims was 3-year-old Mekhi James, who police said was fatally shot Saturday as the boy was in a car with his father in the south Austin neighborhood. Police said the child’s 27-year-old father was the intended target when someone fired shots at the vehicle, ***but he is not cooperating with detectives.*** Community leaders are offering a $10,000 reward for any information in the boy’s killing.”
“Police Superintendent David Brown said police were working hard to track down those responsible for the violence in several Chicago communities. He said “gangs, guns and drugs” are the common thread in those shootings.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/20/21297470/chicago-fathers-day-weekend-shootings-homicide-gun-violence-june-19-22-104-shot
Violent offenders are being released from pretrial detention at the Cook County Jail on electronic monitoring because they don’t want prisoners to contract COVID-19. The Police Superintendent, David Brown, has indicated in a news conference that the monitoring program isn’t doing the monitoring part very well at all, so the gangbangers are being released from jail and going right back to settle the score, taking the bystanders along for the drive-bys. The “street outreach workers” don’t seem to be able to reach out and stop them.
https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicagos-top-cop-tries-to-deflect-blame-for-110-shootings/4702c992-86e5-4be9-b19b-e3f428e7ea7b
“Lightfoot said it’s harder than usual for cops to stem violence because the pandemic has taken some federal agents out of that effort and because county officials are trying to limit jail inmate numbers to curb the virus’s spread there, which has led to more people getting released after arrest.”
Her racism toward African-Americans is a thing to behold. Is she suggesting black fathers don’t matter? and they should not matter to whom, exactly?
Well, she does not exactly say that black fathers do not matter. She says that Father’s day is bad because (1) it promotes patriarchy; (2) black women are more likely to be affected by the misguided societal expectation (promoted and microaggressed by Hallmark) that there ought to be a father in the family. That’s not racist, just the opposite: more support for black sisters. She could not care less about a male of any color or shape, all of them are nazis.
At least, that’s my understanding of what she means.
She is just assuming that (1) black women are more likely to be without a male partner (why?), and (2) that the black community — who is she now speaking for — is better off without fathers. Last time I checked on can ask any black person what her/his opinion is on fatherhood, without having to ask Ms Snow White.
As far as I understand, she does not assume but rather restates a statistical fact:
“In 2015, 77% of Black babies were born to unmarried mothers”.
(2) my interpretation of what she is saying is that any community is better off without fathers( therefore the statistical reality above is apparently a positive feature).
I am not defending her:what she presumably advocating for is standard feminist (of the variety she seems to belong to) fare. I am pretty sure she is sincere in her conviction.
Besides, even if she were applying her understanding(regardless of its merits) of family dynamics only to a specific community, why would such an application be “very bad” (“very bad”== “racist”==”nazi”) ? Hypothetically, by a similar token, would approving fraternal polyandry in Nepal be “racist” ?
Ivan, unmarried does not mean uncoupled — people can be together till death does them part without ever being legally married. You know about ‘lies, damn lies, and statistics’? If Finns can live 50+ years together without bothering to marry officially, I fail to see why said ability should not be recognised in people of colour, short of blatant racism on her part.
Federico,
“unmarried does not mean uncoupled”.
That’s a fair point. Let me be more specific then:
Single black mother households constitute 45% percent of households with children under 18 vs. 17% single white mother households:
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/children.html
Now please oblige me, and do tell what exactly is racist in Daniella’s referring to the statistical difference above (black mothers are more likely to be single than other demographics) ?
Parenthetically, I am familiar with the saying you mention, and find it rather meaningless and used by people who run out of rational arguments.
Ivan, your figures show the majority of black families in the US do have a man in them (whether the man in a couple is the father of the children, irrespective of the kind of couple, it is for Phil to say!). In any case, the lady is assuming that black single mothers would not advocate to their own kids the benefits of having a father in the picture, or that their kids would not rather be in a family with a father. She is just taking her own assumptions and value system, and projecting them on black single mothers and children, denying their own ability to express what they’d prefer. You might say she is extremely condescending, but I find her condescension a sign of internalised racism — she does not single out any other group in her comments.
Federico,
She did not claim that the majority of black families are led by a single mother, she said *more likely* to be and she was right, you cannot deny that.
Now, I think based on the limited data Phil provided that you misunderstood her value system. That system appears, based on her statements, quite the opposite to what you take it to be. She stated that Father’s Day celebration promotes patriarchy, i.e. having an evil male in the family does not provide any benefits, just the reverse. Therefore, a single mother black family is better off, in superior position without an evil male around in comparison to say Asian families, hence no racism in her statements.
I could provide other feminist luminaries quotes basically stating the same, i.e. women with children are much better off without evil males around, but you can easily find them on the Internet if you are interested in this sort of stuff.
Ivan, by singling out black women as being especially better off without men, isn’t she racist? they are the most ‘liberated’ women according to her! also, mother and father day exclude wardens of the state, kids that without doubts are some of the most unfortunate. What about them?
Federico,
You seem to insist on the Humpty Dumpty definition of racism. My understanding of what people using the words mean in particular is expressing in words and deeds superiority of one group of people over the other based on their ancestry.
In the instant case, according to Daniella, single mothers and their children regardless of their ancestry are in a superior position due to the absence of adult evil males in the family. Thus, Daniella is not being racist towards black mothers, just the opposite, since she claims superiority of their chosen lifestyle over that of mothers of any ancestry who unwitting chose to invite the evil male into the family.
Genuinely curious, why you reverse the usual meaning of “being racist” in this case.
Ivan, the lady is complaining that father’s day excludes black kids more than non black kids — an interesting lack of consistency! I do not mind anything that excludes me from negative stuff (say, I would not mind immunity from speeding tickets). In any case, anyone telling me I am excluded from [insert whatever] assumes that [whatever] is actually something I might bemoan being excluded from *irrespective of my opinion*. Fighting a battle on my behalf, irrespective of my opinion, and my request that said battle be fought in the first place, is condescending. What is the root of said condescension? In my opinion in this case is racism: black women and kid *need* a white lady champion that will step in and speak for them. This is internalised racism (black women and kids are unable to speak for themselves and need a white lady champion). She in not wearing KKK robe, but her attitude she can go self appoint and tell everyone ‘someone think of black kids’, irrespective of what black families of any kind think, implies that black people are objects in her mind, not autonomous subjects. That’s racist.
In general, anyone championing a third party’s need to be (1) appointed by said third party, and (2) express what the third party actually wants to express, to avoid being a condescending obnoxious imbecile, whose condescension is rooted on the belief the third party cannot speak up (if champion and the championed are not of the same ethnic and social background this belief is based on prejudice).
Federico,
By saying “black people are objects in her mind” you claim that you can read Daniella’s mind. Clearly, this is impossible therefore you just “assume facts not in evidence” as Phil’s lawyer friends would objects.
If we assume your position that you spell out later: that the only way one’s desire to help a third party shall be judged pure if “appointed by said third party”. Otherwise, the very act of help would be condescending and indicating the third party’s lack of agency.
Applying your rules leads to some interesting conclusions:
Daniella was racist towards white single mothers as well as to the black ones. She merely remarked that numerically Hallmark caused more grief to latter than to the former.
Unicef has been and continues to be racist towards e.g. Somalian women while trying to eradicate female genital mutilation that the majority of women there and elsewhere in African countries support.
One would be racist to state that alcoholism is a problem in Russia as opposed to say France.
Etc ad infinitum.
Ivan, do you really believe that the people getting stuff from UNICEF and other western agency are stupid enough to think these are not just ways of getting then to toe the western party line? Female Genital Mutilation is a problem only Somali (and not just them) can solve. Who do you think you are? It’s not that this approach has not been tried before (for FGM and more stuff). Show some results that are not 100% due to the locals deciding what is is good and what is bad. Change comes from within, not without.
Also I cannot read the nice racist lady’s mind, but I can read what she writes.
Federico,
“do you really believe that ” . My beliefs are irrelevant here, I’ve been merely trying to understand the line of thinking that leads one to conclude that Daniella is a racist, and I think we succeeded in that endeavor.
We established that “the only way one’s desire to help a third party shall be judged pure if “appointed by said third party”. Otherwise, the very act of help would be condescending and indicating the third party’s lack of agency.” Therefore, the unsolicited desire/action to help to(or even worse to criticize) a member of another tribe will make such a busybody a racist.
Non-interference in other people affairs is a legitimate position, and your negative reaction to the UNICEF’s deciding that FGM must be eradicated (rather than practitioners themselves) confirms your consistency, although you dramatically circumscribe your ability to discuss any controversial topic since you will automatically must label yourself ‘racist’ according to your own definition in a situation possessors of some feature you approve/disapprove of belong to a different tribe.
UNICEF and whomever else (myself included) are extremely right in considering FGM an abhorrent practice (and in fact I never say anything to the contrary). Sadly, either the people in countries where this practice is being carried out decide to stop, or we are not going to stop it for them. It’s a bit like the US stopping the Vietnamese reunification, or all the other ‘failed to accomplish anything useful’ wars the US likes to get into. Third parties do not cause any change than the actors themselves are not willing to contemplate and act upon anyways.
I know, my standard of ‘mind your own business’ is out of step with ‘express your opinion about anything, and interfere with other people’s lives, especially in ways that cost you nothing or when they cannot stop you from intervening ‘ promoted my the media. I believe my stance is fully morally superior. Note I am not saying you cannot reach out, listen to people, and when asked express your opinion. Opining when not asked to is a different matter.
Hey, what happened to my post on the Google Doodle for Father’s Day 2020? Anyway, this year’s Doodle decided to fight the patriarchy by eliminating even the androgynous single “dad” ducklike creature and replace the whole family of teletubby ducks with scrapbooking, featuring macaroni pieces, heart shapes, buttons, seahorses, bumblebees and paper penguins (you can look up the role of fathers for each species; seahorses are the reverse of the ordinary human sex roles) so the smarter kids could still ask questions about alternative reproductive biology.
I guess it got zapped into the ether, I posted it late in the evening. When all the music’s seeping through.
If I had a twitter account I’d ask her many cats she has gotten since she wrote that.