Tiger Beatdown

The media and the Internet are abuzz with the shooting death of law graduate and anti-domestic violence advocate Reeva Steenkamp in South Africa last week, an event made all the more prurient to many media consumers by the fact that the accused, her boyfriend, is a Paralympic and Olympic athlete with an international reputation. As the commentary spews on, over and over again I see the statement that he was a role model, icon, or hero, and I am driven to ask this: whose hero was he?

I am told he was a hero to the disability community before his ‘fall from grace,’ as though shooting your girlfriend multiple times in the head and neck after a history of domestic violence with her and other women is a ‘fall,’ rather than a ghastly crime for which you should be severely punished. This presumes that the disability community is a collective entity that thinks and moves in lockstep, which isn’t the case; for some disabled people, Reeva Steenkamp’s boyfriend undoubtedly was a role model, but to others, he was just an athlete. A very talented athlete performing at the peak of his game, because very few people qualify for the Olympics and Paralympics, but just an athlete. Full social integration to me means that disabled people are measured by their accomplishments and deeds, not their disabilities.

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The cover of “Vogue Italia” has an important face on it this month: Chinese model Fei Fei Sun, who is the first Asian model to appear on the cover of the magazine. I’d note that US and British editions have yet to feature an Asian woman on their covers, although US “Vogue” did do a spread featuring Asian models in 2010.

Writing on the “Asia Major” spread that ran in the US, Samantha V. Chang said: “How I wish I could have seen the Asian models of today staring back at me from magazine pages or television screens when I was a Korean-American teenager in the Midwest, wrestling with foundation shades of ‘bisque,’ ‘honey,’ and ‘sand’ in my local Walgreens.” Diverse representation in fashion is important, folks.

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I’m hoping all our US readers who are eligible to vote are planning to hit the polls tomorrow (or have already voted absentee or via early voting) to participate in the election. If you’re in a battleground state, obviously your vote is especially important, but even if you’re not, there are a lot of important local, regional, and statewide races that you should be participating in so you can have a say in the process of politics in your state. As many of you are also no doubt aware, this has been a year of unprecedented (in recent memory) voter suppression efforts, which means that there may be some pitfalls on the way to the polls, if not for you, than for those around you.

Barack did it!

I don’t think I need to lecture you on the candidates and the issues at this point, since y’all are extremely well-informed, but if you’re doing last-minute research, Project Vote Smart, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the League of Women Voters are great places to start. For those of you tackling ballot measures, Ballotpedia is a handy resource as well.

Make sure your vote gets counted this year, and please, while you’re at it? Look out for the interests of the people voting alongside you.

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There are only a few days left in the voting for the Women’s Media Center’s Social Media Award 2012 (our own Sady won last year!), so if you haven’t voted yet, I strongly encourage you to do so, and to spread the word through your networks. There are a lot of fabulous nominees on the list doing some fantastic work, but obviously I’d love it if you’d vote for me specifically, because, well, I’m awesome.

Five good reasons beyond my awesomeness to consider casting your ballot for me:

1. Increasing genderqueer and nonbinary visibility in the media. I don’t just focus on women and girls, but people of other genders who experience gender-based oppression, and a big part of my work examines gender and society beyond binary constraints. Even as a (relatively) high profile nonbinary person in the media, I’m routinely misgendered as a woman, despite the fact that information about my gender is readily available. While being recognised with an award might seem like a relatively small thing in the bigger picture, it would be an important step for nonbinary people, noting that we do exist and our voices are important.

2. Advancing intersectional models of media and justice. There are a number of nominees doing very important and highly intersectional work, obviously, but I cover a wide range of subjects and firmly believe that interconnected systems of oppression must be viewed in context, rather than being separated out and tackled individually. To name just a few of the things I talk about on a regular basis: rural issues; veterans/military issues; gender; queerness; environmental issues; politics; class; food policy reform; prison reform; body image; race; voting rights; disability (I’m one of the few nominees who covers disability issues at all); and trans topics. Liberation for some is justice for none and all of these issues must be considered holistically in the media to create a better world.

3. The media needs a place for sharp voices. People don’t always like what I have to say. Many of you don’t always like what I have to say. Probing deeply into issues, forcing people to think, and challenging social attitudes is hard, grueling work that’s often thankless, especially when members of your own movement are attacking you for pushing them beyond their comfort zones. The media needs more people like me, and it needs to receive a signal that people, like you, want more people like me.

4. Disability matters. Representation of disability in mass media and independent progressive media continues to be woeful. Only a handful of journalists openly identify with disabilities and cover disability issues, and disability coverage in both journalism and social media tends to be irresponsible, unhelpful, and sometimes actively hateful. We need more and better disability coverage from disabled people ourselves; casting your vote for me is a reminder that the best people to talk about disability issues are disabled people ourselves. We don’t need people to speak for us, we need a platform to speak for ourselves.

5. You know I’ll deliver a kickass acceptance speech.

So please, go vote, and tell your friends.

Thank you.

It’s been a while since we did a roundup updating y’all on our fabulous doings, so, here we go!

Emily just made an international move and she’s settling in, but she still had time to write a great piece about the turn towards austerity in Australia.

Flavia co-founded Space Invaders, ‘a collective that seeks to explore power, discourse, belonging, the politics of emotion and identity in Europe with a focus on the intersections of race, class, gender, ability and sexualities.’ You will want to bookmark it if you haven’t already.

She also collaborated on a play, ‘Goat in a Can,’ which is part of ‘West Words,’ a new series of interdisciplinary artworks sponsored by Amsterdam’s Foundation of Literary Activities and Podium Mozaiek. You can catch it on 30 October at Podium Mozaiek Amsterdam, more details here.

Garland Grey’s ‘The Whitest Show On TV’ was crossposted on Racialicious and there’s a great discussion in comments going on there!

Sady’s been writing up a storm at In These Times, and especially loves her summer pieces on vulnerability and our collective fetish for female trainwrecks.

s.e. has been nominated for a Women’s Media Center Social Media Award, and you should go vote. Also, tell your friends. Please and thank you.

What are YOU all up to, gentle readers?