Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 953

November 14, 2015

The wackiest art heist ever: Hardly a “Thomas Crown Affair,” this real theft of a masterpiece was a little bit 007 and a whole lot Monty Python

The heist was daring, the ransom negotiations bizarre, and the trial surreal—part Monty Python, part Perry Mason, part Ally McBeal, and yet critical to legal history. The only successful theft ever from London’s National Gallery took place on August 21, 1961, when a brazen thief stole Goya’s 1812 "Portrait of the Duke of Wellington." Someone had somehow snuck into the National Gallery through an unlocked men’s room window, evaded security guards and made off with a painting which had just been saved from sale to an American tycoon by the British government. The newly saved portrait of the English war hero went on display at the National Gallery in London on August 3—less than three weeks later, it was stolen. The press had a field day, and the theft infected the popular imagination. In the first James Bond film, filmed soon after the crime, you can see a copy of the missing Goya portrait decorating Dr. No’s villainous hideout. Police were baffled, thinking that some suitably Bondian criminal mastermind was behind the heist. But 10 days after the theft, the London police received the first of many bizarre ransom notes, promising the safe return of the painting in exchange for a ransom payment equal to the amount the country paid for the Goya: £140,000. The notes insisted that the thief or thieves wanted the money solely for charity. A joke, right? Not so. The ransomer identified marks visible only on the back of the painting, proving that it was in his possession. The ransom notes were theatrical and flamboyantly written: “The 'Duke' is safe. His temperature cared for--his future uncertain. … We ask that some nonconformist type of person with the fearless fortitude of a Montgomery start the fund for £140,000. No law can touch him. Propriety may frown--but God must smile.” The notes made it clear that the criminal thought it nuts that the British government would spend a large sum on a painting when such money could be put to better use. There seemed to be no personal motivation for the theft, only a desire to raise money for charity, but the police refused to negotiate with the ransomer and a merry dance ensued: part true-crime, part farce, all fascinating and set against the backdrop of Swinging Sixties London. With such a cinematic tale, you’d think that someone would make a movie out of it, or at least write a book. Turns out someone finally has. Meet Alan Hirsch, American lawyer and author, who has been fascinated with the case for years. (Full disclosure: as a specialist in art crime, I was asked to pen the introduction to this forthcoming book, "The Duke of Wellington, Kidnapped.") “I know ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ is a cliché,” Hirsch told me, “but if John Grisham wrote a novel based on this case, people would tell him he’d gone too far. The lead character, the plot, the outcome of the trial--I still can’t believe it and I’ve spent years poring over the documents and talking to people who were there.” This November marks the 50th anniversary of the trial of Kempton Bunton, a 252-pound Alfred Hitchcock look-alike who confessed to stealing the Goya and returning it in a suitably melodramatic manner. In March 1965, someone calling himself “Mister Bloxham” (an apparent reference to "The Importance of Being Earnest") dropped the painting off at the luggage check of a rail station. A few months later, Bunton dropped in on the police and calmly announced that “I am turning myself in for the Goya.” Bunton didn’t appear to be the sort of man to steal a famous painting, much less do so by shimmying through a small men’s room window. Though he looked a far cry from Cary Grant and Pierce Brosnan, our paradigm elegant art thieves, this flamboyant, lovable oddball—a retired cab driver and bookie who had several times been jailed for a weird form of conscientious objection (refusal to pay his BBC TV license)--starred in a courtroom drama that had a vein of comedy running through it. He was a working-class hero, claiming not even to have known who this “Wellington fellow” was in Goya’s painting, which he referred to as “Spanish firewood.” He’d swiped it to make a point--the elderly should not have to pay to watch television. Bunton’s foil was the judge, Carl Aarvold, who Hirsch introduces as “a former professional rugby player once oddly described by a journalist as ‘not only gracious in defeat but fluent in French, a rare combination.’” Aarvold made the odd judicial decision to instruct the jurors that they must acquit Bunton if they believed that he always intended to return the painting. “The judge was actually following the letter of Britain’s exceedingly odd larceny statute,” Hirsch says. “Bunton’s defense team wisely latched on to the wording of the law, which said you are guilty of theft only if you intend to ‘permanently deprive’ the owner of his possession. The problem for the defense was that while Bunton returned the painting, he did not return the frame. All of this tied the judge up in knots during his instruction to the jury.” Even so, the jury managed to follow his instructions--finding Bunton not guilty of stealing the painting, but guilty of stealing the frame. Judge Aarvold, for his part, is almost as quotable as Bunton (whose colorful unpublished memoirs Hirsch managed to get hold of, and quotes from liberally, to great effect). In his summing up, the judge said: “Motives, even if they are good, cannot justify theft, and creeping into public galleries in order to extract pictures of value so that you can use them for your own purposes has got to be discouraged.” He then sentenced Bunton to three months. There are a pair of punchlines to this oddball crime and trial. In 1968, as part of England’s new Theft Act, Parliament included a clause that made it illegal to “remove without authority any object displayed or kept for display to the public in a building to which the public have access,” thereby making Bunton’s “borrowing” of the Goya a criminal offense. Television licenses were eventually revoked for old age pensioners, satisfying, long after the fact, the unusual ransom demands of Kempton Bunton. Floating on his cloud up in Heaven, Bunton must be looking down upon us with a satisfied smile. For not only was his motive for the theft fulfilled (eventually), but for decades the police believed what he wanted them to: that he was, in fact, the thief. Turns out he may have been cleverer than everyone thought and taken the fall for someone else. How else to explain his size, the bathroom window, and his apparent lack of interest in the painting itself? “Was Bunton innocent?” Hirsch asks. “It sure looks like it. But just when I thought I had the crime solved and everything figured out. . . .” He pauses. “Can we leave it at that?”The heist was daring, the ransom negotiations bizarre, and the trial surreal—part Monty Python, part Perry Mason, part Ally McBeal, and yet critical to legal history. The only successful theft ever from London’s National Gallery took place on August 21, 1961, when a brazen thief stole Goya’s 1812 "Portrait of the Duke of Wellington." Someone had somehow snuck into the National Gallery through an unlocked men’s room window, evaded security guards and made off with a painting which had just been saved from sale to an American tycoon by the British government. The newly saved portrait of the English war hero went on display at the National Gallery in London on August 3—less than three weeks later, it was stolen. The press had a field day, and the theft infected the popular imagination. In the first James Bond film, filmed soon after the crime, you can see a copy of the missing Goya portrait decorating Dr. No’s villainous hideout. Police were baffled, thinking that some suitably Bondian criminal mastermind was behind the heist. But 10 days after the theft, the London police received the first of many bizarre ransom notes, promising the safe return of the painting in exchange for a ransom payment equal to the amount the country paid for the Goya: £140,000. The notes insisted that the thief or thieves wanted the money solely for charity. A joke, right? Not so. The ransomer identified marks visible only on the back of the painting, proving that it was in his possession. The ransom notes were theatrical and flamboyantly written: “The 'Duke' is safe. His temperature cared for--his future uncertain. … We ask that some nonconformist type of person with the fearless fortitude of a Montgomery start the fund for £140,000. No law can touch him. Propriety may frown--but God must smile.” The notes made it clear that the criminal thought it nuts that the British government would spend a large sum on a painting when such money could be put to better use. There seemed to be no personal motivation for the theft, only a desire to raise money for charity, but the police refused to negotiate with the ransomer and a merry dance ensued: part true-crime, part farce, all fascinating and set against the backdrop of Swinging Sixties London. With such a cinematic tale, you’d think that someone would make a movie out of it, or at least write a book. Turns out someone finally has. Meet Alan Hirsch, American lawyer and author, who has been fascinated with the case for years. (Full disclosure: as a specialist in art crime, I was asked to pen the introduction to this forthcoming book, "The Duke of Wellington, Kidnapped.") “I know ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ is a cliché,” Hirsch told me, “but if John Grisham wrote a novel based on this case, people would tell him he’d gone too far. The lead character, the plot, the outcome of the trial--I still can’t believe it and I’ve spent years poring over the documents and talking to people who were there.” This November marks the 50th anniversary of the trial of Kempton Bunton, a 252-pound Alfred Hitchcock look-alike who confessed to stealing the Goya and returning it in a suitably melodramatic manner. In March 1965, someone calling himself “Mister Bloxham” (an apparent reference to "The Importance of Being Earnest") dropped the painting off at the luggage check of a rail station. A few months later, Bunton dropped in on the police and calmly announced that “I am turning myself in for the Goya.” Bunton didn’t appear to be the sort of man to steal a famous painting, much less do so by shimmying through a small men’s room window. Though he looked a far cry from Cary Grant and Pierce Brosnan, our paradigm elegant art thieves, this flamboyant, lovable oddball—a retired cab driver and bookie who had several times been jailed for a weird form of conscientious objection (refusal to pay his BBC TV license)--starred in a courtroom drama that had a vein of comedy running through it. He was a working-class hero, claiming not even to have known who this “Wellington fellow” was in Goya’s painting, which he referred to as “Spanish firewood.” He’d swiped it to make a point--the elderly should not have to pay to watch television. Bunton’s foil was the judge, Carl Aarvold, who Hirsch introduces as “a former professional rugby player once oddly described by a journalist as ‘not only gracious in defeat but fluent in French, a rare combination.’” Aarvold made the odd judicial decision to instruct the jurors that they must acquit Bunton if they believed that he always intended to return the painting. “The judge was actually following the letter of Britain’s exceedingly odd larceny statute,” Hirsch says. “Bunton’s defense team wisely latched on to the wording of the law, which said you are guilty of theft only if you intend to ‘permanently deprive’ the owner of his possession. The problem for the defense was that while Bunton returned the painting, he did not return the frame. All of this tied the judge up in knots during his instruction to the jury.” Even so, the jury managed to follow his instructions--finding Bunton not guilty of stealing the painting, but guilty of stealing the frame. Judge Aarvold, for his part, is almost as quotable as Bunton (whose colorful unpublished memoirs Hirsch managed to get hold of, and quotes from liberally, to great effect). In his summing up, the judge said: “Motives, even if they are good, cannot justify theft, and creeping into public galleries in order to extract pictures of value so that you can use them for your own purposes has got to be discouraged.” He then sentenced Bunton to three months. There are a pair of punchlines to this oddball crime and trial. In 1968, as part of England’s new Theft Act, Parliament included a clause that made it illegal to “remove without authority any object displayed or kept for display to the public in a building to which the public have access,” thereby making Bunton’s “borrowing” of the Goya a criminal offense. Television licenses were eventually revoked for old age pensioners, satisfying, long after the fact, the unusual ransom demands of Kempton Bunton. Floating on his cloud up in Heaven, Bunton must be looking down upon us with a satisfied smile. For not only was his motive for the theft fulfilled (eventually), but for decades the police believed what he wanted them to: that he was, in fact, the thief. Turns out he may have been cleverer than everyone thought and taken the fall for someone else. How else to explain his size, the bathroom window, and his apparent lack of interest in the painting itself? “Was Bunton innocent?” Hirsch asks. “It sure looks like it. But just when I thought I had the crime solved and everything figured out. . . .” He pauses. “Can we leave it at that?”

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Published on November 14, 2015 11:00

3 simple words can help America put a stop to sexism in government

Meet the Internet’s newest social justice darling: Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. The newly-elected leader’s continues receiving praise for his first political move, because of how bold it is, even if it’s how government should always operate—with equal gender representation. When announcing the selection of his new cabinet, made up of 15 men and 15 women (a 50-50 split), one reporter asked Trudeau why he felt it was important to build his team with gender equity in mind. His short, sweet response urged everyone to get comfortable with a new reality: “Because, it’s 2015.” More from The Daily Dot: "Parisians use a hashtag to offer safe places to stay in wake of terror attack" Those three words took a life of their own on Twitter, where his quick, off-cuff response set off a number of inspired hashtags like #BecauseIts2015, affirming the need for governments to ensure that the people in power represent the population they’ve sworn to serve. The move was simple, but the impact was profound—and it sends a message to other countries, including the United States, about an easy way to address gender disparities in government, starting at the highest executive levels. It’s all about political will—and the decisive, affirmative action to make it happen. [embedtweet id="662075231612362752"] [embedtweet id="662266329727012864"] [embedtweet id="662038688319324160"] The U.S. could stand to learn a thing or two from Trudeau’s leadership, given presidents’ storied history with keeping the cabinet chocked full of men. Although President Obama’s administration is arguably the most diverse in American history, men still make up the wide majority of his cabinet. According toWhiteHouse.gov, Obama’s current 23-member cabinet (including members out of the presidential succession line, but who have cabinet-level rank) includes 16 men but only 7 women, who are outnumbered by about a 2-to-1 ratio. In contrast,women comprise a slight majority of the U.S. population, representing somewhere close to 51 percent of Americans. And in the prior administration, President George W. Bush’s cabinet looked even worse. Of the 21 cabinet and cabinet-level officials advising Bush on vital national interests, only five women—at most—served at the same time during his presidency. With an abysmal 4-to-1 ratio, women were even more outnumbered in the Executive Branch during the early 2000s. And as for Bill Clinton, during his time in office, he too only had (at most) five women working alongside each other—with men primarily running the show. This is why Trudeau’s move in Canada is a step in the right direction: It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also not that hard. If the United States really wanted to follow suit, it easily could. But for the past 16 years, and then some, it’s chosen not to. More from The Daily Dot: "Paris attacks crash Periscope, test Twitter moments" There’s a reason for all the Internet’s excitement about Trudeau and his approach—so far—to being a world leader. Just because a politician enters the highest office in their land, it doesn’t mean they have to follow the established norms and practices of their predecessors, let alone replicate the institutional problems that make it hard to govern well. Even if previous administrations didn’t have gender equity in their cabinets or other appointed positions, change can happen when leaders accept their mandates from the people and approach their duties with a fearlessness that engenders good faith with the public. Far too often, voting constituents head to the ballot box either with good faith that their preferred candidate will bring the sea change they’ve longed for—or they despair exercising their civic duty because it’s a vote for just another cog in the machine. Even worse, constituents can get easily disillusioned when the “reform” candidate takes office, only to become the politician they promised they wouldn’t be. More from The Daily Dot: "Neil Gaiman reflects on 'Sandman' as he closes the loop on the beloved series" But Trudeau, in the early days of his time as Prime Minister, seems to be building that trust, and making decisions that move closer to creating equity and justice for women in Canada. Given that many of his contemporaries still struggle to achieve gender equity at the executive levels of government, his cabinet could serve as a global model for what politics and lawmaking can look like when the people in power reflect the people they serve. That’s why the Internet buzzes with excitement about Trudeau. Gender equity in his cabinet isn’t only good news for Canada—it’s a beacon of hope for the rest of the free world.

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Published on November 14, 2015 10:00

November 13, 2015

The latest from Paris: At least 35 reported dead, dozens more being held hostage

PARIS (AP) — At least 35 people were killed Friday in shootings and explosions around Paris, many of them in a popular concert hall where patrons were taken hostage, police and medical officials said. The series of attacks gripped the city in fear and recalled the horrors of the Charlie Hebdo carnage just 10 months ago. A police official said 11 people were killed in a Paris restaurant in the 10th arrondissement, and others said at least twice that number died elsewhere, primarily in the Bataclan concert hall, where the hostages were taken. It was unclear how many people were in the hall; one official said there were around 100, while another said there were far fewer. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named in the quickly moving investigation. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the series of attacks. Also late Friday, two explosions were heard outside the Stade de France stadium north of Paris during a France-Germany friendly football match. A police official confirmed one explosion in a bar near the stadium. It was not known if there were casualties. An Associated Press reporter in the stadium Friday night heard two explosions loud enough to penetrate the sounds of cheering fans. Sirens were immediately heard, and a helicopter was circling overhead. French President Francois Hollande, who was in the stadium, was evacuated and immediately held an emergency meeting. The attack comes as France has heightened security measures ahead of a major global climate conference that starts in two weeks, out of fear of violent protests and potential terrorist attacks. Emilioi Macchio, from Ravenna, Italy, was at the Carillon bar near the restaurant that was targeted, having a beer on the sidewalk, when the shooting started. He said he didn't see any gunmen or victims, but hid behind a corner, then ran away. "It sounded like fireworks," he said. France has been on edge since deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in January on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery that left 20 dead, including the three attackers. The restaurant targeted Friday, Le Carillon, is in the same general neighborhood as the Charlie Hebdo offices, as is the Bataclan, among the best-known venues in eastern Paris, near the trendy Oberkampf area known for a vibrant nightlife. The band Eagles of Death Metal was scheduled to play there Friday night. The country remains on edge after January attacks on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, and a kosher grocery. The Charlie Hebdo attackers claimed links to extremists in Yemen, while the kosher market attacker claimed ties to the Islamic State group. The country has seen several smaller-scale attacks or attempts since, including an incident on a high-speed train in August in which American travelers thwarted an attempted attack by a heavily armed man. France's military is bombing Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq and fighting extremists in Africa, and extremist groups have frequently threatened France in the past. French authorities are particularly concerned about the threat from hundreds of French Islamic radicals who have travelled to Syria and returned home with skills to stage violence.

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Published on November 13, 2015 15:10

“This is truly horrific”: GOP, Democratic presidential campaign tweet support, concern for Paris

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Published on November 13, 2015 15:05

Violence rocks Paris: At least 26 killed, hostage crisis currently unfolding

PARIS (AP) — Two police officials said at least 26 people have been killed in shootings and explosions around Paris Friday, in the deadliest violence in France in decades. A police official said 11 people were killed in a Paris restaurant in the 10th arrondissement, and about 15 killed in the Bataclan theater, where a hostage-taking is under way. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named according to police policy. Also late Friday, two explosions were heard outside the Stade de France stadium north of Paris during a France-Germany friendly football match. It is unclear if the explosions were linked to the other events. A police official confirmed one explosion in a bar near the stadium. It is unclear whether there are casualties. An Associated Press reporter in the stadium Friday night heard two explosions loud enough to penetrate the sounds of cheering fans. Sirens were immediately heard, and a helicopter was circling overhead. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named. The attack comes as France has heightened security measures ahead of a major global climate conference that starts in two weeks, out of fear of violent protests and potential terrorist attacks. Emilioi Macchio, from Ravenna, Italy, was at the Carillon bar near the restaurant that was targeted, having a beer on the sidewalk when the shooting started. He said he didn't see any gunmen or victims, but hid behind a corner then ran away. "It sounded like fireworks," he said. France has been on edge since deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in January on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery that left 20 dead, including the three attackers. The restaurant targeted Friday, Le Carillon, is in the same general neighborhood as the Charlie Hebdo offices. The country has seen several smaller-scale attacks or attempts since, including an incident on a high-speed train in August in which American travelers thwarted a heavily armed Islamic radical trying to attack passengers.

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Published on November 13, 2015 14:26

Fox News rips into Jennifer Lawrence over Kim Davis and GOP criticism: “She has the right to sound like an idiot”

In response to Jennifer Lawrence's interview with Vogue -- wherein she calls Kim Davis "a lady who makes me embarrassed to be from Kentucky" -- Fox News host Andrea Tantaros voiced her objection. "I'm embarrassed for Jennifer Lawrence," Tantaros told her "Outnumbered" co-hosts. "I'm embarrassed to be a woman." To be fair, Tantaros's views on feminism are especially forward-thinking. For instance, she fully supports J-Law's "right to sound like an idiot." Watch Fox News's head explode below: (h/t Media Matters)

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Published on November 13, 2015 13:44

This is not about political correctness or Internet outrage. It’s about where we draw the line

I know why you’re here. Something has happened that has pushed you over the edge. You know, with regards to “political correctness.” Or “call-out culture,” or the “Internet outrage machine,” or whatever you want to call it.

It’s been a lot of little things up until now — you know, comments that you’ve seen on social media, or protests that you’ve heard about, all condemning people for supposedly “bad” things they may have said or done. But something recently happened to someone famous, or someone you respect — for anonymity’s sake, let’s just call them the Person of Stature. And as an example, let’s pretend the Person of Stature was invited to speak at a University, but then some students started complaining about supposedly “bigoted” things that this Person of Stature has said about some minority group in the past. Or present. And these students started protesting. They even passed a petition around. The nerve of them!

And now you are the one who is outraged! No, sorry, outrage is too strong of a word. You are a well-reasoned journalist and/or pundit. So instead of leaving angry comments in the comment section (like all the other troglodytes), you will pen a seemingly well-reasoned article that will be published in a well-established news/media outlet, and that compels readers to identify with your outrage (by which I mean well-reasoned position).

And here is how you will do it:

1) Make it clear from the very beginning that you are an open-minded, social justice supporter, preferably on the left side of the political spectrum. This will contrast your take on “political correctness run amok” from those of right wing commentators — you know, those hypocrites who are pro-free speech when it comes to white, straight, Christian people making fun of minorities, but against free speech when it comes to #BlackLivesMatter, or discussions about sex education and women’s reproductive rights, or secular holiday celebrations, or homosexuals and their so-called “agenda.” You are nothing like those hypocrites! Plus, you are pitching your soon-to-be-trending article to someplace like The Nation or The Atlantic, so you will most certainly need to win over liberal readers.

2) Repeatedly remind readers (through both blatant and subtle appeals) that Free Speech = Good; Censorship = Bad. Be sure *not* to mention that the Person of Stature’s freedom of speech is not really at stake — like the rest of us, they are free to make any bigoted comments any time they want. Even more importantly, whatever you do, *never* acknowledge the fact that protests, petitions, and social media comments critiquing the Person of Stature also constitute acts of free speech. This is Pandora’s Box #1 — whatever you do, do not open it! Because if both the protesters and the Person of Stature are seen as having free speech, then this becomes a “marketplace of ideas” issue, and your readers will then feel entitled to make up their own minds as to who is in the right and who is in the wrong. And you can’t let this happen, because you have already decided this for them!

3) This can’t just be any Person of Stature, or any old comments or actions against a minority group. To use a few extreme examples, if the person was a Neo-Nazi, or if their platform was returning to the time when women were considered their husband’s property, or if they called for homosexuality to be punished by death, then the article won’t work at all. First off, your liberal readers would likely feel that these things (while constituting free speech) are beyond the pale, and they will be disturbed by your attempts to go out of your way to defend such people. Indeed, you yourself probably feel the same way: If these sorts of people were invited to speak at a University, and if students protested, you would not find such protests to be outrageous at all. Who knows, you might even join in those protests yourself! But we will never know for sure, because it’s unimaginable that any University would ever give any of these extreme groups a public platform to speak in the first place.

Actually, come to think of it, these examples highlight the fact that there is already an established (albeit unwritten) code in our society regarding what expressions are deemed tolerable and which are deemed to be beyond the pale. This is Pandora’s Box #2 — once again, do not open it! Because if you bring attention to this unspoken line-in-the-sand regarding acceptability, then your readers will recognize that this story is not really about “free speech versus censorship” (because once again, all the aforementioned people are free to speak their minds), but rather how do we (whether as a society, a public institution, a workplace, or as individuals) decide where to draw this line? Where does one person’s right to free speech end and another person’s right to go to work or school without having to deal with bigotry or harassment begin? This is an extremely complicated matter that would take way more than one pithy article to cover. Plus, there is no cut-and-dried answer to this question, just a mess of differing opinions as to where to precisely to draw this line. So you need to pose a different question, one that has a clear right answer (which non-coincidentally coincides with your position).

What you need is defendable Person of Stature — someone who is likeable and/or on the right side of most issues, despite the current controversy. And the controversy itself has to be something that most mainstream self-identified liberals will consider to be a “minor issue” or much ado about nothing. Perhaps the Person of Stature has made comments or used language that you could easily get away with five, or ten, or fifteen years ago, but which now seems somewhat problematic or unsavory (because the unspoken line-in-the-sand is always shifting over time — but remember that’s Pandora’s Box #2, so don’t mention this!). This is perfect, because your readers have maybe said similar things themselves way back when, so they will identify somewhat with the Person of Stature. Or maybe they feel somewhat disgruntled by how fast the times are a-changin’ (they can barely keep up!) and/or they are starting to think that things were better in “the good old days” when they were younger (i.e., when they were the upstarts who mocked people who believed that things were better in “the good old days”).

But what’s even more perfect is if the minority group in question is one that has made some progress, but is still far from being fully accepted. To this end, might I suggest transgender people? Because as far as most of your mainstream self-identified liberal readers are concerned, there weren’t really any transgender people at all (outside of the occasional Hollywood movie or Jerry Springer show) just five, or ten, or fifteen years ago. But now they’re on television all the time, and there are all these articles and books about them — it’s like they’re suddenly crawling all over the place! And as if that wasn’t bad enough, now they are asking for things! Like, safe bathrooms. Or having their identities respected. Or not having to constantly face hateful or derogatory speech on a regular basis. And while your readers are not opposed to transgender people per se — hey, whatever Caitlyn Jenner decides to do with her body and in her own bedroom is her own business — they definitely feel like this is all happening way too fast! For them, at least. Plus, they probably feel confused or squeamish about trans people themselves (although unlike the Person of Stature, they probably know better than to say that out loud in public).

Okay, so now that we’ve found the appropriate minority group and Person of Stature to generate outrage — I mean, serious concern — in our readers, onto the next step:

4) Pick an overarching theme: There are two obvious paths here.

Make it about “political correctness run amok”: For instance, you might open the article with the transgender students’ protesting the Person of Stature’s University talk. But then you will pan back and show that this is but one instance among many in a much larger and disturbing trend sweeping the nation — aka, “political correctness running amok.” (I am not sure why political correctness is always “running amok” as opposed to other synonymous phrases, but just roll with it.) And at this point, you can simply provide readers with a laundry list of seemingly similar incidents of activists and minority groups taking things way too far with their “political correctness” and “censorship.” For examples of this laundry-list approach, see recent high profile pieces by Jonathan Chait, Michelle Goldberg, and Caitlin Flanagan (there are countless others — The Atlantic alone seems to be churning out one or two of these per month!). The benefit of this approach is that you don’t have to go too in depth about any specific issue (e.g., interviewing all the parties involved, accurately conveying their differing perspectives, etc.) — you can just hastily depict all of them as being outrageous. Additionally, this allows you to conflate some potentially legitimate issues (e.g., protests of the Person of Stature) with a bunch of random mean things that random people (who have no stature) have said on Twitter.

Make it about the “minority group gone too far”: In this strategy, you will place the focus squarely on this one minority group (i.e., transgender people) and portray them as crossing a line that no other respectable minority group would dare cross. The advantage to this is that most people are already suspicious of transgender people and unfamiliar with trans issues, so it will be relatively easy to convince your readers that this group is up to no good and/or overreacting to things. The disadvantage is that, if not handled adeptly, you may come off as being prejudiced against this group yourself. So you have to at least create an aura (however superficial) of fairness. One way to do this is to go to great lengths to make it seem like you are telling both sides of the story, even though your retelling of events is heavily slanted. (Don’t worry, 95-ish percent of your readers will not know enough about trans people and issues to recognize this bias.)

Alternatively, if you are writing a shorter op-ed, then you may want to go with a hybrid of the two approaches. Make it mostly about the transgender protests of the Person of Stature’s talk, but don’t offer any details that may raise concerns for your readers. For instance, do not include any of the Person of Stature’s actual quotes (see bottom of linked article), and most definitely do not link to or include trans activists’ perspectives or concerns about the matter. (Pro tip: putting “transphobia” in scare-quotes, to subtly suggest that its very existence is questionable, goes a long way!) And after a brief mentioning of this particular affair, you will broaden the lens and make the case that this is a free speech/censorship issue. And you will passionately argue that we all need to be more tolerant. Not tolerant of transgender people of course, that would be preposterous! But rather, tolerant of People of Stature who are right about most issues, but maybe wrong about others (and I say “maybe” here because your readers will not be able to judge for themselves, because you didn’t share any of the Person of Stature’s actual quotes or beliefs about transgender people).

5) All of this may sound straightforward enough. But there are a couple more Pandora’s Boxes that you will need to avoid in order to be successful:

Pandora’s Box #3: If the Person of Stature happens to be a renowned feminist, then whatever you do, do *not* remind readers that the things that the transgender protesters are doing now — penning critiques of the Person of Stature’s previous comments, passing around petitions, trying to convince the University not to offer this Person of Stature a public platform to potentially spew even more prejudice and disinformation about the marginalized group in question — these are all things that feminists themselves have done over the years! In fact, during the late ’60s and early ’70s (back when sexism was rampant, when women were not taken very seriously, and when this very Person of Stature first came to prominence as a feminist), feminists were routinely protesting institutions and events that they felt contributed to their marginalization. These are simply the types of things that you need to do when you are a marginalized group who no one takes seriously, and if you want people to pay attention to your issues and potentially change their minds. Otherwise, why would they even care? Or take a stance on the issues you face? Or god forbid, potentially even lift a finger?

If you accidentally open Pandora’s Box #3, then readers might begin to see parallels between feminists back then and transgender activists today. They might recognize that these sorts of tactics are simply how marginalized groups slowly move the unspoken line-in-the-sand (that we are not supposed to mention — see Pandora’s Box #2) toward their preferred direction. Toward respect and equity, as far as they are concerned.

Pandora’s Box #4: Remember earlier, when I mentioned how (in your mainstream self-identified liberal readers’ recollection) there were hardly any transgender people at all a mere five, or ten, or fifteen years ago? Well, they were actually around that whole time! It’s just that they were hardly ever given the opportunity to speak, or to be heard, in public settings. Hell, just ten years ago, it was far more common for such protests to be directed against transgender people speaking at Universities rather than the other way around.

And if you were to ask trans people who lived through that time, they would likely point out that freedom of speech — which as an abstract concept, virtually everyone embraces — doesn’t mean shit when 95-ish percent of people think that you are worthless, and/or abominable, and/or immoral, and when they use their overwhelming-majority freedom-of-speech powers to make sure that you are never allowed to share your experiences or perspectives in a public setting, or hold a position where you can influence public policy or popular perception in any way.

So as I’ve been saying all along, this story is not really about free speech. It’s about where we — as individuals, as a society — draw that unspoken line-in-the-sand with regards to what we deem to be permissible, and what (and often whom) we deem beyond the pale.

And if you can’t see that the real issue at stake here is the unspoken line-in-the-sand, then that’s most likely a sign that who you are and what you believe is already deemed permissible in our society. But as a trans person who has lived most of my life being deemed by 95-ish percent of society as being beyond the pale — who stayed closeted the first twenty-seven years of my life because I knew most people wouldn’t accept me, who attended secretly-held trans community meetings because it was not safe for us to congregate in a public space during that time and place, who still to this day faces regular discrimination and harassment that large swaths of our society condones — to me, that unspoken line-in-the-sand is blatantly obvious. It basically determines whether or not I am allowed to exist, whether or not my perspective and concerns are taken seriously.

That unspoken line-in-the-sand is right there, doing real work, directly impacting many people’s lives, even if you choose not to see it, or refuse to acknowledge its existence.

So if you want to write an article called “Feminism Needs More Thinkers Who Aren’t Right 100 Percent of the Time,” go ahead — freedom of speech and all that. And I generally agree with the sentiment expressed in your title — hell, I even wrote an entire book about how we need to be more accepting of difference (including differences of opinion) within feminism. But when accepting people who “Aren’t Right 100 Percent of the Time” is coded language for accepting someone who didn’t just say one offhand remark that made a few trans people upset, but rather someone who is fiercely committed to the idea that trans people are beyond the pale, that our identities should not in any way be accepted by society — if this is what you think we should accept — then you are not promoting tolerance. You are condoning intolerance. And you are not championing Germaine Greer’s freedom of speech (she still has that, and as a Person of Stature, she also has a platform to express it), but rather you are drawing a line-in-the-sand — a line that renders me and other trans people’s concerns as irrelevant and unimportant.

You have every right to draw the line wherever you want. Just as I have every right to try to push the line in my preferred direction (which may, or may not, include protesting people who express vitriol and disinformation about trans people, and/or people who tacitly condone that vitriol and disinformation). But don’t obfuscate this particular matter by pretending that this is about free speech, or tolerating dissenting views, or activists going too far.

This is about the line-in-the-sand.

You can’t have a society where women are fully respected, but where expressions of rampant sexism are also condoned. It is simply not possible — as a feminist, surely you can see this. By the same token, it is simply not possible to fully respect trans people while at the same time condoning people who express rampant transphobia — these things are mutually exclusive.

So go ahead and draw your line, the one that determines whether you deem trans people to be beyond the pale (as historically has been the case), or whether you deem transphobia (sans scare-quotes) beyond the pale. But you can’t have it both ways.

And once you draw that line, own it. Because this is all about the line.

Finally, to all the people who have written, or are considering writing, articles rallying against “political correctness,” or “call-out culture,” or the “Internet outrage machine,” or whatever you want to call it: This may surprise you, but sometimes I agree with some of the points you make. As I previously mentioned, I wrote an entire book about how activism — in the course of advocating on behalf of certain marginalized groups — sometimes veers into the realm of invalidating or marginalizing other groups. So I strongly believe that there is common ground for us to have smart and necessary conversations about how we can balance civil discourse and differences of opinion, while at the same time fully respecting one another as people.

But if instead of engaging in such smart and necessary conversations, you’d rather just write the flip-side of the “Internet outrage machine” article — where instead of stoking outrage about people who have allegedly committed acts of sexism, or racism, or transphobia, and so on, you instead stoke outrage about the people who are protesting these potential acts of sexism, or racism, or transphobia, and so on — and/or if you want to dismiss or condemn these activists’ and minority groups’ protests without addressing any of the Pandora’s Boxes that I have described along the way in this article, then fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you. You are a hack who does not want to have a serious conversation about these super-important and super-complex issues. You just want to be in the right.

And I think you are wrong. That is where I draw my line-in-the-sand.

Originally published on Medium (along with this follow-up)

And here is how you will do it:

Okay, so now that we’ve found the appropriate minority group and Person of Stature to generate outrage — I mean, serious concern — in our readers, onto the next step:

4) Pick an overarching theme: There are two obvious paths here.

5) All of this may sound straightforward enough. But there are a couple more Pandora’s Boxes that you will need to avoid in order to be successful:

That unspoken line-in-the-sand is right there, doing real work, directly impacting many people’s lives, even if you choose not to see it, or refuse to acknowledge its existence.

This is about the line-in-the-sand.

And once you draw that line, own it. Because this is all about the line.

And I think you are wrong. That is where I draw my line-in-the-sand.

Originally published on Medium (along with this follow-up)

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Published on November 13, 2015 13:19

A week of victories for student protesters: Here’s the latest on nationwide campus demonstrations

The dean of students at Claremont McKenna College resigned Thursday amid protests over racial tensions on the Southern California campus and one day after two students launched a hunger strike. On Monday, Tom Wolfe stepped down as the head of the University of Missouri after a graduate student's days long hunger strike was given a major assist when Mizzou's football team boycotted the sport in solidarity. Wolfe's resignation brought national attention to the plight of students protesting unresponsive administrators. Hundreds of students demonstrated at Ithaca College in upstate New York on Wednesday, demanding the resignation of that school's president for failing to adequately respond to concerns of racial hostility on campus. Students at Georgetown began a

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Published on November 13, 2015 13:06

America loves a single dad: When was the last time a single mom became a viral hero just for raising her kids?

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Published on November 13, 2015 12:41

No, Ms. magazine: College campuses are not like ISIS

Once in a great long while, you see a piece, presumably penned by a liberal, with such poor judgment that you have to wonder if it was really written by a right-wing plant and meant to make us all look bad. Such is the case with this post put up at Ms. Magazine's blog by a woman named Amy Lauricella titled, "Institutionalized Rape: It’s Not Just an ISIS Problem." The title doesn't seem so bad---it is true that ISIS isn't the first group or organization that uses rape as a weapon to punish women who violate their bizarre rules, religious or otherwise---but things go south quickly as Lauricella tries to draw a direct line between ISIS's program of deliberately promoting rape and the problem of some American college campuses failing to adequately protect students from rape. "While ISIS endorses sexual assault, American college administrations similarly facilitate and perpetuate the rape of women on campuses," Lauricella writes. "Sexual violence becomes institutionalized through complicity." This is made worse by the tweet sent out to promote the piece:

While ISIS endorses rape, American college administrations similarly facilitate the rape of women on campuses https://t.co/kxz5KrwVAS
— Ms. Magazine (@msmagazine) November 11, 2015

I shouldn't have to point this out, but that argument is complete nonsense. While many American colleges have been legitimately criticized for handling sexual assault poorly or even not taking the problem seriously enough, that is worlds apart from deliberately promoting rape. Which is what ISIS does: They see rape, openly, as a weapon to use against women and girls, to force them to submit to their version of Islam. On what planet is there anything like that going on at American college campuses? You can't hide behind the claim that the difference is one of degree and not kind, either. That's an argument that might work, for instance, in drawing parallels between Muslim cultures that bury women under burkas and the milder version Christian fundamentalists pull of demanding that women be "modest". Or between terrorist acts committed in the name of Islamic fundamentalism and those committed in the name of Christian fundamentalism. Those are legitimate situations where the intensity may differ, but the basic premises are the same. But what ISIS is doing and what is happening on some campuses is a difference of degree and of kind. There is a meaningful difference between promoting something and not doing enough to stop it. (If there wasn't, then we are all Hitler because we spend too much time napping and not enough trying to prevent genocidal violence.) Ignoring that difference or trying to paper it over by using an overextended and frankly garbage definition of the word "complicity" is intellectually dishonest. Look, I get it. There is a problem in the United States, on-campus and off, of not taking rape seriously as a crime or even, as the controversy over the Bloomingdale's ad shows, making "jokes" that imply that it's not always rape to force sex on women. But first of all, almost none of the campus administration problems with sexual assault stem from a winking approval of sexual violence, so much as an unwillingness to deal with what they know is immoral behavior. You're really not finding college administrators who think it's a good thing to force sex on unwilling women, so much as college administrators who don't want to deal with it and use "he said/she said" as a convenient way to wriggle out. Second of all, even when you do get to cultural elements that veer more closely to rape promotion---that Bloomingdale's ad, songs that suggest a little force is an acceptable part of dating, frat boys yelling, "No means yes! Yes means anal!", the comment sections on any article about rape, whatever the hell Rush Limbaugh is on about---it's usually framed in a way to create plausible deniability. Whoever is saying rape-y things will usually deny that they're promoting rape, they just don't think it's fair to call all non-consensual sex rape. They are full of it, of course, but it's still a far cry from just openly saying rape is good, which is the level that ISIS is at. This piece is more than intellectually dishonest, but it also fails politically. There are a lot of anti-feminists out there who cannot wait to claim that anti-rape activism is nothing but hysterical bitches being hysterical, and this piece is red meat for them. Sure enough, every cave-dwelling right winger on Twitter is running with this as hard as they can:

If college campuses were really like ISIS when it comes to rape, we wouldn't be calling administrators - we'd call the police or military. — Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) November 12, 2015

Writer for Ms. Magazine Compares Rape on College Campuses to ISIS https://t.co/IcHhLjfuJ4
— College Insurrection (@CollegeInsurrec) November 13, 2015

There we have it: College administrators are worse than ISIS (a real take in a real magazine) https://t.co/XQjit2bRUq h/t @guypbenson
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) November 13, 2015

American colleges "just like ISIS" because they "facilitate rape" https://t.co/1Xa41o0MCl leftwing airhead relativism abounds — Crude Libertarian (@RudeLibertarian) November 13, 2015

We've reached the point in the "CAMPUS RAPE" story trend where American colleges are no different from ISIS. https://t.co/mhYH6Tczwd — T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) November 12, 2015

The creepers of Twitter are going to scream about how every single anti-rape effort is crazy feminazi nonsense, of course. But that's all the more reason not to give them a free shot. It makes them look like they're the sane ones, which is patently untrue. Once in a great long while, you see a piece, presumably penned by a liberal, with such poor judgment that you have to wonder if it was really written by a right-wing plant and meant to make us all look bad. Such is the case with this post put up at Ms. Magazine's blog by a woman named Amy Lauricella titled, "Institutionalized Rape: It’s Not Just an ISIS Problem." The title doesn't seem so bad---it is true that ISIS isn't the first group or organization that uses rape as a weapon to punish women who violate their bizarre rules, religious or otherwise---but things go south quickly as Lauricella tries to draw a direct line between ISIS's program of deliberately promoting rape and the problem of some American college campuses failing to adequately protect students from rape. "While ISIS endorses sexual assault, American college administrations similarly facilitate and perpetuate the rape of women on campuses," Lauricella writes. "Sexual violence becomes institutionalized through complicity." This is made worse by the tweet sent out to promote the piece:

While ISIS endorses rape, American college administrations similarly facilitate the rape of women on campuses https://t.co/kxz5KrwVAS
— Ms. Magazine (@msmagazine) November 11, 2015

If college campuses were really like ISIS when it comes to rape, we wouldn't be calling administrators - we'd call the police or military. — Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) November 12, 2015

Writer for Ms. Magazine Compares Rape on College Campuses to ISIS https://t.co/IcHhLjfuJ4
— College Insurrection (@CollegeInsurrec) November 13, 2015

There we have it: College administrators are worse than ISIS (a real take in a real magazine) https://t.co/XQjit2bRUq h/t @guypbenson
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) November 13, 2015

American colleges "just like ISIS" because they "facilitate rape" https://t.co/1Xa41o0MCl leftwing airhead relativism abounds — Crude Libertarian (@RudeLibertarian) November 13, 2015

We've reached the point in the "CAMPUS RAPE" story trend where American colleges are no different from ISIS. https://t.co/mhYH6Tczwd — T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) November 12, 2015